Grace Hotel, Auberge Collection

Auberge Resorts Collection builds properties that dissolve the boundary between interior and landscape, favouring natural materials and locally driven cuisine over formal grandeur. The Grace Hotel occupies that ethos on Santorini's caldera rim in Imerovigli, a village of whitewashed lanes and blue-domed chapels perched 300 metres above the submerged crater. The island itself is the remnant of a cataclysmic eruption 3,600 years ago, its cliffs layered with pumice and ash in stripes of rust, charcoal, and bone white.

Imerovigli translates roughly as "day vigil", a reference to its historic role as a lookout point. The village strings along the cliff edge north of Fira, connected by narrow cobbled paths that thread past the Monastery of Saint Nikolaos and the church of Ai-Stratis. Below the village, Skaros Rock juts into the caldera, crowned by the ruins of a Venetian castle built by Marco Sanudo in 1207, when he claimed dominion over the Cyclades.

The settlement holds just under 500 permanent residents, giving it a quieter cadence than Fira or Oia. Santorini International Airport lies six kilometres southeast, a short taxi ride across the island's volcanic interior.

The caldera's edge offers the most compelling argument for staying in Imerovigli: the path north to Oia traces the clifftop for four kilometres, passing through villages where tourism thins and you share the trail with local cats and the occasional donkey. Skaros Rock demands a scramble down crumbling steps, but the Venetian ruins reward the effort with 360-degree views of the submerged crater and the volcanic islets of Nea Kameni and Palaia Kameni, still venting sulphur into the Aegean. Book a dive with Mediterranean Dive Club, two kilometres south in Fira, to explore lava formations and drop-offs that plunge past 40 metres.

Santorini's volcanic soil nurtures assyrtiko vines, trained low to the ground in basket-shaped kouloures that shelter grapes from the meltemi winds. Domaine Sigalas Winery, five kilometres inland, pours mineral-edged whites in a barrel room carved into the pumice. Gavalas and Canava Roussos lie within seven kilometres, both family operations where tastings include sun-dried Vinsanto, the island's amber dessert wine aged in oak for years. The regional market in Fira, two kilometres south, sells capers from Thirasia and split fava from local fields, the pulse that becomes the island's signature purée.

Summer on Santorini is bone-dry and blinding. July and August see no rain at all, temperatures climbing past 25°C under a white sun that bleaches the caldera cliffs to chalk. The meltemi wind gusts from the north, cooling terraces but whipping the Aegean into whitecaps. June and September offer the same crystalline light with gentler heat, the best months for hiking the clifftop trail without the midday glare.

Winter brings the rain that sustains the island's vines and fava fields, December the wettest month with cloud cover softening the caldera's edges. Temperatures hover around 10 to 13°C, cool enough for a jacket but mild compared to northern Europe. The island empties of crowds, ferries run less frequently, and many restaurants close until Easter.

Spring arrives in March with wildflowers pushing through the volcanic ash, the vineyards pruned back to gnarled stumps. April sees temperatures rise into the mid-teens, the sea still too cold for most swimmers but the villages quiet and the light already turning sharp and golden by afternoon.