Journal · Destinations
Santorini, without the crowd
The first thing worth establishing about Santorini is that the photographs are accurate. The caldera is genuinely blue. The domes are genuinely white. The sunsets are genuinely that colour. Instagram didn’t invent Santorini; it just made it impossible to experience it naively. The second thing worth establishing: the crowd you’re imagining is real, and it is concentrated, and it is largely avoidable.
The village question
Most people arrive in Fira, the island’s main town, because the port road goes there and the budget accommodation is there. They then travel to Oia for sunset, find it completely impossible to move, and conclude that Santorini is overrated. They are right about Oia at 7 p.m. in August. They are wrong about everything else.
Imerovigli is the answer. It sits higher on the caldera rim than Oia, which means the view is wider and the walk to Oia — about 90 minutes on the rim path — runs in the right direction for morning light. The village has no cruise ship access, no ATMs on the main path, and no reason for a day-tripper to be there. The hotels are smaller and more serious about the position they’re selling, because the position is the only reason to charge what they charge.
“The village has no cruise ship access and no reason for a day-tripper to be there.”
When to go
May and October are the months. May is the opening of the season: the hotels have just reopened, the staff haven’t been ground down by six months of August, and the caldera is doing its thing in soft spring light. October is the closing: the sea is warm from summer, the crowds have retreated to their offices, and the light that hour before sunset takes on a particular quality that professional photographers schedule trips around.
August is the month to avoid if you’re sensitive to crowds. The cruise ships — sometimes six in a day — discharge passengers into Fira and Oia from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The effect is transformative in the wrong direction. If August is the only window, stay in Imerovigli, don’t go to Oia between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., and accept that this is the version you’re buying.
What to actually do there
The short answer: not very much. This is not a criticism. Santorini is the place where doing nothing has an infrastructure — the terrace, the pool, the long lunch, the evening walk to Oia and back. Resist the instinct to fill it with a catamaran sunset cruise (they all look the same from the water), a winery tour (one is enough, and most are mediocre), and a day at the beach (the beaches are the island’s weakest feature).
Three things worth doing: the rim walk from Imerovigli to Oia in the morning, before the heat; dinner at one of the three or four restaurants worth the reservation (ask us — the list changes but the principle doesn’t); and nothing else on at least one full day. The caldera is the attraction. Let it be the attraction.
Hotels
Grace Hotel sits in Imerovigli and is the property we recommend most. The editorial take is in the directory. The short version: the champagne lounge at sunset, from a position above the other hotels on the rim, is one of the best hour-long experiences we send people to on any itinerary. Book it through us and the Virtuoso benefits apply.
Santorini sequenced well: two to three nights, positioned between Athens and Mykonos or Milos. By itself it’s a long way to go. Paired with Greece’s other arguments, it’s the obvious centrepiece.