THE PHOTO ESSAY

SANTORINI – AN ERUPTION OF HISTORY AND BEAUTY

By Michael Doherty

Michael Doherty is a film and television editor based in Toronto. He is also an avid traveller with a keen eye.

I have visited the Greek island of Santorini three times – in 1994, 2011, and 2019. Santorini, part of the Cyclades group of islands, is located in the Aegean Sea southeast of Athens and can be reached by ferry and air. It is a geologically spectacular place, having formed from various volcanic eruptions during the last 22,000 years. One of the largest and most violent outbursts in recorded history was the Minoan eruption, about 1600 BC, which buried the town of Akrotiri, on the southern tip of Santorini, and wiped out the Minoan civilization on Crete.

FIRÁ

The main town of Firá sits on the edge of the volcanic caldera (the large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses), offering beautiful views of the now circular archipelago and its magnificent sunsets. Oia, on the northern tip of the island, is a charming town that fills with visitors at sunset. It can be reached by bus from Firá – or, for the adventurous, by a four-hour walk along the caldera.

AKROTIRI

The buried town of Akrotiri was rediscovered in 1867 and has been very well preserved. I was able to walk through the open-air town in 1994. A roof structure was built in the early 2000s to help preserve the site.

In 2011, I stayed at the Dream Island Hotel, a lovely family-run place in Firá. Rossetos and Georgia, the husband and wife who operated the site, made me feel most welcome, inviting me to share breakfast with them each morning and treating me like a member of the family.

They brought me to visit their chicken farm up in the hills, and to a wonderful seaside fi sh restaurant that was owned by their cousin. We became good friends, and I promised I’d be back to visit. Eight years later I made it, and was able to join them in celebrating Rossetos’s birthday at their hotel on a beautiful, warm Greek summer evening.