Greece, Santorini

The photograph of Santorini — blue dome, white wall, Aegean below — is one of the most reproduced images in the history of travel photography. It has been reproduced so many times that arriving on the island carries a real risk of anticlimax. And then the caldera appears. A sea-filled volcanic crater 12 kilometres across and 400 metres deep, ringed by cliffs that drop sheer from the whitewashed villages above. The photograph turns out to have undersold it.

Santorini’s topography is the direct result of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in human history, around 1,600 BCE. The explosion — possibly the event behind the Atlantis legend — collapsed the volcano’s centre into the sea and left the curved caldera walls the modern island sits on. The remaining landmass is the eruption’s rim: steep cliffs of volcanic ash and pumice on the caldera side, gentler slopes of black volcanic soil toward the Aegean on the east.

The soil has proven exceptional for viticulture. The indigenous Assyrtiko grape is grown in basket-trained vines that sit nearly flat against the ground to survive the island’s violent Meltemi winds. The resulting white wines carry a volcanic minerality and natural acidity that have made Santorini a serious wine destination in its own right. Winery visits, particularly at Estate Argyros and Domaine Sigalas, connect the landscape to the glass in a way that makes both more legible.

The accommodation that defines Santorini internationally is the cave suite: a room carved directly from the volcanic pumice of the caldera rim, with barrel-vaulted ceilings, thick walls that hold a cool temperature regardless of exterior heat, and a private plunge pool cantilevered over the 400-metre drop to the sea below. The view from those pools — caldera water below, sky above, the volcanic island of Nea Kameni sitting in the centre — is the most photographed accommodation experience in Europe, and for once the reality matches the photo.

The best cave hotels cluster in Oia at the northern tip, which has the optimal sunset position, and Imerovigli, the highest point on the rim, which has the most dramatic caldera panorama and fewer visitors. These are intimate properties, typically 8 to 20 suites, with plunge pools, outdoor dining, and a degree of privacy that the crowded village lanes outside give no hint of.

The island rewards time beyond the rim. Akrotiri, on the southern tip, is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Aegean: a Minoan Bronze Age city preserved under volcanic ash in superb condition, with two and three-storey buildings, sophisticated plumbing, and painted frescoes that give real insight into a civilisation that pre-dates classical Greece by a thousand years.

The black sand beaches of the east coast — Perissa, Perivolos, Kamari — offer a completely different rhythm: beach clubs, casual tavernas, and the odd experience of lying on sand so dark it absorbs heat unlike any other beach you have encountered. The volcanic landscape makes even ordinary things feel slightly off. That persistent slight strangeness is exactly what Santorini is for.