The blue roof churches. That's what Santorini is best known for. Instagram and TikTok heaven. But it's busy..so busy...so very very very busy....and the city sits on top of a collapsed volcano, but the ship tenders in at the bottom. And there's 2 ways up (plus a semi-secret way up). There's a gondola, that carries about 40 people at a time up 2 minutes to the top, with a line that can be up to a 2 hour wait when there are several ships there, which is like every day, OR you can take the stairs up - 588 of them, taking about 20-30 minutes. However, donkeys also take the stairs up (which you can ride up) and what do donkey's do? And a lot of it? Yep! POO all over the stairs! So you're either waiting in a line of 2000-4000 people taking the gondola, or walking/riding up the poo covered and smelly slippery stairs.
But wait! There's also a semi-secret way - which is of course the way we did. If you know what you're looking for, walk past the stairs and donkeys, skip the endless gondola line and keep walking. You'll see a small shop selling boat tickets to a neighboring city, which happens to be the city with the most blue roofs that everyone wants to go see. So you get a boat to another part of the island, a BUS takes you up the hill and there you are!! Walk around....find the blue roofs with the other 1,000s of people, and another bus will take you back to the top where the gondola is.
Everyone still has to go back down to the ships via gondola or stairs though, because the boat only operates one way, so don't dilly dally and be the last ones to the gondola or you'll be waiting hours and might miss your ship. We timed it pretty good and waited about 15 minutes to go back down via the gondola.
Did I mention it was crowded? Very very very crowded?? And it was the "off season" too!
We hurried through both cities because it was so crowded and we wanted time getting back down to minimize waiting.
The water was crystal clear
Both cities are about 15 minutes apart by bus and sit atop the volcano ridgeline
Yep, we did find the blue roof churches and had to dodge all the tik tockers and instaram poses
There was a geocache at this sign
These round houses are "luxury villas" on the hillside
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