White Buildings With Blue-domed Churches

The look that Santorini is famous for, white walls under blue domes, is a product of Cycladic building habits that long predate tourism. Houses and chapels were whitewashed with lime, which reflects the strong summer sun, brightens small dark interiors and acts as a mild disinfectant. Repainting every spring became a ritual in many island villages. The blue that picks out domes, doors and shutters is the colour of the Aegean and the sky, and it also echoes the blue and white of the Greek flag, which is why the pairing feels so national.

Oia and Fira are the best places to see it. In Oia, chapels with rounded blue cupolas sit along the caldera edge, and their small bell towers and courtyards make some of the most photographed corners on the island. Imerovigli, a short walk along the rim from Fira, has fewer people and similar views. Many of these domed buildings are small Orthodox chapels rather than large churches, often private or family chapels, so doors are frequently shut and interiors are tiny when they are open.

Whitewash and blue are not unique to the island and recur around the Mediterranean, yet the Cyclades made them a signature. The architecture is practical as well as pretty. Walls are thick and rounded at the corners, roofs are flat or vaulted to withstand wind and to harvest rain, and many homes are cut into the volcanic cliff as cave houses, which stay cool in summer and warm in winter. Narrow stepped lanes twist between the buildings to break the wind and give shade. Looking closely, you see that no two terraces quite match, and that stone, ash-based mortar and local pumice are visible where plaster has worn away.

Good times for walking and photographing are early morning, before the cruise groups arrive, and the hour before sunset when the white surfaces take on warm colour. Midday light is harsh and flattens the details. Respect for the chapels is expected: modest dress if you go inside, and no climbing onto roofs or into private courtyards, which residents have repeatedly asked visitors to avoid.

For comparison, the same colour scheme appears across the Cyclades, notably on Mykonos and Paros, yet the way the buildings cling to the Santorini caldera cliff, with the blue sea far below, gives the island its own version. Anyone interested in architecture can pair this walk with the sights around Skaros Rock, the old Venetian-era settlement area above Imerovigli, to see how the settlement pattern developed on a rim of volcanic rock.