Handpicked experience · Santorini
Santorini, Greece
A Bronze Age town whose people escaped before the eruption, indoor plumbing from 1600 BC, and a village rebuilt after the earthquake of 1956.
A guided visit to the island's principal excavation
The Koutsoyanopoulos wine museum, underground in the pumice
Several panoramic caldera viewpoints along the way
The Monastery of Prophet Elias, at the island's highest point
A seaside lunch stop and a late-afternoon drop-off in Oia for the sunset
Twelve hours around Santorini by coach: the excavated Bronze Age town, the island's highest monastery, a cellar cut through pumice, caldera viewpoints, a stop by the sea for lunch and a finish in Oia for the sunset.
You are collected in the morning and the day works its way around the island rather than up and down the caldera rim. A guide covers the archaeological site and the wine museum; the viewpoints and the lunch stop are yours. The coach drops you in Oia in the late afternoon and waits until after the sun has gone.
Around 1600 BC the volcano buried a Bronze Age town under metres of ash, and the ash preserved it: streets, squares, houses standing two and three storeys high, frescoes still on the walls. What excavation has not found is people. No bodies, no jewellery, no silver, no gold. The inhabitants had enough warning to gather what mattered and leave, and nobody came back for what they left behind.
The town had a drainage system built into the walls: clay pipes running from upper floors down to a sewer beneath the street, with lavatories connected to it inside private houses. That is around three and a half thousand years old, and it is centuries ahead of anything comparable in Europe. Some of the pipes ran hot water, and the working assumption is that they were tapping the volcano.
Prophet Elias sits at the top of the island, founded in 1711 by two monks from Crete. Under Ottoman rule its community ran workshops and a school, teaching in Greek at a time when that was discouraged, and it grew into a small self-contained economy of its own. From the terrace the whole crescent of the island lies below you, and on a clear day you can make out the mountains of Crete.
The wine museum occupies a natural cave enlarged by hand and running roughly three hundred metres underground, eight metres below the surface, on an estate that has been in the same family since 1870. The temperature down there barely moves through the year, which is the entire reason cellars were dug into this soft rock in the first place.
The village people photograph was largely rebuilt after 1956, when an earthquake of magnitude seven and a half destroyed much of the island in a few seconds. Half the buildings on Santorini came down, thousands left and never returned, and what stands today is the reconstruction. The famous view is genuinely old in its bones and mostly modern in its walls.
Twelve hours is a long day and the sun on the caldera rim is unrelenting; take water and a hat. Lunch and the archaeological site admission are settled on the day. Oia fills an hour before sunset, so pick your spot early rather than arriving with the crowd. Cancellation is free up to a day ahead.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
The archaeological site and the wine museum with a guide, several caldera viewpoints, the monastery at the island's highest point, a seaside stop for lunch and a drop-off in Oia for sunset.
Because the town was evacuated. There is no jewellery, silver or gold either — the inhabitants had enough warning to gather what mattered and leave, and nobody returned for the rest.
They stand two and three storeys high with frescoes still on the walls, and they had drainage built into them: clay pipes running from upper floors to a sewer under the street, with lavatories connected inside private homes.
The island's highest monastery, founded in 1711 by two monks from Crete. Its community ran workshops and a school teaching in Greek under Ottoman rule, and the terrace looks over the whole crescent of the island.
A natural cave enlarged by hand, running about three hundred metres underground on an estate held by the same family since 1870. The temperature underground barely changes across the year.
Because much of it is. An earthquake in 1956 brought down half the buildings on Santorini in seconds, thousands of people left for good, and the village standing today is the reconstruction.
No. The seaside stop gives you time and the choice; food and drinks are settled there.