Perivolas Lifestyle Houses

Manos Psychas, a Greek navy captain born in Odessa to a Santorini family in the wine trade, bought a piece of cliff at Oia with his wife Nadia in 1969. On it were caves some 300 years old, once the homes of local fishermen and farmers. Island craftsmen restored them in the local stone as 23 suites and villas, and the caves are still caves: walls curve up into vaulted ceilings, daylight drops in through skylights cut in the white, and in one suite a boulder sits in the middle of the floor beside a small olive tree, as though the room had been dug round it. The restaurant is in a former wine cave, which seems only right for a family from the wine trade.

Recommended for couples who want Oia's sunset without the crowds Oia gathers for it. Children under 16 stay only in the Perivolas Villa, so the rest belongs to grown-ups. The infinity pool, a curved slick of bright blue on black volcanic rock, has been on magazine covers since 1997. It is unheated, but the hotel opens only from June to October, the months least likely to hold that against it. Anyone counting lengths has a 25-metre lap pool, and the gym looks out over the vineyard and the herb gardens, so even the workout has a view. The sunsets, which guests praise, go down over the caldera. Dinner might be grilled sea bass or ravioli with langoustines, under the cellar's arches or out on the terrace by the pool, which goes on holding the light after the sky has given it up.