Santorini is one of the most stunningly beautiful places on the planet.  It is an island with a perfect climate and with towns and churches built into the cliffside, so that each house has a view of the sunset. 

Yet it is also one of the most unstable places in the world.  The island is crescent shaped and surrounds a submerged volcano that caused one of the largest eruptions in human history 3,600 years ago.  This eruption is thought to have caused the collapse of the Minoan civilization.

Most of the major towns in Santorini are built over the edges of these cliffsides, which drop steeply and were caused by earthquakes, the last of which devastated the island in 1956.  

As you walk down the cliffsides you see these intersections of steps leading to houses and corridors in every direction. 

This system was created to confuse raiding pirates so that the locals, who had an intimate knowledge of these layouts, would have a better chance of escaping. 

These intersections often reminded me of real life M.C. Escher paintings.