Amoudi Bay and the red cliffs below Oia

Amoudi is Oia's old port, three hundred stone steps straight down the caldera wall. At the bottom there is a short quay, a line of fish tavernas with their tables almost in the water, a few painted caiques, and above all of it a wall of red and ochre rock going up vertically for a hundred metres.

It is the exact opposite of the village overhead, and that is why it belongs in the same session. Instead of whitewash and blue domes you get colour, texture and scale: a couple on the quay reads as tiny against the cliff, and the rock throws a warm bounce back into faces that no reflector matches. Follow the shoreline path south for five minutes and you reach the rocks below the little chapel islet of Agios Nikolaos, where the water is deep blue and nothing man-made is in frame.

Light here runs backwards from the rest of the island. The cliffs face west, so the bay sits in cool shade all morning and only ignites in the last two hours of the afternoon, when the rock turns orange and the boats light up. Sunset itself happens behind the headland, which is a feature — the glow lingers on the wall after the sun has gone, and the tavernas switch their lamps on.

Getting down is the decision. The stepped donkey path is scenic and hard on knees; the donkeys have right of way and you never squeeze past them on the drop side. A car or taxi takes the paved road down to the small parking area at the quay, which is what most sessions do — walk down in daylight if you like, but arrange the ride back up.