city : Grèce

Private Santorini Island Tour with Wine Tasting

Those Greek postcards of sugarcube houses and blue-domed churches looking out over a cobalt sea. That's Santorini. You'll see plenty of those scenes on this private tour of the island, taking in two extraordinary clifftop towns, a black beach of volcanic sand and a winery with magnificent views. Spiros, one of our local guides, says, ‘You'll see vines growing low on the ground here – the meltemi wind is too strong for vines to be grown over trellises. The wind brings benefits as well, keeping rot and disease at bay and lowering the temperature to allow the grapes to ripen more slowly.'Kick off with a scenic cable car ride from Fira down to the port and back, then take a trip to see one of the island's famous black sand beaches. Next, you'll head for the Santo winery, surely one of the world's most dramatic settings for a wine tasting. The views from this family-run vineyard are divine, and most of the wines are made with ancient grape varieties that have been grown on Santorini for millennia.As this is a private tour with guide and transport exclusively for your group, you're free to choose where to linger. Arriving in Oia, a whitewashed village of pretty churches and gnarled olive trees with the Aegean Sea as a backdrop, you may never want to leave. But you won't want to miss the last stop, a walking tour of the island's hilltop capital. Your guide will show you around Fira's historic streets and the best viewpoints to take in the panoramic views of Santorini's caldera.