Oia hotels collection

Two kinds of house share the ridge at Oia. Up top, captains grown rich on the merchant fleet built neoclassical mansions, with pediments and cornices, a courtyard and a cellar; lower down, their sailors dug vaulted dwellings into the pumice, taking daylight only through the façade. At the foot of the cliff, down a stairway once travelled by laden mules, lies Armeni, the old harbour, where the ships were built.