The down part of visiting Santorini during the off season is they closed down many shops and services. We wanted to do wine tasting and a cooking class, but I couldn't find any and the ones I found seemed like a scam.
After the hotel breakfast we walked down to the bus stop. We had nothing planned and were prepared to wanderlust. After looking at the schedule, the next bus to anywhere would be in 1 hour. Instead of waiting, I suggested to Michelle that we walk to Oia (ee-ah). She said ok, but reluctantly.
The hike to Oia is 6 miles long. I thought we would do it in 3 hours. But knowing us, time doesn't matter. It all depends on the experience during those 3 hours that make it manageable. Boy, was it an interesting experience. In the forecast were 25 mph winds. I knew that would be uncomfortable, but we were in store for more.
I liked this hike because the trailhead is at our hotel. Most people have to catch a shuttle to the hotel to start the hike, but we wouldn't have to do that since our hotel was at the trailhead.
The area was a ghost town, only a few people were walking the pathway. We made it to the next town, Firostefani. It took us about 15 minutes. To be honest it looked the same as Fira. The next town was Imerovigli, however I couldn't identify it. There was no sign. The only thing I could identify was the white white hotels. There is a side trail to a rock outcrop that seems to be popular amongst tourists, so we skipped that part. This is where I thought we were at the point of no return because there was no bus back to Fira at this point.
After another 20 minutes or so, we got to the blue dome church called Profitas Illias Church. I'm not sure why the churches of Santorini have the blue dome and not all churches have a blue dome.
After the church the trail went from paved to rocky making it a real trail. My shoes held up, but it would have been better to have trail shoes on this one. The wind was howling at this point and Shell regretted her decision to go on this hike. I loved it and thought we were making good progress.
After about 2+ hours we hit the white hotel. I knew this was key because it was all downhill to Oia. The wind was full on howling already, but I was focused on eating. Shell wanted to wait until we got to a great restaurant, but I knew we would be grouchy, so we ate at the first restaurant we saw in Oia. I think the name was Blue Sky. Our server was a nice Greek woman and we had a good time.
After the hike, we walked to the area where everyone was congregating to watch the sunset. The angle didn't look too good, so we went to an empty hotel. We helped ourselves and watched the sunset from there. An unwritten rule is that you can hang out at the empty hotels during off season. The sunset was epic, now it was getting dark.
We found the bus stop, luckily we got there when we did because the bus was leaving. The bus from Oia to Fira was about 25 minutes? I can't remember because I fell asleep.
I thought this hike was a great workout and a fun experience.