Santorini island is located in the Cyclades complex, in the south Aegean archipelago. Throughout history, its inhabitants would call it with different names, such as Kallisti (“the most beautiful”) and Strongili (“round shaped”) to name but a few.

During the second millennium B.C., a coastal city with a big port was located in the south part of the island, constituting the center of a great Cycladic civilization, known today for its high level of technology and fine arts creations.

In the later Bronze Age, a volcanic eruption destroyed this cradle of human civilization, leaving everything buried under the lava. The geological results of this explosion were three stripes of land (today’s Santorini, Therasia and Old Kameni).

Hundreds of years after this apocalypse, first the Lakaidemonians (most known as Spartans, who gave the island its classical name “Thera”) and then a sequence of other peoples such as the Phoenicians, the Ptolemies, the Romans, the Byzantines, Crusaders and Pirates, the Venetians (who gave the name Santorini, after a church dedicated to Santa Irene), the Turks and finally the Greek State in 1830, claimed this small and arid land.

A devastating earthquake in 1956 A.C led to the reconstruction of the biggest part of the island and the final positioning of the villages as we find them today. From the late 70’s until today, Santorini has developed as one of the biggest touristic destinations in the world.