Santorini tours cover a volcanic island at the southern end of the Cyclades, with Fira as the usual starting point for a day on the caldera rim. For other routes, see our tours in Greece page.
This page covers what Santorini tours include, how the island is reached, Fira, Oia and Imerovigli, Akrotiri and Ancient Thera, the eruption and the caldera, the volcanic islands, the beaches and villages, the wine and the food, boat trips and sunsets, and getting around.
What do Santorini tours include?
Santorini tours bundle the island’s sights into land tours, wine stops, hikes and boat trips run by local operators. Wikipedia puts Santorini in the Aegean Sea, roughly 200 km off the mainland of Greece and to the southeast. It belongs to the Cyclades group.
Listings sort Santorini tours by type. One local booking site lists sunset cruises, catamaran cruises, volcano and hot springs trips and winery visits. It also lists the Akrotiri excavations, a swim at the black beach and tours for cruise ship passengers. Dining cruises, private boat tours and yacht charters sit on the same list.
Land tours form a second group. Another operator’s page describes half-day and full-day custom tours to Oia, Fira, wineries and beaches. The same page offers private tours and calls its itineraries flexible. Multi-day packages on a travel marketplace pair Santorini with Athens and Mykonos. That marketplace lists 41 tours in total.
Hikes also fit into Santorini tours. A travel company lists a hike along the caldera rim from Thira to Oia, through traditional villages. Its trips also include a family-run vineyard visit to sample local wine. Another trip sails among the Cycladic islands on a private yacht. Readers who want a different island can open our Greek island destinations.
Santorini is a compact island. Wikipedia gives its area as about 73 square kilometres, and the census lists 15,480 residents. The municipality also covers six smaller islands, for a total land area of 90 square kilometres. The same article estimates that 2 million tourists visit each year, which is far more visitors than residents.
Wikipedia says magazines and travel sites, including the BBC, ranked Santorini the world’s top island. The island promotes sustainable development and special forms of tourism. Wikipedia names conferences and sport activities among the major events it organises.
The caldera frames Santorini tours. Wikipedia lists Santorini as the biggest island around its own caldera. The same article gives the caldera as 12 km by 7 km. Cliffs of 300 m enclose three of its sides. Of all the Cyclades islands, Santorini lies furthest south. For a first look, browse our Santorini photo gallery.
How do Santorini tours reach the island?
Visitors get to the island by plane or by boat before Santorini tours begin. Wikipedia describes a major airport about 6 km southeast of Thira. It also names Athinios, the main ferry harbour, roughly 10 km south of Fira.
Santorini International Airport serves the island from a spot on the north side of Kamari village, Wikipedia says. It handles military and civil flights. Its redesigned apron serves up to nine civilian airliners together. Seasonal and charter flights join the schedule in spring, summer and autumn. For the island’s basics, open our general information about Santorini.
Wikipedia lists buses, taxis, hotel car pick-ups and hired cars as links from the air terminal. Fira holds the central bus station, which serves almost all places on the island. Travellers on Santorini tours can use these links to reach a first stop. Travellers who pre-arrange a ride from the airport or port can read about transfers on Santorini.
Athinios, the island’s main ferry harbour, lies roughly 10 km south of Fira, the capital. Wikipedia calls it the only port with regular passenger ferries. Those routes reach Piraeus, other Cyclades islands, Crete and Rhodes. A road zigzags up the steep volcanic cliffs behind the harbour. A local booking site also lists a ride from Athinios.
Wikipedia adds that, apart from links to other Cyclades islands, Piraeus has a daily ferry to Santorini in every season. Summer brings up to five direct crossings. The article states no crossing time. Santorini tours begin once the traveller has landed or docked, so the ferry or the flight comes first.
Wikipedia names a second port, Skala, the old port. Cruise ships stop offshore at Skala, and local boatmen take the passengers in to land. Operators list shore excursions for these passengers among their Santorini tours. One operator names Oia, Fira and sunset viewpoints as the stops. Travellers planning a longer sea trip can read about Greek islands cruises.
