That also sketched our main interests for Santorini. There are beaches in Santorini, we have seen black beaches before, but we have not seen white churches with blue domes yet. So, we will do mostly those, with sunsets of course. And there will be also some time for beach. But not much. How could I not be pleased with such a plan?

Fira

Φήρα is main town of Santorini. It has it's share of churches, nice caldera view with white hotels and restaurants "glued" to its side, but mainly it is main transportation hub. All buses are starting from Fira. If you want to be able travel everywhere without a need to rent a car/scooter/quad, this is the correct place. If we wanted to spend the most of the time on beach we would pick Kamari or Perissa.

We arrived to hotel at 10am. Thanks to nice owner and yet-to-be-started-season we did not need to wait till 2pm for checkin. BTW we stayed at Markakis Studios. It was not Santorini-expensive and it was quiet thanks to its location out of the busy part of Fira.

And it was busy. Not only thousands of tourists, but roads were full of cars, motorbikes and other smelly things. I could not help, but together with hot weather it reminded me India. It was not that bad, of course, but nevertheless India came to my mind immediately :-)

Zoomed a bit to see detail of 600 steps from a port to Fira. There is also cable car barely visible at this resolution.

Nea Kameni, central part of this volcano. Small island in the middle of this magical place.

Churches in Fira

We came here to take pictures of nice white churches with blue domes. Well, not all of them are like that. Some have white domes, some have creamy color or even red. We have seen also creamy-blue variety.

We did not get into many of them, actually, if I count properly, I've been to single one... Well, taking photos from outside is my thing. Going inside - I can leave that to others.

In spite of previous paragraph about colors of churches, this one was not yellow, but white. It is sunset time.

I have found this and following church while scouting residential area of Fira to see if I can find a supermarket without tourist prices. I have failed, but I am satisfied with my findings after all. Only if those wires were used with more respect. Another little detail reminding me India ;-)

The same place at 2 different times. Noon and evening.
    

Sunset and night in Fira

The previous photo together with two following ones nicely bridge the second most important reason why we came to Santorini. No, not wedding :-) that happened 3 years ago.

I am talking about sunsets. They are beautiful here. I think we made our trip in the best time for sunsets in Fira, but I think those wanting sunset in Oia should come in winter, definitely in time when sun is not setting too far to north.

From all our travels, this one was completely different. Not only we did not rush anywhere and we had time to relax and enjoy those views properly, but also we were able to return more than twice.