Santorini – A day trip to Fira (Day Three)!

It is Day three in Oia and on waking, things are still bright and sunny with not even a brush stroke of cloud in the sky. We plan to go to capital city Fira, which just like Oia is perched on the edge of caldera. In addition  WE WILL conquer the Oia castle throne today, by all means.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a local bus from Oia to Fira. The buses depart every 15-20 mins and take about half an hour to reach Fira, winding up along the caldera taking some sharp hair pin like bends. Other alternative is to rent a quad bike. But they (quad bikes) hardly make a point because there aren’t any great spots to make a stop on the way. The buses are pretty comfortable in terms of ride and frequency.

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike Oia, Fira is a town with roads and rush of vehicles, bigger shops and plenty of restaurants and viewpoints. Large cruise ships dock here and you see herds of tourists moving through its streets in close groups. Fira has lots of museums to visit, we did not go to any but just roamed around the town and shopped a bit and had lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After scanning the markets in Fira and Santorini my list of things to buy :

Jewellery (imitation and gold – both are abundant)

Greek sandals (shoe lovers will be more than pleased to see the options)

Olive wood kitchen ware

Greek wine

Although you do get clothes, t-shirts, souvenirs and all the touristy paraphernalia , these are the things that caught my fancy and came all the way to my home from Greece 🙂

Also even if you do not like to shop, consider this a good exercise for the sake of all the greek yoghurt and feta cheese that you will be eating in all three meals of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After enough shops and sights, the hungry and thirsty couple randomly picked a cozy restaurant.

 

 

I sat under this blooming tree.

 

 

 

 

So how was the food?

 

 

 

 

Fira being a bigger town than Oia or Imerovigli, many people stay here and take trips to Oia and/or Imerovigli. That could be a good option, especially for people who aren’t too flexible in terms of food and walking as there are alternatives to both here.

After this lunch we took a bus back to Oia. It was already five. For sunset from third different locale it was bathe-change-run situation. Although we did decide not to stop anywhere on the way but that’s anything but practical thinking.

 

 

 

 

Finally, finally we were bang on time to find a place on Oia castle, safe enough for my wee bit acrophobic self. And all the question marks floating in my head regarding the celebrity status of Oia castle among other viewpoints, evaporated as we took in a 360 degree view. Honestly, the place is very crowded and very windy. And I prefer to steer away from crowd as much as possible but I have no memories of that, all I remember is what I saw beyond the boundaries of the castle. I have no adjectives or figures of speech to describe what we saw, although I could use some through google but I’m choosing not to. May be you will have some (or many) adjectives or similes or may be you will be speechless. I cannot imagine. Either ways I’m sharing these pictures with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below two are my favourites 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kind of farewell the sun gets in Santorini, why wouldn’t it be back next day in all its glory ??

Happy Reading and be back again to know about our final day in Santorini!

🙂