What do Santorini tours show in Fira?
Santorini tours show Fira, the capital town of the island, where white houses perch on the caldera wall. Wikipedia names two museums, two churches, a cable car, a central square and a wide view over the caldera.
On Santorini tours the capital is easy to place. Today Fira serves as the capital of Santorini, which Wikipedia also calls Thera. Wikipedia calls it a traditional settlement. It says Fira comes from Thira, the island’s ancient name, spoken a little differently. One island tour listing names Oia, Fira, wineries and beaches among its stops.
Fira lies along the western flank of the island, where the caldera cliff reaches 400 metres. White houses are built along the cliff top. Wikipedia says the view takes in the whole 18-kilometre caldera and Nea Kameni, a volcanic island at its heart. Travellers who plan a stay on the rim can read about hotels in Fira.
Fira is home to the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, a stop for a visitor on Santorini tours who wants history. Its rooms follow the island’s story from the Late Neolithic age up to the Late Cycladic I phase. Pottery, carved figures, jewellery, wall paintings and ritual items are laid out in date order. Wall paintings are shown in great detail.
The museum holds a very large number of ancient finds from digs on the island, including Akrotiri. Wikipedia names a second museum, the Archaeological Museum of Thera, close to the cable car entrance. The Cathedral of Ypapanti is one of the churches, and Wikipedia also names the Three Bells of Fira. Readers can open hotels in Firostefani.
Santorini tours that include the port meet a climb. Wikipedia describes a zigzag footpath, walked or ridden on donkeys. It also names a steep cable car that runs up from a lower terminal by the port. Roads reach the town mainly on its eastern side, and Plateia Theotokopoulou is its central square, with banks and pharmacies.
What do Santorini tours show in Oia and Imerovigli?
Santorini tours reach Oia at the north-western end of Santorini and Imerovigli north of Fira. Wikipedia says both stand on the caldera’s rim. It describes narrow paths, Cycladic churches and a daily sunset event in Oia.
Wikipedia places Oia in the north-westernmost part of Santorini and calls it a small village. Santorini tours that visit Oia find a village almost two kilometres long, beside the caldera’s northern side. Wikipedia measures its height at 70 to 100 metres from sea level and the distance to Fira at 11 kilometres. A separate page covers hotels in Oia.
Wikipedia describes white houses, blue-roofed churches with cupolas, narrow alleys and a central square. Cave houses cut into niches in the caldera’s slope served the crews of the ships. Lime water whitens the walls, which lets rain be gathered as it runs down. Wikipedia credits air-filled pumice for insulating the cliff houses against both winter cold and summer heat.
Santorini tours that stop in Oia can trace its seafaring past. Its prosperity peaked as the 19th century gave way to the 20th. A merchant fleet traded from Alexandria to Russia. The two-storey captains’ houses recall that wealth. A restored 19th-century mansion became the town museum of Thira’s seafaring history, showing figureheads, sea charts and ship models.
Wikipedia calls watching the sunset a popular attraction in Oia, repeated every evening. It says the whitewashed walls and the caldera pick up the sunset colours, though only for seconds. A ruined castle there serves as a lookout. The paths are very narrow and get crowded in the summer season. The Santorini map shows where each village stands.
Imerovigli is the village north of the capital, on the caldera’s edge, where narrow paved lanes wind through the houses. Santorini tours that follow the rim reach Skaros Rock, a large rock promontory. Wikipedia says walkers and photographers favour the ruins, and the way to them passes through Imerovigli. Readers can also open hotels in Imerovigli.
What do Santorini tours show at Akrotiri?
Santorini tours that stop at Akrotiri visit a town that dates to the Bronze Age, on the island’s southwest peninsula. Wikipedia says volcanic ash buried it in the sixteenth century B.C., and diggers have worked there since nineteen sixty-seven.
One tour booking site numbers a visit to the Akrotiri excavations among its ten tour ideas. The town behind it is old. Wikipedia says the earliest signs of life date to the fifth millennium B.C. Akrotiri was then a small fishing and farming village. Later it grew into a centre for processing copper.
