Day 3: Oia and Kamari

Monday, 15th July 2019

Our original plan had been to visit Oia the previous evening to watch the sunset. But, my previous experience made me conscious of the huge crowds, and honestly, I found it underwhelming the first time so wasn’t keen to repeat the experience.

Instead, we made an early start with a lovely breakfast on our terrace at Smaro, then walked down to the main bus station in Fira and by 10 a.m. we’d arrived by bus to Oia. There were still a fair few people around, but nothing compared to the typical evening crowds. We walked through the town and onto the castle ruins at the south-western end.

Continuing around the western side, we stumbled on a gem of a place: Lioyerma Lounge Cafe Pool Bar. We were both pretty warm by this point and in need of a drink. Since we had our beachwear packed for Kamari, we decided to get changed into it early in order to sunbathe and have a swim.

After spending an hour or so at the pool, we towelled dry and started the walk back to the bus stop to head to Kamari. This meant getting the bus to Fira first and then swapping onto another bus, as most (if not all) bus routes go via Fira. Sadly, I wasn’t allowed on the first bus that came, as the driver decided my shorts were too wet to sit on his seats (I disagreed, but wasn’t going to argue), so we sat in a nearby cafe and had ice cream instead. We successfully go onto the next bus, though it was a bit of a bundle as everyone crowds the door when the bus stops, completely ignoring the queue that had been patiently waiting.

Back in Fira, I checked at the bus office which one we needed for Kamari, and fortunately, it was there waiting and we got seats straight away. The bus departed a few minutes later and after a 20-minute journey, we arrived in Kamari.

I’d never visited the beach-side of the island before, so was excited to see what it would be like. After walking down to the front, we stopped at one of the many bars and had a nice cocktail, then found a spot on the sand and threw down our towels to sunbathe for a while. It was a partly cloudy day so not ideal tanning weather, but it was still warm and nice to lay and relax.

When we’d heated up enough to need a cooling off, we went for a swim in the sea and found some rocks about 100m out that we swam to and sat on for a bit, then swam back and dried off on our towels.

A while later we packed up and headed back to the same place we’d had cocktails earlier and had a sandwich. We then headed back to where the bus had dropped us off, hoping to catch a fairly quick return bus to Fira. After waiting some time, we checked the timetable and it looked as though a bus should have arrived but never showed up. We waited a while longer, but eventually gave up and managed to flag down a taxi instead. It cost a fair bit more than the bus, but on the plus side, we got dropped off close to our hotel in Firostefani and so avoided the walk back from the bus station.

As it was our last night on Santorini, we decided to splash out a bit on dinner and made reservations at Casa di TE as it received positive reviews on TripAdvisor, and again wasn’t too far from our rooms. On our way there, we stopped at a ticket office and purchased our ferry tickets for tomorrow’s journey to Folegandros on the 15:30 Seajet 2.

We had a nice meal but came away feeling it was a touch overpriced and, on the whole, not as enjoyable as the previous night’s dinner at Da Vinci. You can read my TripAdvisor review here. [Note: I’m aware the restaurant responded to my review, questioning my criticism but I stand by what I said.]