What’s the buzz? Still owned and run by the family that created it, the newly refurbished and relaunched Canaves Ena celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer. That makes it one of the oldest properties in Oia, the clifftop village that features on a million postcards, thanks to its whitewashed cottages, blue-domed churches and sunset views over the caldera of the volcano from which Santorini was formed.
“It is hardly a matter of surprise that few, if any, good descriptions have been written,” notes Lawrence Durrell in his 1978 travelogue The Greek Islands. “The reality is so astonishing that prose and poetry, however winged, will forever be forced to limp behind . . . Sunset and sunrise here put poets out of work.”
The village — which was devastated by an earthquake in 1956 and reconstructed with tourism in mind in the 1980s — may be unrecognisable from the ghostly, ruined settlement Durrell visited, a place that barely 300 people then called home. But gaze out to sea, and his descriptions still ring true.
What about the more recent earthquakes? Starting in January, more than a thousand earthquakes hit the area, peaking at a magnitude of 5.3 on February 10. By March, however, the seismic activity had subsided, the state of emergency imposed on February 6 was lifted, and on March 4 the island’s schools reopened. Nevertheless, some hoteliers have reported visitor numbers are down this spring.
Isn’t that a good thing? Possibly. In fact, concerns about overtourism and the effect of cruise ship visits have prompted the island mayor, Nikos Zorzos, to launch a daily cap on the number of passengers. This year a maximum of 8,000 will be permitted to alight at its port, 23km’s drive south of Oia — less than half the number of arrivals on some days last year.
Even so, you might want to avoid the village’s Venetian castle at sunset and lie low when there’s a ship in.
Checking in You enter down a flight of shallow steps from the main route into the village. Descend past the old windmill in which the family used to live (now suite 16, a superior with twin terraces and a plunge pool and the loveliest option, I thought), through an arched stone gateway, and you find yourself in a cool reception area, where cold water is proffered and formalities dealt with. Pay attention as you’re guided to your room. The layout is labyrinthine, there isn’t a map, and the rooms are numbered not sequentially, but according to when they were added to the inventory. So mine, number 4, was one of the first, and number 18 is the newest.
In the early 1980s, Yiannis and Anna Chaidemenos inherited the mill and a couple of canaves, the barrel-vaulted spaces excavated into the cliffs in the 17th and 18th centuries, where wines from the island’s distinctive indigenous Assyrtiko grape were made and stored.
“Nobody was doing anything with them,” says their son, Markos, now managing director. “So my parents decided to make them into a holiday home,” which over time morphed into a hotel. As neighbouring buildings became available, they acquired them and the hotel grew. It’s now the flagship of the Canaves Collection, a group that includes four hotels, some villas and a great no-frills seaside fish restaurant, Armeni, in a shingle cove accessible only by boat.
How was the room? With their whitewashed walls, curved ceilings and traditional shutters, the interior aesthetic is pared down — the only decorative objects are the ceramic jugs and bowls made by a fifth-generation local potter Andreas Makaris. (He finds inspiration in the 3,500-year-old Minoan vessels excavated at Akrotiri, in the south of the island, and now on display in the excellent Museum of Prehistoric Thera in the island capital, Firá.) All have terraces that are screened with planters filled with grasses and flowering species native to the Cyclades — and all have views of the caldera.
And the food? The restaurant, Adami, has a menu of delicious, essentially rustic Greek dishes, some familiar, others less so, meticulously prepared by Margarita Nikolaidi, winner of the 2021 season of MasterChef Greece. There’s an emphasis on locally grown produce. Santorini’s small, firm, flavourful tomatoes, for example, are so revered that there’s a whole museum dedicated to them near the airport. And its fava, dried split broad beans, cooked to a rough purée and flavoured with olive oil and capers, have the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin status.
The aromatic mavromatika (black-eyed peas) with spinach, chervil and grilled calamari were so good I took home the recipe.
What is there to do? There’s a small swimming pool, the first to be dug in Oia, but no spa or gym, though its sister hotel, Canaves Oia Suites, a five-minute walk away, has both, as does Canaves Epitome, just below the village, to which the hotel runs a shuttle. Dressier, more of a resort and, with 53 rooms, much larger, it looks directly across the sea towards the sunset from luxuriant gardens.
Also owned by the Chaidemenos family, the yacht charter company Sunset Oia offers catamaran cruises of the caldera (private or shared; from €79 for five hours, including food and wine). From the water you get a sense of the island’s extraordinary geology — Durrell likened the striated colours of its cliffs to the “oil marbling on the endpapers of Victorian ledgers” — and its red, ochre and black beaches, not to mention a chance to bathe in the strikingly warm, if slightly sulphurous waters between the twin uninhabited islets of Palea and Nea Kameni.
If you’ve enjoyed wines made from Assyrtiko, it’s worth visiting the Domaine Sigalas winery, 2km from the hotel, both to taste the premium whites it makes (among them an astonishing sweet honeyed Vinsanto) and to see the vines, which grow close to the outwardly inhospitable volcanic earth, trained into circular basket-like koulouras, the better to weather strong wind and harsh sun.
Other guests Svelte couples of all ages from at least three continents, mostly in diaphanous pale linen. But no families (under-13s aren’t allowed). All the stairs would make it a challenge for anyone with impaired mobility.
The damage From €454 including breakfast, though rates soar in the summer peak.
Claire Wrathall was a guest of Canaves Ena (canaves.com)
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