Wikipedia explains why it grew. Boats sailing from Cyprus towards Minoan Crete passed by, and diggers found moulds and crucibles for working copper. Wikipedia names paved streets, drains and quality pottery as signs of a refined settlement.
The drainage is a highlight on Santorini tours. Wikipedia’s Santorini article names running-water pipes and water closets at Akrotiri as the oldest such utilities found. Twin pipe systems show that the townspeople had both hot and cold water.
Then the volcano ended it. Wikipedia dates the eruption of Thera to the sixteenth century B.C. but says the exact year is not known. It reports a single gold object, tucked under flooring, and no skeletons left lying in the ruins. Wikipedia says this points to an orderly evacuation.
Santorini tours also explain why the paintings survive. Wikipedia calls the Akrotiri frescoes important for the study of Minoan art. Those at Knossos survive only in small fragments. The Spring Fresco, uncovered in nineteen seventy, was the first found intact and upright. It still stood in the position where it was first installed.
Santorini tours today walk a site shaped by the modern dig. Spyridon Marinatos began it in nineteen sixty-seven. Wikipedia notes buildings preserved to a height of more than one storey. A roof built to protect the site collapsed in two thousand five. Visitors had to wait until April two thousand twelve before the site opened again.
What do Santorini tours show at Ancient Thera?
Santorini tours that climb to Ancient Thera reach a hilltop city on Mesa Vouno. Wikipedia calls it an archaeological site from classical antiquity. Dorian settlers from Sparta founded the city, and visitors can enter the site today.
Santorini tours reach the site by a winding road from Kamari, says Wikipedia. Paths also lead up from both flanks of the mountain. The limestone hill is called Mesa Vouno. The article on the island places the city 396 metres above sea level.
The story of the city starts with a ruler named Theras. Herodotus and Pausanias tell how he founded a new settlement on the island, which took his name. Wikipedia dates the archaeological evidence for the city to the ninth century B.C. Herodotus also writes that a drought around 630 B.C. sent colonists to Cyrenaica, in today’s Libya.
On Santorini tours the building stone is easy to spot. Wikipedia says every building used the limestone of the mountain itself. Wood was rare on the island. Homes gather around an agora, across from a theatre set into the hillside.
The city changed after the middle of the third century B.C. A Ptolemaic fleet that served the whole Aegean then based itself in the city’s harbour. Wikipedia says the old layout gave way to a street grid with houses for the fleet’s officers. The theatre had about 1,500 seats, more than the city itself needed.
Wikipedia describes the homes on the plateau. They opened onto a small inner yard, with a cistern under it for water. The fleet officers lived in houses with colonnades on terraces of the eastern slope.
Santorini tours that reach the sacred area stand where the temple of Apollo Pythios once rose. Inscriptions from the sanctuary date to the shift from the ninth to the eighth century B.C. Wikipedia ranks them with the oldest known examples of Greek alphabet writing.
The ancient seaports lay at today’s Kamari and Perissa, says Wikipedia. Whether a trip climbs this hill depends on its itinerary. Check the stops on the trip pages in our tours and cruises section.
How do Santorini tours explain the Minoan eruption and the caldera?
Santorini tours show what the Minoan eruption left behind. Wikipedia places that blast about 3,600 years ago and says it ranks among the biggest on record. Its legacy is a flooded caldera, which the ring of islands now surrounds.
One listing for Santorini tours links the island’s landscape to a massive volcanic eruption. Wikipedia calls it the Minoan eruption and dates it to about sixteen hundred B.C. It adds that the exact year is still debated, and that no clear ancient records of the eruption exist. Its ash serves as a marker layer for archaeologists across the Eastern Mediterranean.
The eruption scored seven on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. The latest study of seabed sediments puts the volume thrown out at 28 to 41 cubic kilometres. Wikipedia says the plume reached the stratosphere, at an estimated height of 30 to 35 kilometres. The waves it caused, 35 to 150 metres high, battered northern Crete.
