Photo: Ad Meskens ()
A self-guided audio walking tour of the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri on Santorini, following the raised walkway under the roof of the excavation. Systematic excavation began on 25 May 1967 under Spyridon Marinatos, whose grave stands near the southern entrance; after his death at the site in 1974 Christos Doumas continued the work. The settlement first appeared in the Late Neolithic and grew into an urban society and an important Aegean port from the twentieth to the seventeenth centuries BC, until the eruption buried it under pumice and ash; the date of the eruption is still debated. The walk runs from south to north: the large ashlar buildings Xeste 3, with its grand staircase, Xeste 4 and Xeste 2; the House of the Ladies around its light-well; Complex Gamma and the paved Telchines Road, the town's main street; the Pithoi Storeroom, the Mill House and Complexes Beta and Delta; and Triangle Square and the West House, whose upper-floor window overlooks the square. The wall paintings are not on site but in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Akrotiri is about ten to fifteen kilometres from Fira, where cruise tenders land, so for cruise passengers the ship's own excursion is the safer choice.
14 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 2 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 1 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
The Shelter and the Excavation, Marinatos Grave, Xeste 3, Xeste 4, Xeste 2.
House of the Ladies, Complex Gamma, Telchines Road, Pithoi Storeroom.
Mill House, Complex Beta, Complex Delta, Triangle Square, West House.
A large multi-storey building toward the southern edge of the town, its imposing façade and grand staircase suggesting a building for wider use than a single household.
A multi-storey house whose rooms and corridors are arranged around a central square light-well that brought light and air inside.
Akrotiri's main thoroughfare, paved with large flat stones, following the crest of the promontory and widening into squares.
A building read as a central supply store, its ground floor given to storage and its upper floor to production.
Four architectural units on the north-east side of Mill Square, built up over time from volcanic tuff, clay and timber.
The house on the north side of Triangle Square, with storerooms and workshops below and its principal room lit by a large upper-floor window.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 14 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Akrotiri — the Bronze Age Town under the Ash, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including The Shelter and the Excavation, Xeste 3, Telchines Road, Pithoi Storeroom and Mill House. That is about 19 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 14 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.