Best Things to Do in Santorini

The first few items on this list are what brings people here. Further down you'll find the ones that make the trip feel like your own rather than a photo you've already seen.

1. Walk from Fira to Oia. The clifftop path runs about 10 km along the rim of the caldera, through Firostefani and Imerovigli and over bare hillside to Oia. Allow three to four hours with stops. Start early, carry water, and take the bus back.
2. Climb Skaros Rock. A rocky headland below Imerovigli where a Venetian castle stood until earthquakes brought it down. The path down and back up is steep in places. At the top you're looking straight across the caldera with almost no buildings in the frame.
3. Akrotiri. A Bronze Age town buried by the eruption around 1600 BC, often called the Pompeii of the Aegean, although it's over 1,500 years older. You walk on raised walkways under a huge roof, past two and three storey houses, stairs and storage jars still in place. No bodies were found, which suggests people had warning and got away. Book on the official Hellenic Heritage e-ticket site.
4. Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Fira. Where some of Akrotiri's wall paintings and finds ended up. Small and well lit. Go after the site, not before.
5. A caldera boat trip. Most trips stop at Nea Kameni, the young volcanic island in the middle, for a walk up to the crater, then at the warm, rust-coloured water near Palea Kameni. Sunset sailings are popular. Check current conditions, as caldera access can be adjusted when scientists flag unusual activity.
6. Watch one sunset properly. Oia is the famous one, and our Oia sunset guide explains how to do it without being crushed, and where else to go instead.
7. Wine tasting. Santorini's white Assyrtiko is one of the best wines in Greece. Spend an afternoon at two or three wineries, following our wine tasting guide.
8. Pyrgos. The highest village on the island, with lanes spiralling up to the ruins of a Venetian kastro. It's what Oia might have felt like before it got famous. Go in the late afternoon.
9. Ancient Thera. The ruins of a later Greek and Roman town on top of Mesa Vouno, the mountain between Kamari and Perissa. The drive up is all hairpins. The view down both coasts is the reason to come.
10. A black-sand beach. Kamari and Perissa are the big ones. Our beaches guide covers the rest, including the current situation at Red Beach.
11. Megalochori. A quiet village of old captains' houses, bell towers built over the lanes and a small central square for coffee. Few tour groups stop here.
12. Ammoudi Bay. The little fishing harbour below Oia, reached by about 300 steps. Fish tavernas right on the water. The road down is mostly closed to cars under the current safety rules, so plan to walk.

Leave one afternoon with nothing in it. Sitting on a terrace in Firostefani with a glass of Assyrtiko is as much a part of Santorini as any of the above.