Its red cliffs frosted with whitewashed hamlets and fringed with black sand beaches, Santorini has a savage beauty. The volcanic eruption that created the flooded caldera, or basin, in 1500 BC also buried the island’s biggest settlement at Akrotiri. This Bronze Age city was discovered barely 30 years ago, buried beneath 33 ft (10 m) of ash. Recreations of the stunning frescoes unearthed at Akrotiri are on display in the island’s capital, Fira, which can be reached by a thrilling cable-car ride from the port of Gialos.
The dramatic landscape makes for wondrous sunsets, but made it difficult for locals to eke out a living until the advent of tourism. Only a few crops can be coaxed from the island’s arid soil – succulent grapes, sweet white eggplants, cherry tomatoes bursting with flavor, piquant capers, and the resilient fava bean. More prized (and much pricier) than fava grown elsewhere in Greece, this plain little bean has been cultivated on Santorini since the Bronze Age, its flat plants able to absorb moisture from the porous pumice stone. After harvesting, the beans are left to dry, then stripped of their brown husks to reveal yellow grains, bright as jewels.
