Santorini in October

October is two different months on Santorini, and which one you get depends on the week you book. Early in it the island is still fully awake, with water that is holding the heat the summer put into it and its annual peak just behind. By the end of it a good deal has shut, the evenings have collapsed, and the caldera villages are handing the island back to the people who live here. Both halves are worth having. They are not the same holiday.

The closing sequence, week by week

Why the first half is one of the best fortnights of the year

Everything that makes Santorini difficult in summer eases in early October while almost nothing that makes it good has gone. Heat has come off the walking, the ships have thinned, the rim path is usable at any hour, and the sea is warmer than it is at any point in the spring shoulder. Rates soften as the month goes on rather than falling off a cliff. This is the stretch the season page argues for alongside late spring, and if you want the island working properly with the crowd removed, it is where to aim.

The one thing to hold loosely is weather. October is when the settled summer pattern breaks, and a wet day or a windy one is a real possibility rather than a rumour. Plan the boat day early in the stay rather than late so a cancellation has somewhere to go.

What actually closes, and when

Santorini's caldera villages are seasonal businesses, and Oia empties as the month runs out — hotels, terraces and shops shutting in sequence rather than all at once. Ferry and flight frequency comes down with them. Fira is the exception: it is the island's town rather than its shop window, with a resident population, the bus hub and places that stay open because people need them.

That makes the back half of October a question of where you sleep as much as when you come. Altea Apartments sits in the middle of Fira, plain and soundproofed and self-catering, which in late October means a base in the part of the island that has not gone quiet. At the other end of the range, Pegasus Suites & Spa on the Imerovigli ridge holds its pool open beyond the ordinary season, and its spa, with a hammam and steam room, is a direct answer to a month in which outdoor water becomes a gamble and the caldera view does not.

Who should choose October, and who should not

Come in October if you want the walking, the light and the emptying villages, and if a lost day to rain would not ruin the trip. Choose earlier if swimming is the whole point, or if you are travelling with anyone who needs the island's full apparatus of buses, boats and open tavernas running without gaps.

Comparing current stay and experience options across your dates is worth doing before you commit, particularly for the last week of the month, when what is open changes faster than any guide can keep up with.