SANTORINI · GREECE
White towns on the rim of a volcano.
Caldera cruises and sunset sailings, volcano swims and volcanic-ash wine, the blue domes of Oia and the cliff paths of Fira. Every way out onto the water and through the white towns.
Only here
Three things you can only do on a sunken volcano.
Boat trips and beach days come with every Greek island. Sailing the flooded crater, swimming the volcano’s warm springs and drinking wine grown in its ash do not.
Inside a volcano
Sailing the Caldera
The caldera is what was left when an eruption 3,600 years ago dropped the centre of the island into the sea. You sail across the flooded crater itself, cliffs climbing 300 metres straight from the water and the white towns strung along the rim above. There is no other harbour quite like it.
- 1 Santorini: Catamaran Tour with BBQ Dinner, Drinks, and Music
- 2 Santorini Classic Catamaran Cruise with BBQ, Drinks and Transfers
- 3 Santorini: Luxury Catamaran Day Trip with Meal and Open Bar
Still warm
The Volcano and Its Springs
Nea Kameni is the young black lava islet at the centre of the caldera, its last eruption in 1950, the ground still warm and sulphur-streaked underfoot. Boats moor off neighbouring Palea Kameni so you can drop from the deck and swim into the iron-red warm springs that seep straight out of the seabed.
- 1 Santorini: Volcanic Islands Cruise with Hot Springs Visit
- 2 Santorini: Catamaran Caldera Cruise with Meal and Drinks
- 3 Santorini Caldera Cruise Tour (Volcano, Hot Springs, Thirassia)
Grown in ash
Assyrtiko From the Ash
Almost nothing should grow in Santorini’s pumice and ash, with no real rain and a constant salt wind off the sea. The vines are coiled low into baskets called kouloura that catch the morning mist, a method found almost nowhere else, and they turn the volcanic ground into Assyrtiko, one of the great white wines of the Mediterranean.
- 1 Santorini Wine Adventure with 12 Wine Tastings, Tapas and Sunset
- 2 Santorini Wine Stories: Sunset Tour with Tasting & Dinner
- 3 Greek Cuisine Cooking Class in Santorini with Recipes and Wine
Book this first
The trip most visitors build the day around.
If you only get out onto the caldera once, this is the one the most people choose.
The classics
Santorini's Most Popular Tours
Caldera cruises, sunset sailings, volcano trips and wine days. The experiences most travellers come to Santorini for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Santorini trip is built around.
The volcano and its hot springs, the catamaran days, the sunset sailings, the Assyrtiko wineries, the caldera photoshoots and the blue-domed villages. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big question
Where to be when the sun goes down.
Santorini’s is the most-watched sunset in the Mediterranean, and Oia fills up for it by mid-afternoon. Three ways to take it in, depending on how close to the crowd you want to stand.
The flying dress
The photoshoot the island is famous for.
Somewhere along the way Santorini became the set for the flying-dress photo: a long silk train thrown into the wind against the blue domes and the open caldera. Local photographers run the whole thing, the dress and the styling included, and know the spots that catch the light and miss the crowd.
Read the guide: the best flying-dress photoshoots →The caldera
Where the cliffs fall straight to the sea.
The whole island bends around one drowned crater, eleven kilometres across and walled by cliffs that drop three hundred metres into water too deep to anchor in. Cross it by catamaran, swim off its black volcanic islets, or just watch it turn gold from the rim at dusk.
Caldera cruises & boat trips →By place
The island, place by place.
Oia for the blue domes and the sunset. Fira for the cliff-top capital. The caldera for the volcano and the warm springs. Akrotiri for the buried city and the Red Beach.
By experience
Pick how to spend the day.
A catamaran if you want the caldera. A cellar door if you want the wine. A flowing dress if you want the photograph. Sea kayaks, sunset sails and the old Minoan city for the rest.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time on the island? Here is a three-day run that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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