The island

     Santorini lies at the south end of the prefecture of Cyclades islands in a distance of 128 miles from the port of Piraues. The area of the island is 75 square Km and its population 7.328 people. Santorini, one of the best-known of the Cyclades, differs from the other islands in the group thanks to its geological morphology, the result of action by a volcano now dormant.
     Thousands of tourists visit Santorini every year to witness one of the most majestic sunsets, offered when on top of this wild rock. The most southern of the Cyclades islands has become a meeting place for romantics who wish to admire nature's wild intervention in the south Aegean.
    Santorini is like three islands. One side is the caldera with the villages of Thira, Imerovigli, Firastefani and Oia perched so far above the sea that it may as well be a painting. The towns of Perissa and Kamari attract  to their black sand beaches, thousands of  people. The third part of Santorini is Akrotiri, known of course for the famous ruins from the Minoan period.

Imerovigli

Windmill (Oia)

Traditional houses (Oia)

Blue Church

History

    Known as Calliste (“Most Beautiful”) in antiquity, Thera (Santorini) was occupied before 2000 BC. One of the largest volcanic eruptions known occurred on the island. This is thought to have occurred about 1500 BC, although, based on evidence obtained during the 1980s from a Greenland ice-core and from tree-ring and radiocarbon dating, some scholars believe that it occurred earlier, during the 1620s BC. Ash and pumice from the eruption have been found as far away as Egypt and Israel, and there has been speculation that the eruption was the source of the legend of Atlantis and of stories in the Old Testament book of Exodus.
     During the Bronze Age the island of Crete, some 70 miles (110 km) south of Thera, was the centre of Minoan civilization. About 1450 BC most major settlements in central and southern Crete were destroyed by fire and abandoned. In 1939 the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos suggested that the eruption on Thera had led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization; his theory was widely accepted. During the 1980s, however, archaeologists found evidence that Minoan culture continued to flourish for some time after the eruption. Archaeological evidence also indicated that the amounts of ash from the eruption that fell on Crete were not enough to cause significant damage to crops or buildings.
     About the beginning of the first millennium BC, Dorian settlers from the mainland landed on Thera. About 630 the important Theran colony of Cyrene was settled on the north coast of Africa, in accord with a command of the Delphic oracle. From 308 to 145 the island, a member of the Cycladic League, was a Ptolemaic protectorate.
     From that period date many of the ruins of the ancient city of Thera, unearthed (1895–1903) by a German archaeologist on the east coast. The earliest excavations by the French School at Athens (1869) uncovered a Middle Minoan, or Cycladic (c. 2000–c. 1570 BC), city beneath the pumice at the northern tip of Thirasía. Of even greater significance was the excavation begun by Marinatos during the 1960s south of Akrotíri village, which revealed a rich Minoan city buried under the volcanic debris just as it stood at the time of the eruption. The city (still being excavated) consisted of large, well-built, multi-story houses that contain some of the finest Minoan frescoes found in the Mediterranean.