Athinios is found roughly in the centre of the island on the caldera side, which is the west coast. It’s about 8km from
Fira and 12km from the airport. Both would take around 20 minutes to make the drive.
Although there is a port in Fira, Athinios is actually the main port of
Santorini, this is where the cruise ships land and the ferries for the other
Greek islands are based as well.
Around the harbour you’ll find a ton of car rental shops and tourist information desks so if you need a car this is a great place to start, it’s also a good place to come to book yourself on to a boat tour or other excursion.
Athinios isn’t somewhere you’d stay, in fact there are no hotels in the area, there’s just a couple of restaurants, a couple of souvenir shops and a supermarket as well as the ticket offices for the various ferry, catamaran or yacht trips.
Considering Athinios is not much more than a port it’s still an attractive place, particularly with the imposing cliffs that rise up from behind the shops and restaurants. It gets incredibly busy when a cruise ship arrives and drops off scores of passengers all at once but the rest of the time it’s pretty quiet.
If you'd like to stay in the area then have a look at the Athinios page of booking.com
here. Alternatively find a great package holiday through Tui
here.
With just a café and a couple of restaurants, Athinios isn't a nightlife destination, sure, you can have a couple of dinks and a meal whilst watching the ferries and other boats coming and going and that's not a bad idea but if you're hoping to enjoy some wild partying then Athinios is not the place for that.
The closest town is
Pyrgos and it's well worth popping in for a visit as it offers some great views of the island as well as a 13th century Venetian castle. From there you can continue east to
Mesa Gonia which is home to
Panagia Episkopi which is an attractive church built in the 11th century.
