#13 in Top 20 Santorini for A Honeymoon · ★★★★★
Old Castle Oia
The 13th-century Goulas castle turned hideaway — the honeymoon where the building has seen worse.
The 13th-century Goulas castle turned hideaway — the honeymoon where the building has seen worse.
"The 13th-century Goulas castle turned hideaway — the honeymoon where the building has seen worse."
Old Castle Oia is built into the ruins of the 13th-century Goulas castle — the structure at the very tip of the Oia cliff, the photograph the entire Santorini sunset crowd walks down to capture every evening. The hotel was designed around what was left of the castle walls after the 1956 earthquake; the result is twelve suites integrated into the ancient stone, several with the original arched stone ceilings still visible. Every suite faces directly into the sunset — the hotel is the closest five-star property to the volcano view, and the angle is the most cinematic on the island. Three of the suites have private plunge pools cut into the rock; the rest share the cliff-edge pool. Old Castle is small (twelve suites) and tightly run; the trade-off is that the rooms are not as large as the suites at Katikies or Perivolas — the castle architecture constrains the floor plan. But for the honeymoon that is built around the castle ruins, the sunset, and the most-photographed three-hundred-square-metre patch of the Cycladic world, this is it.
Captain's Suite or Castle Suite — both within the original castle walls, both with private plunge pools.
Avoid the public castle-tip sunset crowd — the hotel terrace has the same view, and the staff will arrange a private champagne pour at sundown. The hotel hosts a small chapel within the property; couples who request it can have a private blessing on the second night.
Old Castle Oia sits within our broader Top 20 Hotels in Santorini for a Honeymoon list. It scored an aggregate 9.5/10 across the three editorial criteria — competitive against the field but, on a honeymoon-specific factors, the angle above is what earned its rank. For the alternatives in the same Santorini neighbourhood, see Oia, north Santorini and adjacent. For a different city entirely, see the related lists below.
If you have already chosen the dates, our editor recommends booking the room twelve weeks ahead. The best suites with the right view orientation go first, and inventory for the popular months is quoted in months, not weeks. Suite-level rooms with private plunge pools or terraces — the ones that earn this rank — are typically the first to sell out.