Ammoudi — Attraction in Municipality of Thira

I feel like the swimming place is a victim of its own success, perhaps. It was extremely busy when we visited. The approach to water is treacherous at best and the sea is rough. The diving platform is probably the main and only attraction, capitalised upon by the many private boats that constantly ferry visitors to and fro. The little space in front of the swimming spot is painfully stoney and littered with bottles, cans and plastic bags left behind by the numerous 20-something Instagram influencers. What little room is left is claimed by all-day bathers, who neatly arrange themselves on their hotel towels and make the whole place look like a small seal colony. Add some youth playing euro-pop on their tinsy phone speakers and you get the picture.

The restaurants in the bay are lovely to walk through but forget about getting a table. Once the front of house learns you don't have a reservation, they immediately suck in the air and you get the inevitable "We are actually expecting larger groups this afternoon, so..." in other words "your custom is not worth our while".

The Cool Cave is probably the only place we ever returned to, if only because the owner let you use the only toilet in the bay area, although we felt obliged to buy something every time we used it.

Ammoudi Bay is a nice place to visit briefly before or after catching a ferry or a boat, but I wouldn't bother with the restaurants or the swimming spot. There are better places to spend your time and money,...

Great place to go for a swim and jumping off! Good for a bit of snorkeling as well. Wish we had an underwater camera with us. We walked down the footpath from Oia Castle to here for the swimming. Steep walk down but fun. Look out for the donkey droppings. In order to get to the swimming area, you take a left at the bottom of the footpath and walk through the seaside restaurant seating to the path around the side of the cliff. Easy walk, 5 min, on a well-worn path. There is no beach, you just find a place among the ancient lava rock to place your stuff and jump in! Though it isn't a beach area, it is fun to just sit on the rocks and people watch and see the different boats that will come by with people looking for a swim. Jumping off the cliffs/rocks is one of my favorite things to do and I'm still doing backflips! This is a very popular place to go but, since were here in July 2021 - just after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted for travel, there weren't too many people. I can imagine it being much harder to find a place to put your stuff if it were 2019 crowds. But still, such a fun place you don't want to miss it.

Remember to put sunscreen on before you get in the water and then after an hour, get out and put more on! If you don't, you may...

Get ready for a workout on your way down to this "beach", and be rewarded with beautiful and refreshing water. It's not so much a beach as it is moreso a cliff with volcanic rocks all around you. There's barely space to leave your stuff. It can also get quite busy. However, once you've found a spot to leave your bag, sandals and towels (usually between two stones), you'll forget all about the lack of beach and really soak in the view.

There are a couple awesome spots to do some cliff jumping, as long as you're willing to do a little bit of rock climbing to get there. As other reviews have mentioned, the rocks can be quite shard and slippery. Highly recommend some water shoes, and extreme care not to fall!

I think the coolest part of it all is on your way to the beach, where you can clearly see there used to be a path and an indication of infrastructure, which has long since degraded over time due to the...