#7 in Top 20 Santorini for A Honeymoon · ★★★★★
Astra Suites
Family-run cliffside, fewer rooms, more attention, the honeymoon hotel for couples who hate large lobbies.
Family-run cliffside, fewer rooms, more attention, the honeymoon hotel for couples who hate large lobbies.
"The 1985 Imerovigli founding, Relais and Châteaux member, the longest-operating Imerovigli luxury property."
Why this rank: Astra Suites opened in 1985 in Imerovigli, the same year Katikies opened in Oia, making Astra one of the two longest-operating Santorini luxury hotels. The George Karagiannis family ownership has been continuous since founding; the property joined Relais and Châteaux in 2008 and remains the only Santorini Relais and Châteaux member. 26 suites across the Imerovigli cliff position, with the highest single-village concentration of caldera-direct rooms in Imerovigli. Restaurant: Alali (signature) operates on the property's main terrace with caldera views and the Karagiannis family's longstanding Cycladic-Mediterranean menu. The Cocktail Bar runs at sunset hour. The Spa occupies a small dedicated space. The Astra Royal Pool Suite at 90 sq m is the property's flagship, private heated 12 sq m pool, two terrace levels, west-facing. The family-owned operational character and the Relais and Châteaux brand standard make Astra one of the most-decorated heritage properties in the village. Best for honeymoon couples valuing heritage continuity and Relais and Châteaux brand standards.
Best room: Astra Royal Pool Suite - 90 sq m, 12 sq m heated pool, two terraces.
"Family-run cliffside, fewer rooms, more attention, the honeymoon hotel for couples who hate large lobbies."
Astra Suites is the small, family-run alternative to the brand-name Imerovigli properties. The hotel was built by the Karayiannis family in 1991 and has remained in the family's hands; the matriarch still runs the front desk most mornings. Twenty-six suites and rooms cascading down the Imerovigli cliffside, all caldera-facing, the suites with private plunge pools and the rooms with shared cliff-edge pools. The hotel feels immediately personal in a way the larger properties cannot match, the staff knows your name by the second meal, the breakfast order is remembered, the suite turndown is not standardized. Astra also runs one of the better restaurants on the cliff (Pezoules), with a chef who cooks regional Cycladic food rather than the fusion default of Oia. For honeymoon couples who arrive having heard about Katikies and want something quieter, less photographed, and run by people who treat them as guests rather than as Instagram traffic, Astra is the answer.
Astra Suite or Honeymoon Suite, caldera-facing plunge pool. The corner Astra Suite has the widest view.
Eat at Pezoules at least twice, the kitchen is undersold and the fava-and-octopus dishes are the best on Imerovigli. The matriarch will arrange a private chef-table evening on request.
Astra Suites 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 Imerovigli, central 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. It is the terrace and plunge-pool suites, the rooms this rank rests on, that book up soonest.
Editorial · #12 on the Top 20 Santorini Hotels 2026 list
Astra Suites opened in the early 1990s as one of the first cliff-edge luxury boutiques in Imerovigli, the quiet village set at the highest point of Santorini's caldera rim, roughly 300 metres above the sea. Family-owned and all-suite, it has stayed small while much of the island scaled up, its whitewashed, vaulted Cycladic rooms stepping down the cliff in the traditional cave-house idiom. The position gives nearly every suite a direct, unobstructed caldera and sunset view from the tallest segment of the village.
For Santorini visitors, Astra suits travellers who value continuity, an intimate scale of around two dozen suites, and the named-recognition service a long-held family property tends to keep. Its restaurant serves a Cycladic-Mediterranean menu on the caldera terrace, and the upper suites add private heated plunge pools at the cliff edge. The honest trade-off is the setting itself: Imerovigli is reached on stepped cliff paths with no vehicle access to most suites, so arrival and luggage mean a walk, and the same caldera drama draws crowds to the footpaths at sunset.
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