From the journal

The steps, the cable car, and what changed in 2026

8 min read

Santorini's Karavolades stairway — the roughly 590-step path from Fira Old Port — closed on 28 July 2026 by order of the Municipal Port Fund of Thira, after a landslide. No reopening date has been published. The cable car is now the only way up from the tender pier, and a boat the only way sideways.

For most of the island's history there was one way between Fira and the water below it, and it had steps in it. Since 1982 there have been two. Since 28 July 2026 there has been one again, and it is the newer one.

This is the sequence, in order, with the dates that are actually documented and the numbers that are actually published.

What the stairway is

The Karavolades stairway is the zigzag stepped mule path between Fira and Ormos Firon, the Old Port at the foot of the cliff.

*Karavolades* is glossed as snails, for the shape of the turns. The path climbs roughly 220 m of cliff in a series of tight switchbacks, and it is the reason the Old Port exists where it does.

Nobody agrees on how many steps it has. The count in widest publication is 588. Other published figures are 558, about 580, approximately 600, and about 650. The number on the signs and the number in the news reports are not always the same number. We say the roughly 590-step Karavolades stairway and leave it there, because we would rather be approximately right than precisely wrong.

The numbers

The timeline, in order

Everything below is dated. Where a date is contested, the table says so.

When	What happened	What it meant
Before 1982	The stairway is the only route between Fira and the Old Port. It is walked, or ridden on mules.	A 220 m cliff with one way up it, and every arriving passenger on the same steps.
1979	The Loula & Evangelos Nomikos Foundation is established. The cable car is funded by the shipowner Evangelos Nomikos through it.	This is the date most guides misprint as the opening year. 1979 belongs to the foundation, not to the machine.
Autumn 1980	Construction begins on the cable car, built by the Austrian manufacturer Doppelmayr.	Two years of work on a face that had never carried anything mechanical.
Summer 1982	The cable car opens. Roughly 220 m of vertical rise, three to five minutes, six passengers per cabin in two rows of three, 1,200 passengers an hour across both directions.	Two ways up the cliff, for the first time ever. 600 an hour of that capacity is going uphill; the other 600 are coming down.
21 July 2025	The Greek cruise-passenger levy takes effect. At Santorini it is €20 per passenger from June to September, €12 in April, May and October, €4 from November to March.	Charged to the onboard account on disembarkation. Only cruise arrivals pay it.
2026 season	The daily cruise cap of 8,000 passengers tightens. Ships are now counted at 100% of berths rather than 80%.	A 3,000-berth ship consumes 3,000 slots instead of 2,400, so fewer large ships fit into one day.
28 July 2026	The Municipal Port Fund of Thira closes the stepped path, after a landslide brings a private building wall down onto the route. Pedestrians and riders are both banned.	One way up the cliff again, forty-four years after there were two.
After the closure	Longer cable car queues are reported. Cruise lines begin landing organised shore-excursion groups at Athinios to continue by coach, and the previous cap of roughly 30% of passengers through Athinios is suspended.	The island reroutes itself around one stairway. Independent passengers on a tender get none of that relief.
25 August 2026	No reopening date has been published.	Which is why this page is dated, and why we will change it when that changes.

Sources for the closure and its consequences: tovima.com and deeparrival.com, both seen 25 August 2026. Cable car specifications from the operator and from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini_Cable_Car, same date.

The cable car, in numbers

The published figures contradict each other until you look closely, and then they do not. Two capacity numbers circulate: 600 an hour and 1,200 an hour. Both are correct. The system moves 1,200 people an hour in total, 600 in each direction. If you are standing at the bottom, only the uphill 600 is any use to you.

The rest of it: roughly 220 m of rise, three to five minutes of riding, six people to a cabin in two rows of three. The published 2026 fare is €10 for an adult one way, €5 for a child, €5 for a large suitcase. There is no pre-booking and no skip-the-line ticket. It shuts in strong wind.

Operating hours are seasonal, and the versions published by secondary sources disagree with each other. We are not going to add a sixth version. Check the operator's own price list on the day you need it.

What the closure did to everything else

A single closed path turned out to be load-bearing for the whole system.

