Santorini Travel Guide, Santorini, Greece (B)

Visiting Santorini is like visiting another planet. Awe strikes around every corner, with stunning towns of white and blue buildings spilling over the cliffs that provide uniquely epic panoramas. The Thira caldera, formed by one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history (2nd millennium BC), creates a rough circle of varied landscapes and blasted volcanic rock. Combined with throngs of tourists that swarm it’s surface year round, the atmosphere on Santorini is a singular experience.

We were two of the swarm for three nights, trying our best to experience the scenes our photos captured. We arrived very late at night on a ferry from Rhodes, swapping a lazy beach town for a manic tourism machine.

We caught a ferry from Rhodes to Santorini with Blue Star Ferries, choosing ‘air seats’ for €41.50 rather than economy seats for €38.50. The journey takes nine hours, so we felt justified in our decision to spend the extra €3 each for comfort. The seats ended up being slightly better than the standard seats dotted about the cafes of the ship. The ferry is loud, smelly, boring and inconvenient (arriving in Santorini at 00:30), but from Rhodes it’s your only option to Santorini unless you want to fly to Athens first.  ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).