White villages on the lip of a sunken volcano.
Santorini is the surviving rim of a volcano that collapsed into the sea some three and a half thousand years ago. The villages people come for — Oia, Imerovigli, Fira — stand on the cliff edge, three hundred metres above the water, all of them facing west toward the caldera and the evening.
Most of the island's day visitors arrive by cruise ship and are gone by dusk. What is left after they go — the quiet, and the terrace that is yours alone — is the part worth arranging.
Why Our Clients Go
Our clients come for the caldera side, and within it for the right village. Oia holds the sunset and the crowds that chase it. Imerovigli sits higher and quieter, with Skaros Rock below and much the same view without the queue. We place people by which of those they actually want, not by which name they have heard.
The best rooms here are carved into the volcanic rock — cave suites with a private plunge pool set out over three hundred metres of open air. There are perhaps forty on the island we would put a client in, and in high summer they are spoken for months ahead. We hold the relationships with the houses that own them.
We know the island's smaller truths. Which terrace takes the sunset without a hundred phones beside it. The Assyrtiko vineyards where the vines are wound into low baskets against the wind. The bay below Oia where the fishermen land, and the one table there worth the three hundred steps down. One island, closely known.
How We Arrange It
- 01From London, business class to Athens on British Airways or Aegean, then the forty-minute island hop on Aegean or Sky Express — a single-cabin regional leg we book in the front rows and hold the connection around. From New York, business or first to Athens through a European hub, timed so the last leg lands in daylight for the drive along the rim.
- 02For those who would rather not change at the airport, a private helicopter sets down on the island from Athens direct, or from Mykonos in around forty minutes. We arrange the aircraft and the pad both ends.
- 03Cave suites on the caldera rim at Oia and Imerovigli, each with a plunge pool facing the volcano. Where a client wants space over a view, we look instead to the villa estates set back from the cliff. We name the house to the client, never the client to the house.
- 04A private car meets the aircraft. The climb to the rim is twenty-odd minutes of switchback road, and at Oia, where cars stop short of the village, a porter takes the bags the last stretch on foot.
- 05A private catamaran out of Ammoudi for the afternoon, anchored off the hot springs and the red-sand beach, the return timed so the sunset is watched from the water rather than the wall. One number for all of it. We answer within twelve hours.
When To Go
Late April to June
The wildflowers are still out across the cliffs, the light is clear, and the cruise schedule has not yet reached its peak. The sea is cool for swimming, though the terraces are warm by noon. The quietest way to see the island at its most photographed.
July and August
High summer, and the meltemi — the north wind — blows hardest now. It keeps the sky cloudless and the heat honest, and now and then it grounds a helicopter for an afternoon. Fira fills by mid-morning when the ships are in, so we route people around the middle of the day and keep the mornings and evenings for the rim.
September to mid-October
The water is at its warmest, held over from summer, and the crowds thin week by week. The August harvest is in, so the wineries are unhurried. Softer light, and a sea still warm from August. Our own favourite window.