At first glance, there is very little here to suggest Switzerland.
Whitewashed walls curve around narrow lanes. Doors and shutters are painted the unmistakable blue of the Cyclades. Bougainvillea spills over balconies. A tiny taverna waits around the corner.
There are even cats.
But there is no Aegean Sea beyond those walls.
This little slice of Greece sits in the private garden of two Swiss brothers, Michael and Samuel Scherrer, in the canton of Thurgau near Lake Constance.
And they built it themselves.
The brothers call it Little Greece, one of several miniature worlds they are constructing in their backyard as part of what they playfully describe as the “world’s smallest theme park.”
Their own description of the Greek section is even better:
“Santorini, 3 metres above sea level.”
Building Greece after work
Michael and Samuel are digital artists who spend their working days creating virtual worlds for brands and businesses.
Then they go home and build real ones.
“By night, we swap the mouse for a trowel,” they explain on their official project website.
What began with a love of gardening and building has gradually transformed their property into a collection of walk-through environments. Alongside Little Greece is a fairy-tale village and a Japanese garden, with a lighthouse, fishing village, pirate ship, Venice and Tuscany among the ideas still floating around in their heads.
Michael largely turns the designs and sketches into physical spaces, while Samuel focuses heavily on lighting, atmosphere and documenting their work.
The Greek village took roughly a year to create, with Switzerland’s winter weather inevitably interrupting construction.
Michael has said the Greek portion cost approximately £10,000, while the wider garden project had reached roughly £20,000.
The point was not to reproduce a particular Greek village building by building.
Instead, they wanted to recreate a feeling.
White walls. Blue woodwork. Stone-patterned lanes. Bougainvillea. Little passageways that obscure the outside world.
And, crucially, a functioning little taverna and bar where they can actually sit.
“Whenever I go in there I feel like I am transported,” Michael said in an interview about the project.
Apparently the illusion works on other people, too.
Friends have taken photographs inside the village and posted them as if they were vacationing in Greece. Michael recalled his sister doing precisely that — only to return to work and discover colleagues genuinely asking about her Greek getaway.
Just how “miniature” is it?
One detail has become badly distorted as the story has traveled around the world.
Numerous international reports describe the Greek village as measuring 15 by 15 meters.
That would make it enormous compared with what appears in the photographs.
Local Swiss newspaper Blick, reporting on the brothers in Thurgau, gives the Greek section’s actual footprint as approximately 23 square meters. Other versions of Michael’s original interview described it as roughly 250 square feet.
The widely repeated 15-by-15-meter measurement therefore appears to be a unit-conversion error that was copied from one report to another.
It is small.
That’s part of the magic.
The compact lanes, arches and walls prevent you from seeing much beyond the little environment immediately around you. From the right angle, Switzerland simply disappears.
At night, strings of lights and illuminated windows transform it again.
The little bar lights up, the white walls glow and the whole thing begins looking less like someone’s garden and more like a film set waiting for the cast of Mamma Mia! to wander through.
So is it really called “Santormini”?
Not officially.
Some subsequent Greek and international coverage has used the irresistible nickname “Santormini” — Santorini crossed with miniature.
Michael and Samuel themselves call their creation Little Greece.
Their Santorini inspiration, however, isn’t exactly difficult to spot.
On their official website they describe it simply as “Santorini, 3 metres above sea level,” complete with white walls, blue doors, bougainvillea and their tiny taverna.
Little Greece has now helped turn what was essentially an elaborate private garden project into a social-media phenomenon. More than 100,000 people follow the brothers’ builds on Instagram.
For now, however, there is an important catch for anyone already contemplating a detour through Switzerland.
You can’t simply show up.
The theme park remains their private garden. The brothers occasionally admit small numbers of visitors for special events and shoots, but there is no regular ticket booth or public entrance.
Which may be just as well.
Santorini already has enough tourists.
Somewhere near Lake Constance, two brothers have built themselves another one.
