Santorini is not easy to describe. Santorini is not comparable with any other Greek island. What makes it so different from any other island, is its imposing landscape, the caldera with its impressionistic contrast of colors, its terrifying birth...

Santorini is a small island, located at the south end of the Cyclades island complex. Her name is officially Thera but Santorini is how the island is calls most of the time. She is positioned between Ios and Anafi, 130 nautical miles from Piraeus and 70 nautical miles from Crete. She covers an area of 96 km2 and has a total coastline of 69 kilometers. There are almost 11.000 people living here, 6000 of them living during winter.

The western coastline ends up brutally meeting the famous Santorini caldera. A big basin covering approximately 32 square miles, the depth going from 300 to 600 meters. At the western end of the caldera, we find the island of Therasia and an inhabitant island, Aspronissi. By taking a good look at those three islands we can easily distinguish a virtual borderline of what used to be there before the caldera was formed.





Fira, the capital of Santorini clings to the edge of a cliff, which is, in fact, the rim of the crater. It is 900 feet above the landing port and about 800 broad, zigzagged steps up from the port. The architecture is a jumble of Cycladic and Venetian, side by side, the similarities between the two being the stark whiteness. Wandering through the white cobbled streets of Fira, a town of about 2,000 inhabitants; one gets the feel of the old-world charm blended in with the modern day comforts. The town's archaeological museum is crammed with finds from excavations at Akrotiri. But besides being so interesting archaeologically, Santorini is essentially a beauty spot, an island whose cliffs seem to glow under an exceptionally clear light all day, but which at sunset glow medley, evoking that vast explosion more than 3.000 years ago.