Santorini and Naxos
Seven days across two Cyclades: three on the caldera rim, four on the island that still farms.
Island Escape · 7 days · May, Jun, Sep, Oct
Santorini in season is the most crowded square kilometre in the Aegean and it is still worth three days, because a flooded volcanic caldera 300 metres deep is not something you can see elsewhere. The mistake is spending seven days on it. Pairing it with Naxos - two hours by ferry, the largest and greenest of the Cyclades, with mountain villages, marble quarries and a beach you can walk for an hour - gives the week a second half that is about the islands rather than about the view. The Akrotiri excavation is the single most underrated site in Greece.
Day by day
- Day 1
The rim
Arrive, get onto the caldera path, and be somewhere other than Oia at sunset.
16:30Fira to Imerovigli caldera path
The whole caldera opens up on the left the entire way, and this is the stretch that shows you how the island is built into the crater wall.
Around three kilometres, paved but with a lot of steps. Very little shade.
19:00Skaros Rock
A headland that carried the island's medieval capital until earthquakes destroyed it, and the sunset here is the same one as Oia's with a hundredth of the crowd.
A steep, loose descent and climb. Proper shoes, and not in the dark.
- Day 2
Akrotiri
A Bronze Age town buried by the eruption that made the caldera, and the reason Santorini is more than a view.
08:30Akrotiri archaeological site
Three-storey houses, paved streets and a drainage system, buried under ash around 1600 BC and preserved almost intact. No bodies have been found, which means they got out.
Fully roofed, so it is one of the few sites here that works in the middle of the day. The frescoes themselves are mostly in Athens and Fira.
12:00Museum of Prehistoric Thera
The frescoes and the gold ibex from Akrotiri, which make sense of the empty rooms you walked through in the morning.
Small and air-conditioned. Closed Tuesdays in some seasons.
17:00Assyrtiko tasting at a caldera winery
The vines are trained into baskets on the ground to survive the wind and take moisture from sea fog, and some of the rootstock is ungrafted and pre-phylloxera.
Book ahead in season. Most estates are between Pyrgos and Megalochori, fifteen minutes from Fira.
- Day 3
The volcano and Oia
Into the middle of the caldera by boat, then the north tip for the sunset everyone came for.
09:30Nea Kameni and the hot springs
The active cone in the middle of the flooded crater, still steaming, with the caldera walls standing 300 metres above the water all round you.
Volcanic scree with no shade; hats and closed shoes. The hot spring swim stains light-coloured swimwear permanently.
17:30Oia and Ammoudi Bay
The fishing harbour directly below Oia, where the tavernas are on the water and the sunset arrives without the crowd on the ruins above.
Around 300 steps down to Ammoudi, shared with donkeys. Book dinner at the water rather than fighting for a spot at the castle.
- Day 4
Ferry to Naxos
Two hours across, and a first evening under a marble doorway that has been standing since 530 BC.
18:30The Portara
The doorway of an unfinished temple to Apollo, twenty tonnes of marble still standing alone on the islet, and the first thing every ship into Naxos sees.
A causeway from the harbour, five minutes from the ferry ramp. Uneven marble underfoot.
20:30The old town and the kastro
A Venetian castle from 1207 with the coats of arms still over the doors, and a lived-in medieval quarter wrapped round it.
A genuine maze; getting lost is the intended experience and the island is small enough that it does not matter.
- Day 5
The mountain villages
Inland, where Naxos stops resembling a beach island at all.
09:30Chalki and the Tragea valley
An olive-filled valley of Byzantine churches and Venetian towers, and the old kitron distillery in Chalki is still working.
The Panagia Drosiani nearby has frescoes from the sixth century, among the oldest in the Balkans.
13:00Apiranthos
Settled from Crete, so the dialect and the architecture are different from the rest of the island, and every street is marble because the quarries are up the hill.
Entirely paved in marble, which is slippery in rain. Cars stop at the edge of the village.
16:30The kouros of Apollonas
A ten-metre unfinished statue still lying in the quarry it was being cut from, abandoned when the marble cracked around 600 BC.
A short walk up from the road at the north end of the island. Free.
- Day 6
Mount Zas
The highest point in the Cyclades, and the cave Zeus was supposedly raised in.
07:30Mount Zas from Filoti
On a clear morning you can see most of the Cyclades from the top, and the cave on the eastern flank has Neolithic finds in it.
1,004 metres, around six kilometres return from the Agia Marina chapel, on rock with no shade. Start early in summer.
15:00Plaka beach
The longest sand beach in the Cyclades, west-facing, and still empty enough in June and September to walk for an hour without passing anyone.
Around four kilometres long with cedar dunes behind it; the northern end is organised and the southern end is not.
- Day 7
Last morning
The market, the citron, and the boat or the plane.
09:30Naxos Town market and the waterfront
Naxos feeds much of the Cyclades, and its market is the one place in the islands that is not stocked entirely from Athens.
Graviera, kitron liqueur and potatoes are what the island exports and all three travel.
Questions
- How long is the Santorini and Naxos itinerary?
- The Santorini and Naxos itinerary runs 7 days and covers 15 stops across Oia, Fira, Naxos Town, Apiranthos.
- When is the best time to do the Santorini and Naxos itinerary?
- May, Jun, Sep, Oct is the best window for the Santorini and Naxos itinerary.
- What happens on day one of the Santorini and Naxos itinerary?
- Day one is the rim: Arrive, get onto the caldera path, and be somewhere other than Oia at sunset.
Sources
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