Wikipedia counts four major phases, plus one small ash fall before them. Winter rain left no mark on the thin first ash layer before the next one came. Studies cited by Wikipedia take that as a sign of months of warning. On Santorini, white tephra from the blast lies 60 metres deep above the old ground surface.
A caldera forms when a volcano empties its magma chamber and the ground above collapses, Wikipedia explains. Santorini tours that hike the caldera rim, as one listing describes, walk above cliffs 300 metres high. The flooded caldera is roughly twelve kilometres by seven, and up to 385 metres deep. Before the blast, the rim was an almost closed circle.
The Santorini caldera cuts through at least four overlapping calderas, and the oldest formed about 180,000 years ago. Wikipedia adds that it has been suggested the Minoan eruption inspired the legend of Atlantis. Under the sea, Kolumbo is a volcano that is still active, 8 kilometres north-east of Cape Kolumbo. Of the Cyclades islands, only Milos and Santorini are volcanic.
Which volcanic islands do Santorini tours visit?
Boat Santorini tours call at Nea Kameni, a small volcanic island, with no residents, within the flooded caldera. According to Wikipedia, tourist boats arrive there by the dozen every day in summer. Its older neighbour, Palea Kameni, lies to its south-west.
Nea Kameni means “new burnt” and Palea Kameni means “old burnt”. Wikipedia says both formed within the last 2,000 years, as eruptions piled up dacite lava and ash. Santorini tours that land on them step onto lava. Lava rock makes up the Kameni islands, which lie at the centre of the caldera.
On a map, Nea Kameni looks almost round: 2 kilometres across, with 3.4 square kilometres of land. Visitors follow a gravel path up the 130-metre crater and can go all the way around its rim. In summer, red succulents cover the thin soil. The last small eruption, a lava dome, came in nineteen fifty.
Santorini tours land on a volcano that scientists still watch. An institute that monitors the volcano studies Nea Kameni, a protected scientific site. Steam and carbon dioxide escape at the active crater, Wikipedia says. A sulfur vent there goes by the name Jorgo. It honours King George the First, whose visit came a day before the vent was active.
Wikipedia says tourists can swim to Palea Kameni from Nea Kameni. It has a small church, goats and sparse succulent plants, but no good harbour. Strabo, an ancient writer, reported that fire shot out of the sea over four days while the island rose. Therasia, which is second in size only to Thera, lies north-west of Nea Kameni.
Palea Kameni also has a hot spring. Wikipedia explains that a hot spring is groundwater heated by the Earth, in volcanic areas by shallow magma. One listing of Santorini tours has a category called Volcano and Hot Springs. This site has a separate post: the Santorini volcano and hot springs boat tour.
Which beaches do Santorini tours stop at?
Santorini tours list Red Beach and the Black Beach among their stops. According to Wikipedia, the island’s shores come in red, black and white. Each colour comes from the solidified lava under the sand or pebbles.
Wikipedia ties the colour of the sand to the rock layer that the cliffs expose. It calls the beaches on the outer rim smooth and shallow. The sea is warmer at the darker beaches, it adds, because lava soaks up heat. One tour platform lists a swim at the Black Beach among its top ten things to do.
Wikivoyage explains where the beaches lie. The caldera edge is steep cliff. So the beaches sit on the outer side of the islands, the larger share on Thira. Young volcanic rock has had little time to break down into fine sand. The beaches are generally pebbles, so visitors need proper footwear.
Among Santorini tours, one multi-day itinerary lists a cruise to Red Beach. Wikivoyage places the beach south of Akrotiri. Iron-rich rock in the cliffs above the water gives the beach its name. White Beach, it adds, is reachable by sea alone, on a boat from Red Beach or Akrotiri.
Wikivoyage calls Perissa, Perivolos and Agios Georgios one continuous beach, 3 km long. Colours and sand or pebble sizes change along the way. A large Orthodox church with blue domes stands next to the beach at Perissa, the same page says. Travellers who plan a stay on that strip can open hotels in Perissa Beach.
