Oia / Santorini
Volcanic Romance
high-season pressure
Portrait
Oia stands on the lip of a caldera formed when the volcano collapsed around 1600 BC, and its white cave houses are cut backwards into pumice rather than built forwards from stone. Sleep here instead of arriving with the cruise ships: the sunset crowd disperses by nine, and the village returns to a place where donkeys still carry building material up the cliff.
If you like this city