Things to do
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Akrotiri
You walk above the streets of a Bronze Age town buried by the Thera eruption, close enough to look into its houses and squares.
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Ammoudi Bay
Ammoudi Bay is the small fishing port at the foot of Oia's cliff, with waterfront tavernas and a rocky swimming spot at Armeni, a few minutes' walk past the last one. The stepped path down from the castle takes 20 to 30 minutes, and a road also runs down to informal parking at the port.
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Megalochori
A wine village in the south of the island, its lanes passing between old canavas, the vaulted wine cellars. Around it, vines grow low in coiled baskets on the ash soil to shelter the grapes from the wind. Several estates nearby offer tastings of Assyrtiko and sweet Vinsanto. Booking a tasting ahead is wise in summer.
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Nea Kameni
Walk up through black lava to a crater rim where sulphur vents still steam, on the only part of the Santorini volcano that visitors walk on.
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Pyrgos Kallistis
The island's former capital, an inland hill village wound in rings around the ruin of a Venetian castle, with blue-domed churches at every turn of the lanes. It sees a fraction of the visitors the caldera villages do. The top gives a view over the whole island from coast to coast. On Good Friday the entire hillside is lit with thousands of tin-can flares.
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Red Beach
Red Beach is a small cove under red volcanic cliffs south of Akrotiri. The beach itself is officially closed to pedestrians because the cliffs shed rock, so a visit is the five-minute walk from the car park to look down on it, with no shade and no beach bar.
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Santorini caldera
From the rim you look down on the caldera; from a boat you are inside it, three minutes by cable car from Fira to the old port and ten minutes across to the black volcano at its centre.
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Ancient Thera
A Greek and Roman city strung along a bare ridge 360 metres above the sea on the island's east coast, inhabited for a thousand years from the ninth century BC. A single main street runs past temples, a theatre, a gymnasium and houses with sea views on both sides. A hairpin road climbs from Kamari. It closes in mid-afternoon and is very exposed to wind.
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Canaves Oia Suites
A collection of suites and villas carved into the cliff at Oia, several with private plunge pools looking across the caldera to the volcano. A spa sits within the property. Village lanes and the sunset point at the castle are a short walk away.
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Castle of Agios Nikolaos
The ruined Venetian castle known locally as Kasteli stands at Oia's western tip above the caldera, and it is the island's best-known sunset viewpoint. In July and August its walls fill well before sunset, and the long stepped path down to Ammoudi Bay starts beside it.
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Katikies Santorini
One of the long-running names on the Oia caldera rim, close to the village but away from the sunset crowd at the castle.
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Museum of Prehistoric Thera
A compact museum in Fira that completes a visit to Akrotiri, holding what came out of the houses: painted jars, bronze tools, plaster casts of vanished wooden furniture and a small gold ibex found in 1999. Several frescoes are here, among them blue monkeys climbing a rock face. An hour is enough. It is closed one day a week, usually Tuesday.
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Perissa
A long beach of black volcanic sand on the south-east coast, running toward Perivolos below the rocky Mesa Vouno headland. Sunbeds, tavernas and beach bars line the shore, and the water deepens quickly. The dark sand gets very hot by midday, so beach shoes help. Ancient Thera stands on the ridge above.
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Profitis Ilias Monastery
Profitis Ilias Monastery stands on the island's highest point, and monks still live in it. Only the chapel and the courtyard are open to visitors, and the courtyard is the reason to stop: it looks out across the whole of Santorini.
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Skaros Rock
Skaros Rock is a volcanic headland at Imerovigli on the caldera rim, where a Venetian-era fortress once stood. The path out to the rock is a detour of 30 to 60 minutes off the Fira to Oia walk, and the cape is exposed, so keep back from the edges in wind.