Kamari and Perissa both appear on Santorini tours: one multi-day itinerary names them among its destinations. Wikivoyage describes Kamari Beach as black sand that continues south into Perissa. It also places beach hotels on the east side of Thira, especially in Kamari. Readers can compare hotels in Kamari Beach.
Santorini tours that follow the outer coast can add Vlychada and Monolithos. Wikivoyage places a marina at Vlychada, where small fishing vessels come and go. Wikipedia places Monolithos in eastern Santorini. It lists the village among the places where older limestone and schist show through the lava. See also hotels in Monolithos Beach.
What do Santorini tours show in the island’s villages?
Santorini tours pass through traditional villages, as one hiking itinerary says. Wikipedia gives Pyrgos a Venetian castle on its hill and Emporio an old castle. Mesa Gonia has a nearby Byzantine church from the eleventh century.
Santorini tours that stop in Pyrgos find a village about 7 km from Fira, says Wikipedia. Its streets climb the hill in an amphitheatre layout. At the summit lie the ruins of a Venetian castle. Medieval architecture shapes it: narrow, labyrinthine streets and fortified walls, in Wikipedia’s words. For more stops like it, see the villages and beaches of Santorini.
Megalochori is a Cyclades village on Santorini, as Wikipedia lists it. The municipality of Thera counts it among twelve local subdivisions. Wikivoyage points to a rock formation near the village, the Heart of Santorini, that attracts photographers.
Emporeio, also called Nimborios, is a village 12 km from Fira. Wikipedia sets it near the Profitis Ilias mountains. Santorini tours that visit Emporio can see Goulas Castle, which Wikipedia calls old, and churches like Saint Nicholas Marmaritis. Wikivoyage calls that church a marble temple from the third century. It is 4 m long and wide.
Mesa Gonia, also called Episkopi Gonias, lies on the foothills of Profitis Ilias, 6 km southeast of Fira. It has 187 inhabitants. An earthquake in nineteen fifty-six almost entirely destroyed it. Wikipedia says the larger part of its dwellers moved near the coast and built Kamari. The name comes from Panagia Episkopi, once the seat of the Orthodox diocese.
Wikipedia counts Karterados among those twelve subdivisions, along with Imerovigli and Pyrgos Kallistis. Readers who plan Santorini tours from a base there can compare hotels in Karterados.
Wikipedia spells the next subdivision Mesaria in its list of twelve and Messaria in its notes on water supply. Those who want to compare stays there can open hotels in Messaria.
How do wine stops fit into Santorini tours?
Santorini tours add a wine stop so travellers can taste white wines grown in volcanic ash soil. Wikipedia calls Assyrtiko the island’s flagship grape, full of citrus and mineral notes. One small-group travel company lists a family-run vineyard visit on its Santorini trips.
The vines grow in a way that looks strange at first. Wikipedia says growers coil each vine into a low ring, known as a koulara. The grapes sit in the middle, and the leaves shield them from harsh wind and sun. The vines take their main moisture from dew.
A wine stop on Santorini tours is a tasting at a vineyard. One small-group travel company says guests sample a range of local wines and dishes at a family-run vineyard. One booking site lists a winery visit on the caldera among its activities. A private-tour listing says its half-day and full-day tours cover Oia, Fira, wineries and beaches.
A bottle labelled Santorini must be three-quarters Assyrtiko at the least, Wikipedia says, and Athiri or Aidani cover the balance. Its taste is bone-dry: lemon and stone fruit first, then a mineral edge. Nykteri is another classified wine. Its Greek name means night work, since the grapes were traditionally picked in the dark.
Anyone on Santorini tours who tastes Vinsanto is trying a wine with a protected name. Under European Union rules only Santorini can sell its sweet wine under the Vinsanto name. The harvested grapes lie in the sun for twelve to fourteen days before pressing. Barrel ageing in oak then lasts at least twenty-four months.
