As I watched the sun descend in a haze of vanilla and scarlet over one of the world’s most famous volcanic calderas it was easy to understand why ‘Santorini honeymoon’ was one of the most popular Google searches in 2024. Far beneath me, the volcanic crater plunged in layers of red and black lava to the wine-dark sea beneath, whilst Oia’s whitewashed cave hotels perched on the crater’s rim above me like icing on a wedding cake. In summer, Santorini’s famous sunset spot near the ruins of its Venetian castle would have been packed with punters battling to get their selfies. In February, however, there were only half a dozen of us admiring that spectacular view. “My friends will think I’ve used Photoshop when they see my pictures of Santorini with hardly any people,” I heard someone say.
Like its overtouristy peers Barcelona and Venice, this 76km squared Cyclades island, which attracts 3.4 million visitors per year has had a lot of bad press recently. “We face all the problems of a big city, even though we are not designed to be a big city or to deal with these problems,” mayor Nikos Zorzos told reporters in 2023. Much of the blame for overcrowding is put on cruise ship tourists – there can be as many as 17,000 per day. In a bid to combat the problem, Greece’s tourism minister Vassilis Kikilias launched a programme to encourage tourism out of season. And in 2024, a handful of hotels and restaurants began opening their doors in winter. “People who come here between December and March want to discover the real Santorini – the one most people never see,” Nikos Boutsinis of Santorini Walking Tours told me later as he led me on a hike along the cobbled caldera footpath that leads from Fira to Oia.
Most of the glitzy caldera-edge hotels remain closed out of season, however, so I was staying at Santorini Sky, a sleek villa complex on the slopes of Profitis Ilias the island’s highest mountain. “Santorini is the quintessential romantic experience so we’re always open on Valentine’s Day – we have the hottest Jacuzzis on the island and plenty of treats for our guests,” enthused owner Daniel Kerzner as he showed me to my…
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