Santorini, Greece

Astra Suites

Price per night from$241.48

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR223.20), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Candlelit aphrodisiac

Setting

Caldera panorama

A boutique hotel hugging the cliffs of Santorini, the biggest island in the Cyclades, Astra Suites is the perfect Greek island hideaway. Rooms are all high ceilings, arty ornaments and enough cushions to build a small fort with – if you wish; add in the giant his ’n’ hers shower, a four-poster bed and an outrageously comfortable sofa in the lounge area and you have a ready-made excuse for permanent room service.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A Signature cocktail for each guest during their stay

Facilities

Photos Astra Suites facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Twenty suites, plus one villa.

Check–Out

11am, but the hotel has a hospitality suite which can be used by guests who arrive early or check out late. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £217.08 (€253), including tax at 13.5 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional government tax of €1.50 per room per night on check-out.

More details

Rates include a hot à la carte breakfast of tempting freshly-baked treats, meats, cheeses, traditional Greek offerings and strong coffee – even frothy chocolate milk. Guests must stay for a minimum of two nights.

Also

If you're itching for a workout, the village's basketball court is just around the corner.

Hotel closed

Astra Suites closes during winter, from 1 November 2022 to 31 March 2023.

At the hotel

Spa treatment room, steam room, jetted tub, book exchange, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: a bottle of Santorini wine, flatscreen TV, CD/DVD player, minibar with daily free bottled water, Apivita toiletries. Deluxe Suites also have a Nespresso machine and Bulgari bath products.

Our favourite rooms

All suites have outdoor terraces or balconies with memorable sea views but, if you don’t want to be overlooked by your neighbours, opt for the Senior Suite or the Astra Suite with Open Air Jetted Tub for an extra layer of privacy. The Honeymoon Suite, with its private indoor cave pool, is perfect for canoodling couples; for all-out luxury, opt for a Pool Suite so you can bask in your own crystalline pool while admiring the sunset over the Aegean. Most rooms have a loft bedroom, which isn't suitable for taller guests.

Poolside

A crystal-clear shade of palest blue, the slim infinity pool has a bar and spectacular views of the caldera. Several of the suites have their own jetted tub or small pool; if you feel left out there's an extra jetted tub in the spa available for all guests, too. All are heated throughout the cooler months.

Spa

Astra's spa may be bijou, but its steam room, indoor jetted tub and treatment room will make short work of any lingering tensions and aches. Its exotic massages (eg 'cranial sacral balancing') from world-class experts are sure to turn the de-stress dial to max. For head-to-toe pampering, book an aromatherapy facial, a Thai massage and a pool-worthy pedicure. You can also book out the jetted tub and hole up in there with a bottle of champagne, fresh juices and snacks – oh, and your beloved, of course.

Packing tips

Leave the heels at home: elegant leather sandals (with a practical good grip) are de rigueur on Santorini's cliffsides.

Also

Infused with honey and fragrant herbs grown in their own organic farms and apiaries, Apivita toiletries are quintessentially Greek and unashamedly indulgent.

Children

Leave the little ones at home – Astra Suite's is strictly over-18s.

Food and Drink

Photos Astra Suites food and drink

Top Table

Astra means 'stars' in Greek; linger beneath them at night with a table on the terrace. Or have the staff set up an intimate meal on your balcony or terrace. Have breakfast in-room for a Skaros Rock-facing seat.

Dress Code

Blissfully blasé.

Hotel restaurant

A clean-lined, white-on-white space showcasing the island's freshest local produce, Astra Restaurant, naturally, faces the sea. From most of the tables on the terrace you'll get an impressive eyeful of Skaros Rock and the sunset. Tuck in to creative Greek and Mediterranean dishes such as grilled octopus and linguine with fresh prawns, and sample some of Santorini's fabulous white wines.

Hotel bar

The all-white pool bar may have just a few perches, but it's an unbeatable spot for top-of-the-world sundowners.

Last orders

The restaurant is open until 11.30pm; grab a nightcap at the pool bar until 11pm.

Room service

A full menu is available from 7pm to 11.30pm; light snacks such as club sandwiches, dakos salad and souvlaki can be ordered from 12.30pm to 11pm.

Location

Photos Astra Suites location
Address
Astra Suites
Imerovigli
Santorini
84700
Greece

Astra Suites is on a quiet path in Imerovigli, a quaint tranquil village at the highest point of the island.

Planes

In the summer, Santorini airport serves direct flights from London Gatwick and Heathrow, as well as many other European destinations. Connecting flights from Athens take about 45 minutes. There are limited taxis on the island, so it’s best to organise transfers in advance. Or ask the Smith24 Team to arrange transportation for you; call anytime on 03333 318 506.

Automobiles

The hotel is two kilometres out of Thira, a 20-minute drive from the airport and a 30-minute drive from the port, along the coastal road. There is a municipal parking lot close to the hotel.

Other

Athinios port can be reached by boat from Athens' Piraeus port and other locations such as Mykonos or Crete; see www.gtp.gr. The fast boat from Piraeus is three-and-a-half hours, but others are slower, so it’s definitely worth looking at the timetable.

Worth getting out of bed for

If you can stomach jaw-dropping plunging views, follow the trail to Skaros Rock; its 15th-century-fortress ruins are said to have the most romantic sunsest views on the island. The capital Thira, with its boutiques, jewellery shops and museum, is just a 20-minute walk down the hill; you'll be rewarded with sweeping views of both sides of the island and perfect spots for smug selfies. If you want to explore further afield, the hotel can arrange a sunset cruise to the volcano on a traditional schooner.

