You walk back to your cave hotel. Yes, a cave . The locals carved these rooms into the pumice stone centuries ago to stay cool. Now, they feel like secret grottos.
You look up. There is no light pollution here. You see the Milky Way spilling across the sky. It is easy to believe the myths here—that Atlantis lies beneath your feet, that gods once threw tantrums in these rocks. The crowds are gone. The only sound is the lapping of the Aegean against the cliffs 800 feet below. a night in santorini
You realize something. Santorini by day is a museum. You look at it. You walk back to your cave hotel
You descend the steps. The restaurant has no walls, only arches looking out into the void. You order the cherry tomato fritters and a glass of Assyrtiko wine—the grapes grown in volcanic ash, tasting distinctly of salt and stone. After dinner, you find a bar with a deck built over the water. Below, the caldera is a black mirror. Across the water, the dormant volcano sits like a sleeping beast. Now, they feel like secret grottos
The cliché is true: you have never seen a sunset like this. It lasts forever and ends too soon. Now it is dark. True dark. The kind of dark that makes the stars look like chipped diamonds.