Wikipedia gives Vinsanto a colour from golden orange to dark amber. It lists dried apricot, raisin and sweet spice as flavours. Roots on the island reach back centuries. The vine pest phylloxera cannot live without clay, and the soil has none. Vineyards cover roughly 1,200 hectares of the island. A wine museum stands in a cave near Messaria.
Which local food do Santorini tours taste?
The local food on Santorini tours grows in the same volcanic soil as the vines. Wikipedia names the Santorini cherry tomato, Santorini fava and tomato fritters. Both the tomato and the fava hold a protected designation of origin that links them to the island.
The Santorini tomato is a variety of cherry tomato. Wikipedia describes a deep red fruit with firm flesh, a high seed content and a sweet, strongly acidic taste. The fruit is round and slightly flattened. A single fruit weighs 15 to 27 grams. The plant needs 80 to 90 days to ripen it.
Santorini tours cross an island that receives less than 370 millimetres of rain a year, Wikipedia says. The tomato plants live on dew and on humidity of about 71% through the year. The soil holds sodium, which pulls moisture from the air and keeps it. Wikipedia links the dry, limey soil to the way this tomato was bred.
Growers began to cultivate this tomato regularly in the eighteen-seventies, says Wikipedia. Production has fallen since then, and the article names environmental, political and tourism issues as the causes. A tomato museum on the island covers the history of its growing and processing. The island’s last surviving tomato factory, built in the nineteen-fifties, stands near Monolithos.
Travellers on Santorini tours who order fava get split peas, not fava beans, whatever the name says. The peas are cooked with onion, then mashed with oil, garlic and lemon juice into a thick, creamy paste. The paste can be eaten warm or cold and also works as a dip, much like hummus.
Fava Santorinis is made from Spanish vetchling seeds, a plant Wikipedia says is cultivated just on Santorini and nearby islands. The same article traces fava to Byzantine cooking, where it was widely served in tavernas. Tomato fritters are well known across the island. The oven-baked omelette called sfougato is also served at breakfast on Santorini.
Wikipedia adds that the taverna is widespread in Greece and serves home cooking. One booking site for Santorini tours says the island is known for its wine and other traditional products. It points visitors to traditional tavernas for local recipes.
How do boat Santorini tours sail the caldera?
Boat Santorini tours sail inside the flooded caldera, with the small island of Nea Kameni at its heart. The old port is called Skala. Wikipedia says tour boats leave from it for that island and other places around Santorini.
Wikipedia’s article on Oia lists caldera boat cruises from Oia and from Fira. Santorini tours by sea also use the Bay of Armeni, where a small fishing village lies below Oia. Excursion boats sail from there on trips around the island. Boatbuilders once worked at the bay, and Oia is a walk or a mule ride away.
Boat Santorini tours sail through a ring of islands. Wikipedia lists Santorini, Therasia and Aspronisi around the edge. The Kameni islands sit inside that ring. Fira’s article gives the caldera as 18 kilometres long. Cape Akrotiri and Cape Agios Nikolaos mark its two ends. The article on Oia adds that the village looks across to Palia Kameni and Nea Kameni.
Catamaran Santorini tours show up on one booking page as cruises with a barbecue meal and drinks on board. The same page lists private boat tours, yacht cruises and a sunset cruise to the volcano and hot springs. One such sailing is covered by our post, Santorini catamaran cruise with food and open bar.
Below Oia, Ammoudi serves as the old fishing harbour, according to Wikipedia. The harbour is west of the town, and the article mentions tavernas and a pebble beach. Steep stairs lead down to it, and between the port and Oia the article counts 300 steps. A ferry connection to Therasia leaves from the harbour village of Ormos Ammoudi.
Wikipedia says Therasia, also spelled Thirasia, comes second to Thera in area. It spans 9.299 square kilometres, and the article places it north-west of Nea Kameni. Its villages include Manolas and Potamos. Among Santorini tours by boat, one sunset trip pairs the island with Oia. Our post Santorini Thirasia and Oia sunset cruise covers it.
