Where to Stay in Santorini — Villages, Hotels & the Truth About the Steps

It depends almost entirely on how you feel about stairs. Oia and Imerovigli give the famous caldera views and the sunsets, but they are built down a cliff and almost no hotel there has a lift. Fira has the same views with shops, buses and a pharmacy within a fairly level walk. Kamari, Perissa and Perivolos on the south and east coast are flat, on black volcanic sand, considerably cheaper, and let you reach a lounger without a step. Many travellers get the best of both by sleeping on the flat coast and visiting the caldera by taxi or bus.

Worse than the photographs suggest. The caldera villages are terraced down a volcanic cliff, and a single hotel can have sixty or more steps between the road and your room, with more between your room and the pool. Several of the best-known cliff hotels state plainly that they are unsuitable for guests with limited mobility. The old donkey path from Fira’s harbour up to town is roughly 588 steep and uneven steps, so take the cable car instead. Before booking any cliff hotel, ask them in writing how many steps there are from the drop-off point to your room.

Fly if you can. The flight is about forty-five minutes in the air; the ferry is five to eight hours at sea depending on the vessel. If you do sail, choose the large conventional Blue Star ferry rather than a high-speed catamaran — it is much steadier in a swell, and the summer meltemi wind cancels fast ferries regularly in July and August. Santorini’s ferry port sits below the cliffs and is chaotic on arrival, so pre-book a hotel transfer instead of queueing for a taxi with your luggage.

Day visitors come up the cable car mostly between about half past nine in the morning and noon, spend the middle of the day in Fira and Oia, and queue to go back down between roughly half past three and six for evening sailings. Cable car waits of thirty to sixty minutes are normal in those windows. See Oia before half past nine or after six, when the lanes empty and the village becomes a genuinely different place, and use the middle of the day for lunch, a swim or the flat south coast.

Late April to early June and mid-September to late October are the sweet spots: highs in the seventies and eighties Fahrenheit, everything open, and crowds well below peak. July and August run into the nineties at close to full occupancy, with packed lanes and meltemi winds that cancel ferries. For anyone who finds heat and crowds hard work, late September and early October are the best two weeks of the year here — the sea is still warm, the light is beautiful and the steps feel half as steep.

Three nights is enough to see the island properly: one day for Oia and the caldera villages, one for the beaches or a boat trip to the volcano and hot springs, and one for the Akrotiri excavations and a winery or two. Four or five nights lets you slow down and enjoy your hotel, which on this island is much of the point. Most travellers pair Santorini with Athens at one end of the trip and perhaps one more island at the other.