Akrotiri

Anchoring the island's southwestern cape, Akrotiri is best known for the Bronze Age town buried under volcanic ash and for the Red Beach that sits beneath its cliffs, but the dining lives down at the water in the little harbour of the same name. This is fishing-village Santorini: caïques pulled up on the quay, the day's catch grilled simply, tables a few steps from the sea rather than a thousand feet above it. The mood is unhurried and local, the seafood as fresh as the island offers, and the sunset over the open Aegean comes without an admission price. After the marble lanes of the rim, it feels like the island exhaling.