Oia

Oia stretches for almost two kilometres along the northwestern tip of Santorini, perched on the rim of the caldera 70 to 100 metres above the sea. The caldera is the flooded crater of a volcano, and the village clings to its inner wall: white houses, blue domes and terraces tumble down the cliff in layers, and far below the water shines in the drowned crater. Many of the dwellings are hyposkafa, cave houses cut into the soft volcanic rock, tucked into niches of the caldera wall.

The village was once rich. In the late nineteenth century Oia was a port of ship owners and sailors, home to around 130 sailing vessels and some 2,500 inhabitants, and its captains built neoclassical mansions, the kapetanospita, on the highest part of the village, their strict, symmetrical facades standing out among the cave houses. A maritime museum keeps figureheads, charts and ship models from that era. At the very tip of the village are the remains of the Venetian castle of Agios Nikolaos, first recorded in 1480, a lookout and refuge from pirates.

In July 1956 a major earthquake struck the island. Much of Oia was damaged, part of the old settlement slid into the caldera, and many people emigrated; by the late 1970s only a few hundred remained. The village has long since recovered and is now best known for its sunsets, when the whole caldera turns gold and the white walls take on the colour of the sky. Below the castle, some 300 stone steps lead down to the tiny harbour of Ammoudi Bay at the water's edge.

Getting there

Oia lies at the northern end of Santorini, about 11 km from Fira, the island's main town, with regular buses between the two. Santorini International Airport (JTR) is about 12 km away; the island is also served by ferries from the mainland and other islands.