The day after we had our sailing trip across Santorini, there was one thing that we all had on minds that all wanted to to – climbing that mountain in the middle of the Caldera!
The very next day, we headed out to Fira and got our tickets to do just that! First things first though, we had to decide whether to walk down to the port or to take a cable car down. Let’s just say it was an easy decision to make….
We arrived at the port waaaay too early which was not a bad thing as we just had a few drinks and explored the port for a few souvenirs…
Eventually, our boat came round and we hopped on board in search of mountains to climb!
The boat trip however included one element we had already done the day before. The visit to the hot springs. We all decided we wouldn’t be bothering with swimming to the hot springs, especially seeing as we’d just been there like 24 hours ago… After a few minutes though, we decided to jump into the sea for a swim while the others ventured off in search of hot springs…
Finally, we set sail for our volcanic mountain! At the mountain, you pay a token fee and then start the climb up pretty much straight away.
Now while this walk is quite doable, I didn’t realise at the start that we would walk up to the highest point so when we’d been walking for about 5 minutes in, I actually thought that was as high as we were gonna go and I gave myself a congratulatory pat o the back… until the guide pointed out that we had further to climb still!!!
Even though I’m not a fan of uphill walking, I thoroughly recommend climbing up this volcanic mountain as the views from here are unlike any other that you can get from any point in Santorini… The walk is also not that hard to be fair!
At the summit, we got ‘test’ the power of the volcano… Let’s just say that even from this high up, you can still feel the heat.
Finally, we began our descent back to the boat and eventually made our way back to Fira…
Back in Fira, we decided to reward ourselves for all our hard work with a nice lunch and a few drinks… Ah! Who am I kidding? Even if we hadn’t just walked up the hill – we’d have still be ‘rewarding’ ourselves with food!
That beer was so refreshing in the heat!!!
So it turns out, instead of taking the cable cars, you can also take donkeys up and down. We didn’t but that’s an option if you’re interested. Here’s a head up though – the stairs the donkeys walk up is littered with donkey poo so it might be a bit of smelly ride… Still, this is one of the things Santorini is known for so it might be worth taking a ride up with the donkeys even if you walk down.
Food and drinks flowed freely across the afternoon… along with ample selfie opportunities!
Finally, that famous Santorini sunset came out! Just look at that beauty!
Finally we made our way back through the town to get the car and head off home for a bit of pool time, a change of clothes and another food and drinks session – the dinner edition this time! 🙂