By air or by sea, let’s see how to get to Santorini from Athens

To get to the magic island of Santorini you have two possibilities.

The plane is without any doubt the fastest mean of transport, otherwise you can contend with a long and fascinating trip by sea.

If you decide to get to taking the longest route, you can count upon a large number of maritime companies that get to Cyclades islands everyday leaving especially from Piraeus and, sometimes, from Rafina, 30 km away from Athens.

The Piraeus is the port of Athens, the main port of Greece and one of the oldest ports in the world too.

Its building dates back to the IV c. BC and in the water in front of it were found a large number of works of art, such as an important group of Neo Attic relief.

To get to Santorini you have to pass near many islands. For example Blue Star Ferries, one of the main companies, includes in the route also Paros, Naxos and Ios or Patmos, Leros, Kos and Rhodes.

The sea links are very frequent during summer and have different itineraries.

Obviously the lenght of the trip depends on the lenght of the itinerary, apart form the tipology of the boat you choose, but usually it is about 8/10 hours by ferry boat and 4/5 hours by fast boats.

The price depends also by these options.

Hier following are some of the companies you can choose to get to the island:

  • Sea Jets Consortium
  • Hellenic Seaways (H.Q.)
  • Blue Star Ferries (H.Q.) (ST)
  • Zante Ferries A.N.M.E.Z. S.A.
  • Ventouris Sea Lines
  • Aegeon Pelagos Sea Lines

The web site to check is the Greek Travel Pages, where from the first days of June will be available the summer timetable. A fan page on Facebook exists too.

On Santorini there are 2 ports:

  1. the main one, where the ferry boats arrive, is Athinios
  2. while in Fira there is the port used for the excursion to the volcano, the Caldera, and Thirasia island, in addition to be the stopover for the cruise liners.

From Athinios the buses wait for the departures and arrivals of the ferry boat and will carry you endlessly, also in the late night, to the chieftown Fira, but it is possible to take a taxi or rent a car as an alternative.

Now you know all the ways to get to, what do you expect to leave? 🙂