What do sunset Santorini tours add for photos and weddings?
Sunset Santorini tours add the evening light over the caldera. Wikipedia calls sunset viewing a popular attraction in Oia. It also records an official photoshoot on the island by a K-pop girl group for its season’s greetings.
Sunset Santorini tours meet a daily event in Oia. Wikipedia says the town fills with people each evening to watch the sunset. For a brief moment, the town’s white houses and the caldera pick up the sun’s last colours. Its sunset article says low sunlight crosses more air, which removes blue and green and leaves orange and red.
One operator lists Oia, Fira and sunset viewpoints among the stops of its shore excursions for cruise passengers. Wikipedia says a ruined castle on top of Oia works as a lookout with views in every direction. It also names an old windmill as a recognisable building. Its sunset article adds that sunsets are a common subject of photography.
One booking page for Santorini tours lists flying dress and photo shoots beside cruises and boat tours. A photographer’s page describes the toss of a dress in the wind. The same site says a shoot can visit more than one place, but moving around the island is slow. Our Santorini flying dress photoshoot post covers that shoot.
Wikipedia reports that Asian couples travel to the island to have pre-wedding photos taken against the landscape. One wedding page lists a traditional church ceremony, a beach blessing and a civil wedding. Another lists ceremonies at the caldera edge, by a pool, in a restaurant or on a beach. The Santorini weddings page covers the ceremonies.
Wikipedia says the sun sets over the caldera as seen from Oia. It adds that Oia’s sunlight hours are much longer than Fira’s. One photographer’s page names the western caldera coast for sunset, including Finikia next to Oia and Imerovigli. Couples who plan a ceremony in that light can read about wedding packages on this site.
When is the right time for Santorini tours?
The right time for Santorini tours starts with the weather. Wikipedia gives Santorini a hot, semi-arid climate: summers get little rain and winters get more. Its main industry, the article says, is tourism, particularly in summer.
Wikipedia cites the National Observatory of Athens for two figures. A year on Santorini averages about 19 degrees Celsius and around 270 millimetres of rain. Santorini tours run on a dry island. Wikipedia names the lack of rivers and the volcanic ash soil among the reasons why very little surface water exists.
The Climate of Greece article describes the Mediterranean summer as frequently sunny and dry. It singles out the Cyclades for days of very strong wind. Heatwaves happen, yet near the shore the sea keeps temperatures lower with its cooler water and its breeze. For the rest of the country, open Greece travel information.
Winter brings the rain. The same article says Mediterranean winters are wet and that snow, where it falls, does not last long. The island’s airport article puts the higher seasons in spring, summer and autumn. Seasonal scheduled and charter flights from other airlines arrive then.
Summer is also the busy season for Santorini tours. Wikipedia puts yearly tourist numbers at an estimated 2 million. One small-group tour company’s page calls Santorini one of Europe’s busiest destinations.
The meltemi is the wind that shapes boat days. Wikipedia describes the etesian winds as strong, dry northerlies over the Aegean. Their season stretches from late spring into the middle of September. The Greek climate article extends it to October and puts the peak in July and August. The name goes back to etos, which is Greek for year.
In the afternoon the winds reach their peak, and at night they frequently fade. A spell can run for days. Santorini tours by boat meet a real limit here. Wikipedia calls the wind dangerous to sailors, since it can rise from a clear sky without notice. Measured on the Beaufort scale, it reaches force 7 or 8.
Ferries that link the islands are, for the larger part, unable to sail in that weather. Leisure sailors, though, favour the steady wind. The article adds that the northerly flow tempers fierce summer heat. The Greek climate article says these winds keep Aegean temperatures below the Ionian Sea and mainland Greece.
How do travellers move between the stops of Santorini tours?
Travellers move between the stops of Santorini tours by bus, taxi, hire car, on foot or in an arranged vehicle. Wikipedia says Fira, the capital, holds the island’s central bus station, with routes to nearly every corner of the island.
