Santorini is a small island, located at the south end of the Cyclades island complex. Her name is officially Thera but Santorini is how the island is calls most of the time. She is positioned between Ios and Anafi, 130 nautical miles from Piraeus and 70 nautical miles from Crete. She covers an area of 96 km2 and has a total coastline of 69 kilometres. There are almost 11.000 people living here, 6000 of them living during winter.
The western coastline ends up brutally meeting the famous Santorini caldera. A big basin covering proximately 32 square miles, the depth going from 300 to 600 meters. At the western end of the caldera, we find the island of Therasia and an inhabitant island, Aspronissi. By taking a good look at those three islands we can easily distinguish a virtual borderline of what used to be there before the caldera was formed. The height of the Santorini caldera is 150 to 350 meters. The length of the island from cape Exomitis to cape Mavropetra is 18 kilometres. Her width varies from 2 to 6 kilometres.

The biggest mountain of the island, Mesa Vouno lays S.W. Profitis Ilias, its highest peak, is 550 meters high. To the south lies Gavrilos and to the north Megalo Vouno, 350 meters high and Mikros Profitis Ilias, 340 meters high.

Starting from the northern end of the island, cape Mavropetra and going south, we meet capes Kolumbo, Vourvoulo, Kamari, Agios Georgios, Mesa Vouno and Exomitis witch is the southeast point of the island. If we continue north, northwest, we meet capes Mavro and Akrotiri. Now we enter the caldera. We find here Athinios bay and Kato Fira and the capes Skaros and Tourlos. We end up with Mouzaki bay and Oia (pronounced Ia). Santorini has a typical Aegean island climate. During summer, it rarely rains and temperature rises from 25 up to 35 degrees. In winter, it rains often, but almost never snows. Temperature is between 15-25 degrees. Santorini has a fertile volcanic soil. Cultivated carefully over the years, this soil has made Santorini well known for its products. First of all its wines. Santorini has some of the best wines worldwide. After all, the biggest part of the cultivation is vines. "Fava" is also famous, a legume smaller than a pea, exported all over the world.
A special bread of tomatoes is also produced. The lack of water resulted, over the years, in evolving very small tasty tomatoes. They are also used to make the "belte", the famous concentrated tomato paste. A kind of cheese, named "chloro", is made from goat milk. Finally, Santorini exports the famous pumice stone, used worldwide.
 

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