Three Bells of Fira

This guide to the Three Bells of Fira in Santorini starts with two earlier churches that vanished when the caldera cliff beneath them gave way. Builders in the mid-1700s had carved chapels directly into the volcanic rock, using the cliff itself as walls and roof, until the same soft ash and pumice that made it easy to dig eventually let it go. It follows what replaced them around 1757, a freestanding, whitewashed church that later served for a time as a Jesuit infirmary before passing to the Diocese of Santorini. The guide traces how this ledge has kept demanding upkeep ever since.