Buses leave the Fira station very frequently, Wikipedia says, and reach the majority of tourist spots. Santorini counted roughly 12,000 residents in nineteen fifty-four, with only a small number of visitors. Transport then meant the donkeys and mules, one small bus and a jeep. Travellers choosing a base can start with hotels on Santorini.
Those who plan their own Santorini tours have road options at the air terminal. The airport article lists buses, taxis, hotel car-pickups and hired cars for the trip to and from the terminal. Travellers who prefer to drive can read about car hire before they arrive.
Walking links stops too. A tour-package listing mentions night hikes from Fira to Oia. For a ready-made route, readers can look at the Santorini top sights day trip.
Santorini tours by car meet limits in the villages. One private-transfer page says steep, half-paved driveways in Oia and Imerovigli stop a low sedan short. The same page says it knows which hotels a car cannot reach. A second page on the site covers Santorini hotels.
The same page lists airport transfers, hotel pickups and shore excursions for cruise passengers. Its custom tours last half a day or a whole day and cover Oia, Fira, wineries and beaches. One listing groups Santorini tours for cruise-ship passengers under a separate heading. Travellers who add other Greek places to the trip can see Greece hotels.
What else do travellers ask about Santorini tours?
Why does the island behind Santorini tours have two names?
Thira and Thera are the official names, Wikipedia explains, while the colloquial Santorini lives on in daily speech. Santorini is Saint Irene in shortened form, named for an old church in Perissa village. Thera, the ancient name, returned as the official name during the nineteenth century.
Wikipedia dates the first mention of the name to about eleven fifty-four, when the geographer al-Idrisi wrote it down. Wikipedia names Saint Irene of Thessalonica as the island’s patron saint. One booking site opens with “Book Santorini tours, excursions and dining cruises”, so it uses the popular name.
Which airport code do travellers use for Santorini?
Wikipedia lists the airport under the IATA code JTR and the ICAO code LGSR. It first operated in nineteen seventy-two. Wikipedia says only a small group of Cyclades islands has a major airport, and Santorini is one. Wikipedia adds that the parallel taxiway, built to the standard of a runway, now carries taxiway markings and lights.
According to the airport’s own article, the main asphalt runway measures 2,197 metres. The airfield handles medium-sized jets, Wikipedia says, such as the Airbus A320 series. Anyone flying in for Santorini tours is welcome to ask us about a trip to Santorini.
How do Santorini tours link to the Minoan civilization?
The Minoan civilization, says Wikipedia, was a culture of the Bronze Age with its centre on Crete. It adds that the culture is regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The Akrotiri digs, Wikipedia writes, gave Thera the highest profile among Minoan sites away from Crete.
Its roots lie in a local Neolithic culture of about thirty-one hundred B.C. The Minoans wrote in two systems, Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A, and neither script is fully deciphered. Excavations in the early twentieth century rediscovered the civilization after it was largely forgotten. The ruins of the palaces at Knossos and Phaistos are popular tourist attractions today.
Which mountain is the highest on Santorini?
Wikipedia calls Profitis Ilias the highest mountain on Santorini. Wikipedia’s Santorini article adds that the Monastery of Profitis Ilias ranked among the major monastic centres in the Cyclades. This held true as Ottoman rule drew to its end. Then the majority of residents were farmers and seafarers, and the level of education was improving.
In eighteen twenty-two sixteen monks of that monastery put their support for the Greek revolt in writing, Wikipedia reports. Two villages, by contrast, said they were ready to surrender.
When did visitors start arriving for Santorini tours?
Wikipedia says the island lived on crops and trade before nineteen sixty, when foreign visitors gradually began to arrive. It adds that tourism in the early nineteen-fifties meant small numbers of wealthy travellers on yacht cruises across the Aegean. The article adds that the expansion of tourism in recent years has led to growth of the economy and population.
Children handed arriving passengers flowers, then lit small lanterns on the stairs between Fira and the port as a farewell. Wikipedia says pumice quarries have been closed since nineteen eighty-six to preserve the caldera that Santorini tours explore.