In greece they burn [ Toilet paper etc ] up in the mountains. Unlike this country it goes straight into the sea and washes up on the beaches YUK.

HI Davemel, guss its a lot better to burn toilet paper than to wash it up on a beach, we have all seen the horror stories about waste in the sea poping o up when people are swimming.

Chris :

Santorini is fantastic and not all that expensive. Drinks are the biggest part of a bill when you are out at night. metaxas and coke for example can cost 5 euros easily.
I spent the summer of 2003 in Santorini and loved it. Here is a plan for a week!!!
Tuesday (arrival day) Swim, drink, food relax settle in

Wednesday - Meal in Thira (captial) wonderful, picturesque town where you can sit on the famous 'caldera' and watch the sun go down. Can be expensive on the caldera, but if you eat inside the town, its as cheap as every where else!

Thursday - Volcano. If its hot take loads of water. Can be a bit of a work out but well worth it. The island os Thirassia is a bonus as you visit here aswell (with some tours) .

Friday - If you are going with a tour operator book yourself onto the villages and sunset tour (or whatever its called). Its cheap as chips for what you get. You dont get picked up until five ish and then you go around all the little villages and see wonderful santorini from different angles. You get a little bit of history and also a chance to see OIA (pronounced ee'ya) which is my favourite village/town in the world!

Saturday - Day off, chill out. If you are in Perissa go to the water park (a little one with a couple of slides that is great for the little'uns) Its a nice relaxing day. If you dont like to chill out, get up for 7am, get a taxi to the port, and get the 7.30am boat to Ios and have a look at another, completely different island. its only an hour and a half away. Its full of Irish 7 Aussies (apart from that its lovely!!!....only kidding)

Sunday - Akrotiri. This is the archaelogical site that was preserved by the pumice stone spewed out from the Volcanic eruption. Its a great place to see. 'The Greek Pompei' they call it. There is a bus that runs here form Thira. WARNING- do not leave this trip until Monday, as all archaelogical sites in Greece are closed on a Monday!

Monday - Sunset cruise is awesome. great value and good wine. Otherwise try a trip to Red beach in the day, which is good for snorkeling and baking hot! and maybe a run down to the neighbouring resort (kamari or Perissa depending on which one you are staying in)

Hope this is helpful.

Villa Roula - Small rooms but very clean and tidy and 'compact'. They all have air con available (at a cost of course) so if there was noise, close it out and whack the air con on!

Villa Limnes - On first arrival, peoples reaction was always 'we are a bit far out' but it is alot closer than you think. some great views and a cracking little pool bar (and jacuzzi!!). A lovely owner called Roula and some nice, clean but basic rooms.

Kamari - Lovely resort, below average beach. Good bars, not too lively atall. average prices, great great great food (Great Greek food, chinese, Indian, Italian, English amongst others)

Perissa - A bit cheaper than kamari, better beach but not as attractive as kamari as a resort. The nightlife is good especially in the summer i.e august, when the Greeks are having beach partys. all in all great fun at both.

Santorini is fantastic and not all that expensive. Drinks are the biggest part of a bill when you are out at night. metaxas and coke for example can cost 5 euros easily.
I spent the summer of 2003 in Santorini and loved it. Here is a plan for a week!!!
Tuesday (arrival day) Swim, drink, food relax settle in

Wednesday - Meal in Thira (captial) wonderful, picturesque town where you can sit on the famous 'caldera' and watch the sun go down. Can be expensive on the caldera, but if you eat inside the town, its as cheap as every where else!

Thursday - Volcano. If its hot take loads of water. Can be a bit of a work out but well worth it. The island os Thirassia is a bonus as you visit here aswell (with some tours) .

Friday - If you are going with a tour operator book yourself onto the villages and sunset tour (or whatever its called). Its cheap as chips for what you get. You dont get picked up until five ish and then you go around all the little villages and see wonderful santorini from different angles. You get a little bit of history and also a chance to see OIA (pronounced ee'ya) which is my favourite village/town in the world!

Saturday - Day off, chill out. If you are in Perissa go to the water park (a little one with a couple of slides that is great for the little'uns) Its a nice relaxing day. If you dont like to chill out, get up for 7am, get a taxi to the port, and get the 7.30am boat to Ios and have a look at another, completely different island. its only an hour and a half away. Its full of Irish 7 Aussies (apart from that its lovely!!!....only kidding)

Sunday - Akrotiri. This is the archaelogical site that was preserved by the pumice stone spewed out from the Volcanic eruption. Its a great place to see. 'The Greek Pompei' they call it. There is a bus that runs here form Thira. WARNING- do not leave this trip until Monday, as all archaelogical sites in Greece are closed on a Monday!

Monday - Sunset cruise is awesome. great value and good wine. Otherwise try a trip to Red beach in the day, which is good for snorkeling and baking hot! and maybe a run down to the neighbouring resort (kamari or Perissa depending on which one you are staying in)

Hope this is helpful.

Villa Roula - Small rooms but very clean and tidy and 'compact'. They all have air con available (at a cost of course) so if there was noise, close it out and whack the air con on!

Villa Limnes - On first arrival, peoples reaction was always 'we are a bit far out' but it is alot closer than you think. some great views and a cracking little pool bar (and jacuzzi!!). A lovely owner called Roula and some nice, clean but basic rooms.

