South Aegean (Cyclades) — Municipality of Thira
Santorini isn't really a town — it's the rim of a drowned volcano, and everything you came for hangs off that cliff. Read more
Καστέλι του Αγίου Νικολάου
The single most recognisable view in the Aegean, and a genuinely extraordinary piece of geography — a village on the rim of a drowned volcano, aimed at the sunset.
Σκάρος
The island's medieval capital, a scramble out onto a volcanic headland in the middle of the caldera, and the least crowded great view on Santorini.
Καστέλι Πύργου
The best-preserved medieval village on Santorini, and a free 360-degree view that shows you the entire island at once rather than one photogenic face of it.
Αρχαία Θήρα
A thousand-year-old Greek city on an open ridge 350 metres above the sea, with the theatre looking straight down at the Aegean — and almost nobody on it.
Ακρωτήρι Θήρας
A Bronze Age town preserved under volcanic ash for 3,600 years — streets, staircases, storerooms and drains — and the reason Santorini mattered long before the sunset did.
Αμμούδι
The best meal on the island, eaten at the waterline under a 100-metre lava cliff — and the swim off the rocks at Agios Nikolaos afterwards.
The only way to understand the shape of Santorini from the inside — ten kilometres along the rim of a collapsed volcano, with the whole caldera on your left the entire way.
Μουσείο Προϊστορικής Θήρας
Everything that was inside the Bronze Age city at Akrotiri, including the frescoes and the gold ibex — without which the excavation itself is just very good masonry.
Βιομηχανικό Μουσείο Τομάτας «Δ. Νομικός»
What Santorini actually did for a living before tourism — a preserved tomato-paste factory with its 1890s machinery in place and its former workers narrating the audio guide.
Περίσσα
The best swimming water on Santorini, under a 350-metre cliff, at a fraction of what the rest of the island costs.
Καμάρι
The island's best-organised beach: black sand under a 350-metre cliff, calm shallow water, Blue Flag quality and everything you need ten metres behind you.
Κόκκινη Παραλία
The most extraordinary colour on Santorini — oxidised red cliffs falling into a dark crescent of sand — best seen from the viewpoint above or from a boat.
The widest range of Santorini wine anywhere, tasted on a terraced deck above the caldera — the island's most efficient wine education, and its most famous sunset table.
The archetypal Santorini meal: whole grilled fish at the water's edge under a 100-metre lava cliff, with the boat it came off tied up ten feet away.
The one restaurant on Santorini where the island's own ingredients get world-class technique — and the wine list to match.
Μεταξύ Μας
Widely rated the best restaurant on Santorini, and one of the few great ones that charges taverna prices because it isn't selling a view.
Το Στέκι του Ψαρά
Widely called the best seafood on Santorini, cooked by a family at a working fishing marina for twenty-odd years — and priced like a taverna, not a landmark.