The queue moved first. With no free alternative, everyone who would have walked joined the line for a machine that lifts 600 an hour uphill against a daily cap of 8,000 cruise passengers. Queues of 60 to 90 minutes at peak are widely reported, with the worst window running 09:30 to 12:00.

Then the ships moved. Cruise lines began disembarking organised shore-excursion groups at Athinios, the commercial ferry port, and running them onward by coach. To make that possible the standing limit of roughly 30% of passengers through Athinios was suspended. That helps the pier at Fira. It does nothing at all for the person already standing on it with a tender ticket in their hand.

It is a useful illustration of how thin the margin was. One privately owned wall came down and an island of 8,000 daily cruise arrivals had to re-plan its mornings.

The mules

The stepped path is the traditional mule route, and mule rides were operated on it for as long as anyone can remember. With the path closed, nothing runs there — riders are covered by the same order as walkers.

For what it is worth, several mainstream travel publishers now discourage donkey and mule rides in Santorini on welfare grounds. We do not book them, and that is as much as we will say about it here.

If you are standing on the pier today

There is no road at the Old Port. No taxi, bus or car can collect you there, which is the single fact that makes this list as short as it is.

Up. The cable car, €10 one way, three to five minutes of riding and however long the queue takes. It is the default and on a quiet day it is entirely fine.

Sideways. A boat, which does not go up the cliff at all. It runs along the caldera wall and lands you at Ammoudi under Oia, or at Athinios for a ferry, both of which have vehicle access. We wrote the full arithmetic on skip the cable car, including what the market charges.

Nowhere. On a short call, staying at sea level and taking a shore excursion by boat means the cliff never enters your day. You go back to your tender from the water.

What we do not know

The true step count. Any reopening date. The cable car's exact seasonal hours. Nobody has published a primary answer to any of the three, so we are not going to invent one. If a guide gives you a confident single number for the steps, it has picked one of five figures in circulation and dropped the other four.

Ready when you are

Send the ship and the times

Ship name, date, anchor time and the all-aboard time printed on your card. That is enough for us to say whether a boat works for you. Sometimes the answer is no, and we say it early.

Check availability & book

Call the harbour office+30 698 977 1888

Common questions

How many steps are there in the Karavolades stairway?

Published counts disagree: 588 is the most widely quoted, with 558, about 580, approximately 600 and about 650 all in circulation. No primary source settles it. We write the roughly 590-step Karavolades stairway, which is honest about the spread rather than pretending one of the five figures is authoritative.

When did the Santorini cable car open?

Summer 1982. The confusion comes from 1979, which is the year the Loula & Evangelos Nomikos Foundation was established. The shipowner Evangelos Nomikos funded the system through it, construction began in autumn 1980, and Doppelmayr built it. Guides that print 1979 as the opening year are quoting the foundation instead.

Are there any other ways up besides the cable car (water taxi or alternate ports)?

Since 28 July 2026, no other way up. The stepped path is closed and there is no road at the Old Port. What exists is a way sideways: a boat along the caldera wall to Ammoudi or Athinios, both of which a car can reach. That trades a queue for a passage, not a shortcut.

Is the donkey ride in Santorini worth it?

The question is moot on this path at the moment. The closure order covers riders as well as walkers, so nothing is operating between Fira and the Old Port. We do not book mule or donkey rides in any case, and we would rather point you at the boat than at the animal.

How long are the cable car lines, and how can I avoid long waits?

Reports in August 2026 put peak waits at 60 to 90 minutes, worst between 09:30 and 12:00. Three things help: take the first tender of the morning, ride in the middle of the afternoon rather than at either end, or leave by sea and skip the cliff completely.

What time should I go back to Fira for the cable car and tender?

santoriginal.com advises being near the cable car 60 to 90 minutes before your printed last tender, and notes that the last tender itself usually leaves about 90 minutes before the ship's printed departure (seen 25 August 2026). Work backwards from the all-aboard time on your card, not from the departure time.

Santorini Boat Tour - Water Taxi is a catamaran cruise and water taxi operator based in Fira, Santorini.

Updated August 2026