Romantic, breathtaking, and unforgettable Santorini is one of the most beautiful islands with cliffs overlooking the southern Aegean sea. Especially its stunning whitewashed architecture and blue-domed churches. Standing in the middle of the villages doing a 360 turn is picturesque with every turn.

Santorini consists of a group of islands, Thira, Thirassia, Aspronissi, Palea, and New Kameni, in the southern part of the Cyclades. Santorini’s average temperature is in the low 80s in July and August.

To get around the island

There are several ways to explore the Island, such as donkeys, bikes, hiking, and rental cars. In addition, Santorini serves several unique Mediterranean dishes, and the island tomatoes are deliciously sweet. Furthermore, there are unique clothing stores and souvenir shops. Not to mention, the people are friendly and gracious.

Santorini history

According to Britannica, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote the first people that inhabited the Island in the 13th century B.C. were the Phoenicians naming the Island Kallisti, meaning most beautiful. Then a century later, the Dorians from Sparta settled and renamed the Island Thera after their king. Also, the people on Island adopted the Phoenician alphabet written for Greek.

The great volcanic eruption

The Island of Thera, known as Santorini, was destroyed by a volcano eruption followed by a tsunami 3,600 years ago in the Aegean Sea. According to National Geographic, a paper published in 2021 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences international team of researchers uncovered the evidence.

Thera volcanic eruption on the explosive index categorizes it as a seven out of 8. It was the most destructive event in human history. Without a doubt, the researchers described the detonation of millions of Hiroshima-type bombs.

According to researchers, numerous scholars presume the Bronze Age event of 1600 B.C. is in Plato’s allegory of the sunken city of Atlantis, written thousands of years later. The catastrophic event is in the biblical Ten Plagues. Today Akrotiri, a Minoan town on the Greek Island of Santorini buried by a volcano, is a popular tourist attraction similar to Pompeii.

Apart from this, the wealthy maritime Minoans on the nearby Island of Crete disappeared around the same time 15th century B.C., after the Thera eruption following the tsunami. Modern researchers are yet to uncover evidence of what happened to them.

In 2009, Archaeologist Vasif Sahoglu of Turkey’s Ankara University dug up collapsed fortification walls, layers of ash, and lots of pottery, bone, and marine shells at an excavation site of Cesme-Baglararasi. It’s a famous resort town of Cesme on Turkey’s Aegean coast is 100 miles from Santorini.

Sahoglu contacted peers with an array of specialties to make sense of what he uncovered, including reaching out to Beverly Goodman-Tchernov, a professor of marine geosciences at the Israel’s University of Haifa and National Geographic Explorer and an expert in identifying tsunamis in the archaeological and geological records.

According to these archaeologists, past tsunamis are challenging to investigate evidence of collapsed buildings and fires destroyed by earthquakes, floods, and storms because the evidence decays quickly in environments such as the Aegean coast.

With Thera’s eruption followed by a tsunami roaring through the Aegean Sea, they found evidence as far as Greenland’s ice sheets and California’s bristlecone pines. Furthermore, six physical sites from its impact have been identified but have yet to be evident as the Cesme-Baglararasi dig.

No victims are a mystery.

“How does one of the worst natural disasters in history have no victims?” Şahoğlu asks.

Researchers are still puzzled by the Thera eruption with no evidence of victims. They estimated more than 35,000 people died—only one man was found in the late 19th-century investigation, buried under the rubble of the Santorini Archipelago. According to the researcher’s latest paper, they suspect he may have been an earthquake victim.

The theory of no victims from its earlier eruption, the people could have fled the area. Or victims were disintegrated by the extremely heated gasses, lost a sea drowning, or mass graves are yet to be found and investigated.

Goodman-Tchernov speculates that researchers may be unable to recognize tsunami deposits in past investigations that could have been identified in victims but did not make the connection.

The first victim found at the Cesme-Baglararasi dig, a healthy young man with blunt force trauma found in the rubble of a tsunami deposit. A dog skeleton was found nearby in a collapsed doorway. In addition, they found a grain of barley near the remains, so radiocarbon dates back to 1612 B.C.

According to the researchers, some outside experts still have specific questions about its methodology while investigating new data revealing its chronology issue that still needs to be resolved with the Cesme-Baglararasi dig.

Santorini, after its catastrophic event erected with a unique characteristic of architecture. The village’s whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches are constructed with volcanic dust, black igneous rock, red rock, pumice stone, and pathways throughout the town.

Architecture

The architecture of homes is called cave houses or called Yposkafa. The home’s foundation was dug out of volcanic rock, with upper walls built above the ground with a sunlight-facing living room. Its bedrooms and traditional kitchen are in the back, with a fireplace—the bathroom is outside the house.

Must-see tourist attractions

The Island’s attraction is the five fortified castles built to protect the Island from invasion between the 14th and 18th centuries, the ruins on the edge of the caldera cliff.

Amoudi Bay is a small busy port below Oia with an array of fresh seafood restaurants, a scenic view, crystal clear waters, and boats sailing throughout the day. The famous places to see are the volcano, swimming in the hot springs, hiking the caldera cliffs, and walking the beaches. Another attraction is the sunset cruises.

Skaros Rock is a large rock formation extending into the caldera on the northwestern part of Santorini. If you are up for a hike from Imerovigli, its 10-kilometer trail takes 30 minutes to spectacular views.

Art Space Santorini is a beautiful place for art and wine lover. Its gallery is on the way to Kamari in Argyros Canava and one of the oldest wineries on the Island. The walls of the wine caverns display paintings and sculptures of 30 contemporary Greek artists. One artist from Santorini produces the wine under the Art Space wine labels.