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Santorini   “Go to Santorini. It's awesome. See the volcano and the most romantic sunset I have ever seen.” — Natasha “Take it from a multi-time visitor to Santorini. Go! It's a once in a lifetime journey. ... Take the footpath to Oia, and a must there is a visit to the small harbor, Ammudi below.” — Pete W. We knew little of Santorini, a small, crescent-shaped island in the Cyclades group in the southern Aegean, though we'd heard that in the past decade it had joined the ranks of the world's top resort destinations. We fell in love with the place the moment we set eyes on the dozens of pure white sugarcube houses perched dramatically atop sheer, gaunt cliffs that plunge a thousand feet to the sea. The capital harbor of Fira sits in an ocean-filled volcanic ring left behind by a titanic eruption 3,500 years ago that devastated the region, nearly wiping out the Minoan civilization on Crete, 100 miles distant. The destruction was so widespread that legend — discounted by archeologists — persists that this was the historical Atlantis. As dusk fell, we followed the dirt footpath to Oia, six miles to the north. From our perch on the lip of the caldera, we took in the haunting, spectacular view: black jagged lava islands shrouded in a veil of mist, cruise liners in the blue harbor, whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches spilling off the red cliffs. We passed a cliff face sculpted with rich, thick layers of sienna red, charcoal and gray pumice, betraying the island's tumultuous geological past. As a perfect sunset faded, the purple sky twitched with young stars, and Fira — the main town on this island of 7,000 residents and 5 million annual tourists — began to light up like a fairy town in a Tolkien novel. We reached Oia at nightfall, just as as a young boy was scaling a catch of mackerel on the wharf outside Tokyma, one of the dozen idyllic dockside tavernas of Ammoudhi. We ate a satisfying local dish of monk fish and shrimp the size of sea serpents on the cozy terrace of Koukoumavlos and then strolled along Oia's narrow, mazelike cobblestone streets to the town square, where we bought small, intricately painted vases and silver bracelets as gifts and keepsakes. “On Santorini, try to find the small fish taverna run by two elderly sisters, at the end of the road in Perrivolos (you won't find it on the tourist maps). Great food.” — Demos As in much of the e-mail we received, the details were a bit off — the owners of the Country Paradise Taverna are not sisters, and Perivolos was misspelled — but the advice was dead on. We weren't certain of that at first. Tucked away on the island's remote southern side, the taverna (as the Greeks call their restaurants) was deserted when we arrived at 1:30 p.m. But then Danezi Paravalu led us into her kitchen to let us pick out the morning's catch from the refrigerator while Roula Anthi stoked the grill and spread out a checkered tablecloth on the table. It was, quite simply, the best lunch of our lives: a white bream and red mullet drizzled with olive oil, laced with oregano and grilled over white coals; a Greek salad with cherry tomatoes plucked from the back yard; mashed fava beans; a spinach-like dish of horta and lemon; and the best calamari we've ever tasted, all washed down with a sweet homemade white wine. The bill came to $24. The setting, too, charmed us: an open-air terrace lined with plants, chunks of volcanic rock that served as decorative objets d'art, six finches twittering in their separate birdcages and, a dozen yards away, the black sands of Perivolos Beach. We invited Danezi and Roula to join us during dessert, and we practiced a few words in Greek — efcharisto (thank you) and kalispera (good afternoon) — while Danezi added "Web home page" to her modest collection of English phrases. At meal's end, we left for the secluded beach. Only two other families lolled along the 200-yard stretch of pebbly black sand. Most visitors heeded the guide books' advice and jammed into Perissa Beach or Kamari Beach, with its package-tour operators and endless rows of concrete villas.   n e x t b a c k   NEXT: Naxos Greece: An introduction Santorini Naxos Crete Greece resources Greek islands photo gallery Travel articles CONTACT JD