Local restaurants

Local eatery Anogi is a popular meeting spot in this otherwise quiet neighbourhood. Book ahead to share platters of chargrilled octopus, sticky mustard chicken and pork in a plummy Vin Santo sauce. On the village's plaza, Avocado dishes up moreish Greek staples – roasted white aubergine, squid stuffed with Naxos Island cheese – from its cheerful wind-sheltered terrace. Head down to the wharfside at Oia where there are several fantastic fish restaurants, perfect for lunch or dinner. Dimitri’s has delicious seafood, and its view of the sunset over the caldera is unobstructed by the rocks. If you want a traditional Greek taverna serving a range of excellent local specialities, Aegeon comes highly recommended by the hotel and is just five minutes’ walk away. Pretty Pyrgos Village is a 15-minute drive away, where dinky eatery Cava Alta dishes up excellent Mediterranean; spill out onto the terrace for sunset views. Simple yet superlative Grecian fish dishes are served up at Psaraki by Vlychada Marina.

Reviews

Photos Astra Suites reviews
Scott Manson

Anonymous review

By Scott Manson, Rock-star writer

There’s a sense of magic about Santorini, the biggest island in the mini-archipelago of the Cyclades. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato believed its lava-baked mass to be a result of the volcano that destroyed the lost city of Atlantis. Other rumours say it was once infested with vampires. For us, though, one of its most magical (and unexpected) elements of our stay at the Astra hotel was the outstanding wine (or oenus, if we’re getting native).

Let’s face it. When a free bottle of wine is left in your hotel room, it’s usually only suitable for clearing troublesome plugholes. Yet this Santorini-born wine, along with the bottle that followed it, was one of the freshest, driest whites we’d ever enjoyed. Our obliging room-service chap informed us that it was made from the celebrated Assyrtiko grape of Santorini. We called it nectar in a bottle.

As introductions to accommodation go, this was a good one. Super-luxe hotels can keep their personal butlers, hot-towel assistants, sunglass-cleaning technicians and other trappings of nanny-like pampering. What we want is a funky room with a world-class view and a jaw-droppingly good bottle of wine to help us enjoy it. If you’re of a like mind, then this boutique abode delivers in spades. Hugging the island’s postcard-perfect cliffs like a particularly pretty limpet, Astra’s apartments provide a level of satisfaction that would be surprising in a five-star big-city hotel, let alone a place perched on a quiet corner of a Greek island.

Even an attempt to be blasé about it falls flat. Let’s try. The view from the balcony is of your standard volcanic islands, surrounded by the requisite turquoise-blue bay and flanked by the usual twinkling lights of the nearby villages sitting flush on the cliffs. See, it just doesn’t work.

With its high ceilings, arty ornaments and candles – so many candles – perched on every available surface, this is clearly a room to spend some time in. Add in the giant his ’n’ hers whole-body shower, a four-poster bed and an outrageously comfortable sofa in the separate lounge area and you have a ready-made excuse for permanent room service. Call it sad, call it unadventurous, call it what you like – so entranced were we with this room that, on the first night, the call went out for a delivery. Mezze. Hummus, pitta, skewered meat and all manner of Greek exotica appeared a short while later, along with another bottle of that amazing Santorinian wine.

At this point we made our only mistake. Just outside the bedroom is a private pool. Now, in the daytime, this is a thing of luxurious joy. The sun is beating down, your skinny white body is crying out for respite, and right there in front of you is a cool, clean waterworld all of your own. Perfect. At one o’clock in the morning, however, it’s the coldest plunge pool you’ve ever jumped in. Take my advice and do the baby-bathing elbow-dip first. If nothing else, it’ll save waking up the neighbours with your wussy yelps.

Our equilibrium was restored by a breakfast delivered to our room at no extra charge. While laying down the yoghurt, breads and cheeses on the terrace table, our waiter tactfully ignored the empty wine bottles and glasses sitting around the edge of the pool. Clearly, slightly sozzled guests who fancied a bracing midnight dip were nothing new to him. A hefty tip recognised his Jeeves-like aplomb. Thanks again, my friend, and sorry about the wine bottle floating in the pool.

Although gazing from our terrace at the beauty of the deep-blue caldera (underwater volcano crater, to those without geology degrees) held us entranced for some time, it’s worth taking the 20-minute walk into the town of Fira. There’s a fair bit of nightlife in high season and some excellent food to be found at Imerovigli, a traditional Greek taverna a short walk from the Astra hotel. If you manage to push the night on long enough, as we did, you’ll find that Corner Crepes provides all your late-night munchy needs.

Like a siren call, though, Astra begs you to come home, offering you a midnight view of the three facing volcanic isles of Thirasia, Palea Kammeni and Nea Kammeni. To complete the picture, cruise ships slowly pull into dock, their onboard lights throwing the massive cliffs of the nearby islands into sharp relief.

Like all the best holidays, Astra has us wondering how we can possibly wangle staying here forever. Is there a gap in the market for event-organising experts? What about penniless writers – do they have enough of them? In truth, though, Santorini and the Astra apartments should remain a place for temporary visitors because no one deserves this level of spiritual uplift all the time. Perfect happiness can only be savoured in small doses.

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Price per night from $241.48