Castle of Skaros

Skaros is a blunt, rocky spur that thrusts into the sea opposite Imerovigli, and it is hard now to believe it was once the medieval capital of Santorini. Built between 1205 and 1230 under Venetian rule, it was the oldest of the island's five fortified settlements, or kasteli, and remained the capital until the eighteenth century. The volcano was not kind to it: eruptions damaged it repeatedly, and the earthquakes of 1701 to 1711 prompted its abandonment. A later nineteenth-century tremor finished the job, leaving only scattered ruins on the promontory today. A footpath from the church of Agios Georgios crosses the isthmus, skirts the rock, and after about half a mile reaches the tiny chapel of Theoskepasti, which commands what most visitors agree is the finest panorama of the caldera anywhere on the island.

Heritage data from Wikidata, compiled and verified in the Atika atlas.