The original machinery
Boilers, presses and the canning line left in place.
Lajmmoore โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท ArticCynda โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Lajmmoore โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท
A museum in an old **tomato paste factory** on the southern coast at Vlychada, closed in 1981 and left with its machinery, then reopened as a museum in 2014 โ the most entertaining museum on Santorini and the least expected. Its subject is stranger than it sounds: before tourism, Santorini lived on **tomatoes**. The island has **no rivers, virtually no groundwater and no summer rain to speak of**, and yet it grows small cherry tomatoes of dense flavour **with no irrigation at all** โ watered by the **dew** that condenses at night on the porous volcanic soil. Those tomatoes became a major export industry in the early twentieth century, and the island had dozens of factories. The museum keeps the **original machinery** in place โ the boilers, presses, canning line and chimneys โ with films and recorded testimony **from the workers themselves** about the working day, the pay and the life. โ It is in the **Santozeum** cultural complex on the southern coast, away from the caldera.
Boilers, presses and the canning line left in place.
Recordings of those who worked here on their day and their pay.
How an island with no rain or rivers bears fruit.
Vlychada, 84700 Santorini
Through three factors together. The porous **volcanic soil** absorbs the night's moisture, holds it and stops it evaporating by day. Then **dew**: Santorini is ringed by sea and the night air is humid, so water condenses on the ground and the plants every night. And **the plant itself** has adapted over generations, developing deep roots and small thick-skinned fruit that lose less water. The result is **very small but intensely flavoured** tomatoes, high in both sugar and acid โ because scarce water concentrates everything. The same principle governs **Santorini's vines**, trained into basket shapes on the ground to catch the dew and resist the wind.
**Vlychada beach**, minutes away, is among the strangest in Greece: cliffs of **white and grey volcanic ash** carved by wind and rain over thousands of years into rippling shapes like sculpture, or the surface of another planet, rising above dark grey sand. It is **far quieter** than Perissa and Kamari and less organised. Beside it is the **Vlychada marina** with fish tavernas on the water. โ The beach is **exposed to the northerly wind** (the meltemi) in summer and the sea can be rough โ check the forecast, and there is no natural shade on it.
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