Kamari - Lovely resort, below average beach. Good bars, not too lively atall. average prices, great great great food (Great Greek food, chinese, Indian, Italian, English amongst others)

Perissa - A bit cheaper than kamari, better beach but not as attractive as kamari as a resort. The nightlife is good especially in the summer i.e august, when the Greeks are having beach partys. all in all great fun at both.

Joeyc all sounds very good and you seem to know your way around the resorts thanks for the info, are the flights normally good for timekeeping or do we need to be prepaired for delays we fly on the 17th May from east mids

HAve another problem that I am sure somebody will be able to help me out with, Santorini is it best to take cash (euros), travelers cheques or is sterling good value as a local exchange as it is is some parts of spain.

Chris

We took euros with us when we went, and then used a cashpoint if we needed any more.

Hi Rachel
Thaks for the info i am saving my euros up as i type, and as soon as i have collected a sock full we are off.

I worked there all season and we only had a couple of delays all summer. East midlands was usually EARLY and would interupt our breakfast!! true story. Obviously thats one of the things that you cant guarantee though as there are lots of unforeseen circumstances that can happen. you should be alreet though.

HI there,

Can't wait, very excited now

Is anyone else going to santorini from bristol on tuesday? We are staying at the villa roula, in perissa. Hope the weather is hot and sunny.

bye for now, jeanette

Hi Jeanette,

sorry I'm not going to Santorinni this year. Really fancy the look of it though. Might consider it for next year. Only thing that puts me off is the sound of the beaches there. For such a pretty island you would expect the beaches to be white or golden. Don't much fancy dark volcanic sand. Anyhow, hope you have a great time.

Hi shirley

Thanks for the reply, I can't wait.

I don't like the beach anway, too much sand much prefer the pool.

bye for now, jeanette

HI,
Hope someone can offer some help or advice.
I'm thinking of going to the Artemis Villas in Imerovigli in Santorini and would like to hear from anyone who's either stayed at these villas or in Imerovigli...or in Santorini...
Whats the Island like?
Whats Imerovigli like? is it quiet at night, are there a few bars and resteraunts to keep us amused for 2 weeks or would we need to travel into Fira (which I believe is the next nearest town).
Is it quite a relaxed and quiet place?
Any loud nightclubs?
Any things of interest on the island to visit?
Any information you could give would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks.

Hi- I can't speak for those particular villas but Imerovigli is right next to Fira, on a bus / taxi route or you can walk!
It is less busy than Fira but there are places - mainly on the caldera side to amuse! You will find all the resorts overlooking the caldera are more expensive to stay & eat (you pay for the view!)
Places to visit whilst there : Oia for the sunset / Akrotiri for the minoan ruins - and you can get an equally good sunset from there! The wineries and craft shops. The volcano boat trip is a must do : you travel by sailboat and visit Nea Kameni and climb the volcano , visit the hot springs for a swim and then visit Thirassia for lunch - its a lovely day out. You can also do the same trip in the eveing for the sunset .

Just back from two fantastic weeks on Santorini staying in the beach resort of Perissa. Despite everything I had read before departure to the effect that this was a very expensive island and likely to cost me a fortune I was very pleasantly surprised to find the bills from the taverna to be 25% - 30% lower than for similar meals in any of the three Greek locations I visited last year. i.e. Naxos, Corfu and Pelion. The meals were very generous, well cooked and garnished and on a par with the best I have found in Greece. In addition to this I hired a car for five days for 75 euros including insurance. Of course there are many expensive places in Fira and Oia but even there if you choose a place without the view prices were little different from other parts of Greece.

Booked with Kosmar in a studio at Villa Limnes. Studios are very very basic regarding equipment but towels were changed every day, bed linen every 2nd day and the rooms cleaned every day with bleach too, a rare commodity in Greece.

Edited to restore font settings. Please do not use coloured fonts in the resort forums.
Many thanks
David HT Mod

I have never been to Santorini as I thought it was a cruise destination, full of Americans and very expensive. So it doesn't have to be like that then? Good to know.(Ps nothing against Americans by the way- just that they seem to like to spend more on food,tips etc than we Brits do!)

It is a cruise destination but over that period 10th to 24th May it was not busy and the roads were generally quiet. The balance of visitors was however different to what I have been used to being mainly Brits, Americans, Australians and Japanese with very few Germans.

Santorini - Cruise destination?

Only in Fira and Oia really. I went last year to Perissa and found no Americans there. There were however, plenty of other nationalities, making the resort a cosmopolitan one, not one that's just full of Brits and Germans!
Passiotravel is correct in saying it is no more expensive (sometimes cheaper) than any other Greek isle.
As with any Greek island, a taverna with a view will cost you more, but not that much more. IMO - you pays yer money, you takes yer prize!
It's worth paying that little extra for the views on Santorini. Or better still, buy a bottle of you fave soft drink, sit on the wall next to a taverna and get the view for free!!!!!

I didn't mean to imply that the Americans and Australians were just in Oia and Thira, they were in Perissa too but I wouldn't describe it as cosmopolitan. To me it is Kamari that is cosmopolitan with it's Mexican, Indian, Italian and Chinese restaurants. That is the reason I chose Perissa instead of Kamari, when I go to Greece I expect it to be Greek.