On the final full day of our stay in Santorini, we decided to culture up a little before we board our Athens-bound ferry which was scheduled at 1.25am. We hopped onto a southern Santorini tour that consisted of a fairly small group – we numbered not more than fifteen, despite travelling in a large coach that could easily fit another twenty or so other people. We were accompanied by good-humoured Francisco, who for some reason, spoke with a bedroom-raspy voice on using a microphone but not otherwise. ;)

First up, the highest point on Santorini – Mount Profitis Ilias – which peaks at 567 metres. The road onto the monastery is narrow, windy and rather treacherous given the number of ATV that were trying to do the climb on the shoulder of the road. I wasn’t sure (and still am not) how the driver was not nervous manoeuvering the coach on tight corners, and at one point, we even squeezed by a car with shattered windscreen following an accident with a tourist-handled ATV. The young rider and his friends were all huddled by the road, visibly shaken. It made me glad that we were not driving ourselves!

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Santorini is not a very big island, and by all accounts, have a good network of public buses that run regularly and budget-friendly in term of ticket prices. To us, this negates the need to rent a car and drive on unfamiliar, narrow and windy roads. The network radiates from Fira, however, thus we would need to travel from Oia to Fira each time for onward bus connection.

I’ve been advised by friends to make sure we have a copy of the latest bus timetable. We were also, understandably, to know that any time indicated would be approximative. Afterall, there’s no predicting the traffic, right? Like a good trooper, I duly downloaded and printed a copy of the timetable from the bus company’s website.

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