24 hours in Santorini!

I must have landed here a hundred times, but never got the chance to get off the airport! Good thing is that as a pilot I get the chance to travel for a cheap fare also during my days off! Reason why, when I had two days off, I hopped on a flight in search for the famous Santorini Sunset!

Early wake up, because my flight departed at 6am, which was great because by 8am I had already arrived to Fira airport in Santorini. 

First things first, a freddo cappuccino whilst organizing the quad rental. In Greece, you can rent a quad with a B licence (the one you have for your car), but to rent a scooter as a foreigner, you need the A1 (motorcycle) licence, even for a 50cc scooter. 

I made my way to Fira town, parked the quad and started walking downhill to reach the port, because I had a boattrip booked at 10am. The descent off the cliff was beautiful, very scenic, but every step downhill made me realize that it was going to be a long way up… But that was a problem for future-me (as in, 3 hours later). 

I had booked the Santorini Volcano and Hot Springs boat tour via Viator (not sponsored, but here’s the link if you’re interested!) It was a 3-hour boat tour with two stops, one at the volcano and the other one at a hot spring. It costed 25€ which in my opinion was really worth the money. To enter the volcano island there was an entrance fee of 5€. You can however choose to stay on the boat. But I do recommend hiking the volcano, it isn’t a huge hike and there’s always a nice wind to cool off. The guides from the boat come along to explain a lot of things about the volcano in English and Greek. I quite quickly wandered off by myself as I’m not too fond of the slow-paced walk the average tourist has, but I stopped from time to time to listen to the guides. There are tiny spots where you can really feel the heat of the volcano with your hands, despite the volcano being non-active since a long time. 

Back on the boat, nice music was playing and the atmosphere was very nice. The second stop was to jump off the boat and reach the hot springs. Because of the hot springs, the water turns from blue to muddy brown as you swim closer to the coast. It’s really fun to experience!

Around 1pm we were back at the port, starting my climb back up to the town. There is a cableway connecting the port and the town, but I thought it’d be more fun walking back up. Tiring, but definitely fun!

Back in town I considered it was time for a well deserved Greek Lunch with a view. I negotiated the price I was going to pay.. Didn’t know that was possible, but as it’s so touristic, all the waiters are standing outside asking to have lunch at their restaurant. I took a look at one of their menus and said I would go somewhere else as I know what a plate of gyros should cost and this was double the price. The waiter immediately offered to make it for the price I mentioned so I thought that was very nice of him. Until that moment I had never in my life negotiated the price of something on a menu. Cultural thing, I guess. 

I walked back to my quad and headed for the hotel, to rest a little bit before my 6pm appointment at a stable: I was going for a sunset horse back ride! I had booked a 1,5 hour tour but as there was another experienced rider who had booked the 2,5 hour Safari Tour, they decided to give me that upgrade too! Super kind and it was an amazing experience. We went to the black sand beach where we galopped through the water, watched the sunset over the island, through the small streets of Megalochori, it truly was a dream coming through! 

Exhausted of such an awesome day I went to the hotel, had an easy dinner consisting of tsatsiki and pita bread and slept like a baby!

The next day I had set 4 alarms to watch the sunrise, but my sleepy self turned them off, so finally I woke up well after sunrise. Missed chance! 

I drove back to the airport, laying a last few good looks at this wonderful place and got on the flight back home! 

A few days later I was operating a flight to Santorini and having actually visited the island, it was even more fun overflying it again!