St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Santorini

St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Santorini tickets: which one to buy

Santorini sells its churches as a view rather than as buildings, and that is worth understanding before booking anything. The blue domes that appear on every poster are scattered along the caldera rim at Oia and Fira, mostly small parish chapels that are locked outside service times, and the photographs are taken from public lanes rather than from inside. The Catholic cathedral in Fira, dedicated to John the Baptist, is the one substantial church of the group that you can reliably enter, and it sits in the Catholic quarter a few minutes from the main square.

Photography tours time their route for sunrise at Oia and sunset at Imerovigli and know which lanes are public and which are hotel terraces, which saves a good deal of awkwardness. Walking tours of Fira include the cathedral, the Orthodox cathedral and the old Catholic monastery above it. Entry is free everywhere, so you are paying only for the route and the timing.

Visiting St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Santorini: what to see

The cathedral was built in 1823 for the island's Catholic community, a group descended from the Venetian period and still concentrated in this quarter. It was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1956, which flattened much of Fira, and was rebuilt and restored by 1970. The front is baroque revival in cream and blue-grey, with a bell tower that reads clearly from the caldera path below, and the interior is plain, cool and small by mainland standards.

Immediately above it stand the Dominican convent and the old Catholic monastery, which give the quarter its shaded vaulted lanes. The famous domes elsewhere are something different in kind: whitewashed barrel vaults and cupolas painted with blue pigment that was originally cheap and locally available rather than symbolic, attached to chapels often founded by single families. Three of them line up in one lane in Oia, which is where the crowd with cameras gathers, and the sea appears between them at the right angle in the late afternoon.

St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Santorini opening hours and the best time to go

The island is at its worst between eleven and five in July and August, when several cruise ships call at once and the lanes of Oia are a single moving queue. May, early June and late September give the same light with a fraction of the people. Sunrise at Oia is nearly empty and is the better photograph in any case, because the domes face the light rather than standing against it. Sunset is the ritual, and the crowd for it now starts forming two hours ahead.

The Catholic cathedral keeps short and irregular hours, generally mornings, and closes during services. Easter here follows the Orthodox calendar and is the most interesting week of the year, with processions in both Fira and Oia and the island still quiet. Winter is genuinely closed, with many hotels and restaurants shut from November. Wear proper shoes, because the lanes are stepped, polished and steeper than they look.