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Santorini is a volcanic island that suffered such a huge eruption in 1650 BC that the middle of the island blew away, leaving three-quarters of a ring, the inside edge of which is a steep cliff of volcanic rock. The main cities, Ia and Fira, are built into this cliffside.

(A civilization of people called the Minoans disappeared along with the middle of the island. This is most likely the source of the “lost continent of Atlantis” story, for when the volcano blew, it not only vaporised half the island but sent enormous tidal waves as far as Israel. I believe Disney has turned the Atlantis story into a cartoon. I have not seen it, so I’m not sure how they animated “annihilation by flaming molten rock and/or 750 million vertical gallons of sea water.” Maybe I’ll rent the video.)

Traditional Ian homes are drilled into the rock. From the outside, you might see one room and the patio. A simple facade, like our Blue Sky apartment, could hide an 800 sq. ft. home.

Here are pictures of our 800 sq. ft. home: living cave, bed cave (complete with dirty socks that the photographer’s assistant neglected to pick up), bathroom cave, kitchen cave.

Front to back, the Blue Sky measures 50 feet. This is a design that makes total sense considering the environment, where outside surface area is both minimal and steeply sloped. But it’s a design that is desperate for a cross-draft.

Putting the bathroom 50 feet inside a cave is especially dumb. We only turned on the hot water heater once in four days, but even so, a cool shower would leave the bathroom damp for hours. The builders had wired a small exhaust fan into the light circuit, so that the fan would run whenever the bathroom lights were on. The fan fed a ventilation pipe that exited on the terrace. But the fan was too small to be of much use. I think the CPU fans in my laptop push more air.

So although we coped, I was wishing for a $4 box fan from Home Depot. Or a window on a different wall. Maybe if they’d annexed another ten feet of rock, they could have built a bigger kitchen and opened a back door on the other side of the ridge.

Thinking of that, the construction crews must have had some comical moments. Could there be blueprints of the entire cliff? It seems unlikely. How many times did a builder accidentally poke through into someone else’s bedroom?

The cave life has distinct advantages. The entire neighborhood is quiet, possibly because most people spend their time deep inside their caves. And the views are stunning because there are few tall structures to interfere: here’s what we saw from our terrace. This was our view at breakfast for four days. Oh, and during our mid-afternoon bottle of wine too. Oh, and while we wrote postcards too. Oh, and just before heading into town for dinner.

I stopped to look nearly every time I walked by. It was astounding… the cave houses, the blue water, the islets, the 180-degree panoramic breathtakingness of it all. I had never seen anything like it. With the faint sound of the surf echoing up the hillside, the setting was incredibly peaceful. I didn’t want to leave.