Signature guide
Oia sunset by bus: getting there, and getting back
Everyone wants to be in Oia when the sun goes down, and almost everyone wants to leave at the same moment afterwards. The bus there is easy. The bus back is the whole problem, and this page is about the bus back.
The short answer
Take the Fira ↔ Oia corridor out in the afternoon and plan the return around the printed departures from Oia, not around the sunset. The last published Oia → Fira departure is 22:20 on the current KTEL PDF; the last Fira → Oia is 22:00 [source]. The older KTEL web table ends at 21:20 back and 21:00 out [source], so confirm which edition the station board follows on the day. The fare is €2.20 ordinary each way [source].
Step by step
Getting there
Board at the Fira bus station; every corridor starts there [source]. Afternoon departures from Fira to Oia are printed every half hour from 14:00 to 22:00 [source]. Arrive before the last hour of daylight to find a place on the castle or the lanes by the windmills; the reviewed Oia page notes that the castle fills an hour early in season [source].
Getting back
The return column on the KTEL PDF is headed "FROM IA" and lists departures every half hour through the evening to 22:20 [source]. Those are departures from Oia, not arrivals from Fira. The reviewed Oia page already warns that the queue back to Fira is longest just after the sun drops [source]. If your evening depends on one particular bus, walk to the stop before sunset rather than after the last photograph, and treat the departure after yours as the one you may actually get.
The alternative rim villages
Firostefani and Imerovigli face the same sunset from the same caldera rim and sit on their own published corridor with a last bus back at 21:05 [source]. The reviewed Fira page describes the caldera path from Fira through Firostefani towards Imerovigli as one of the best free walks on the island [source], so from either village you can also walk back to Fira after dark along a paved path instead of queueing.
After the last bus
KTEL publishes nothing after 22:20 from Oia [source]. Taxi fares and private transfer prices are not published by any source this site uses, so none are quoted; the taxi rank is by the bus stop in Oia and the comparison below leaves those cells blank on purpose.
What goes wrong
The last bus is not the trap; the crowd for the bus before it is. On a summer evening several hundred people leave the castle within minutes of sunset and walk to the same stop. KTEL prints no frequency and no extra sunset departures — just the half-hourly column to 22:20 [source] — so the people at the back of the queue may watch two buses fill. The older web edition stopped an hour earlier [source], which is why "the last bus is at ten" is still repeated in Fira. Read the board at the station, not the rumour.
Not reachable by bus
- Ammoudi Bay below Oia has no published KTEL fare stage; the reviewed Oia page describes it as roughly 200 steps below the village [source]. Nearest stage: Oia.
- Baxedes beach beyond Oia has a published fare of €2.20 over 15.5 km from Fira but no departure column [source]. Ask at the Fira station which Oia departures continue.
Routes in this guide
Places: Oia · Fira · Imerovigli · Firostefani · Baxedes
Quick answers
Carry the timetable
Every corridor offline in the Santorini Bus app
The published KTEL corridors and fares, stored on your phone for the moment the last bus matters and the signal does not.
Sources
- KTEL Thiras / Santorini Public Buses — Printable timetable PDF (last update 15/09/2026) , source-dated , read
- KTEL Thiras / Santorini Public Buses — Interactive routes table, summer programme (last update 18/05/2026) , source-dated , read
- KTEL Thiras / Santorini Public Buses — Official fare table (last update 19/05/2026) , source-dated , read
- Santorini Bus editorial corpus (this repository) — Reviewed destination and guide copy, content checked 25 July 2026 , read