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No other island is like it. This Minoan capital was decimated by its volcano 3,500 years ago, which has led many archaeologists to suggest it may have been home to the lost civilization of Atlantis. Santorini owes its present peculiar, twin-peaked, arched shape—as well its famous black-sand beaches and the
high, striated black-red-gray cliffs—to that cataclysm. The caldera, a seven-mile crater enclosed by the two arms of the crescent, is Santorini's defining feature and its harbor. Sunset over the caldera is the nightly big show, which is accompanied by a festive atmosphere wherever there's a west-facing cliff-side terrace (and there are a lot of them). If you're thinking of walking, the capital, Thira, is dramatically perched on a cliff, up nearly 600 steps (alternatively, catch a cab, a cable car, or a mule), and is very gorgeous but very spoiled by tourism. The center of gentrified, controlled tourism is breathtaking Oia (a.k.a. Ia), clinging to the cliffs on the northernmost edge of the caldera, its 19th-century merchants' villas and restored troglodytic peasant houses spread around the ruins of a 13th-century Venetian castle. This is where the posh, beautiful hotels and villas are, and it's likely to stay posh and beautiful thanks to zoning laws. Many beaches on Santorini, as mentioned, have black sand (you can imagine what this does to bare feet), and they are concentrated in the east and south. Kamari is the main one but not worth the journey—it's been touristed to death. Head north-east to Baxedes beach, just outside Oia, to avoid the crowds.
http://www.concierge.com/travelguide/cyclades/seeanddo/540
Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The tepidly anticipated return of the videogame vixen belly-flopped on its US release, and it did so with a splat that could drown out several summer blockbusters' worth of car-crunch and detonations. From the tinnitus-inducing opener - a mini-avalanche on Santorini - The Cradle of Life erects a crumbling wall of sound and wields its fallen rocks like truncheons: collapsing temples, screaming sharks, glass-shattering gunfire, teeth-rattling helicopters. After the end credits roll, patrons stagger out shellshocked, eardrums perforated and equilibrium shot. Impervious to the sonic booming all around her, lissome Lara (Jolie) enters accessorised by jet ski and hair
extensions. She must outwit bioweapons demon Dr Jonathan Reiss (Hinds) for custody of plague dispensary Pandora's Box. Ostensibly, Reiss and Croft make worthy opponents, but De Bont spares little time for mind-to-mind combat between the adversaries, while the love-hate tug match of Lara and her roguish right-hand Terry Sheridan (Butler) accidentally yields the only laugh line of this deafening movie. JWin.
Author: JWin
Time Out Film Guide
World's Best 2001: Top Islands: Santorini
Santorini, Greece
Score: 61
"Villages perched along the rim of the island have maintained an extraordinary aesthetic appeal."
"The cave hotels in the crater wall are a wonderful adaptation of traditional housing, modified for tourism."
"Santorini must be protected. Rampant illegal construction in its countryside will change the island's ecosystem. Low-quality architectural imitations of traditional buildings create a fake built environment. Huge buses transporting cruise boat passengers make it dangerous and annoying for pedestrians."
"Big emphasis on shopping and dining, but the well-presented archaeology, relaxed outer villages, local cuisine, and dramatic geological story—so visible as a backdrop—are highlights. Over-active cruise ship tourism threatens all fronts, requiring monitoring by local tourism officials. Greek National Tourism will not do it!"
"Stunning visually—and this can disguise environmental issues. Greek society evolved to deal with the dry climate in the absence of hundreds of thousands of visitors now placing additional demands on natural resources."
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