An Aristocrat Among Islands With its easy access from Athens by car and water taxi, or fast and frequent hydrofoils, Spetses is to Athenians is what the Hamptons are to New Yorkers. An island of pines, bougainvillea and heady jasmine, of grand neo-classical mansions – built with the prosperity from its merchant sailors 200 years … Read More
The Lady of the Cyclades Syros- has been the capital of the Cyclades for over two hundred years, so has both cherished and upheld the quality of Cycladic culture; music, food, dance, etc, and also been quick to absorb the best of outside influences – it was a wealthy and peaceful island, protected from many … Read More
Queen Of The Islands – natural elegance with high-octane glamour and style Dazzlingly white and windswept, waterless and treeless, but with superb thick sandy beaches, blue-domed chapels and churches, dovecotes and windmills and a sparkling streamlined natural architecture, the most beautiful small harbour/port in these islands, Mykonos epitomizes an ideal Greek island. But it is … Read More
Dionysos’ Island Having slayed the Minotaur in Knossos, Theseus the son of the king of Athens, abandoned Ariadne, his young Cretan bride here after she helped him escape from King Minas’s wrath – as Dana Facaros wrote: “This was, even in the eyes of Athenians, dishonest.” Mary Renault found a neat explanation to save her … Read More
A Gentler Mykonos Paros is the stuff of travel posters – whitewashed houses, narrow winding village streets, brilliant sun, wide shallow sandy beaches and deep blue sea. Low hills roll down to the sea, enclosing three plains with waving yellow August harvests, two deeply-cut bays providing sheltered harbours. Hills with layers of marble and fertile … Read More
The Private Island Koufonissia is really the playground of the islands; no need for a car, you can walk from one end to the other in 40 minutes easily, and if you take the coastal path, you can stop and swim in a different little beach every 50 metres, and have a drink, a fresh … Read More
The Perfect Miniature Island Antiparos is a small holiday paradise just across from Paros, from which it is divided by a shallow channel just a few metres deep. Guests here keep coming back as it is the closest thing to a private island – small, not much accommodation, low key. It’s the sort of thing … Read More
“I, John … was on an island called Patmos … and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, saying, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, write what you see in a book, and send it to the seven churches’.” This tiny sparse island has an elegance, mystique and … Read More
Precious Things Come In Small Packages The Ionian islands comprise the Eptanisa or Seven Islands of Corfu, Paxos, Levkada, Ithaca, Cephalonia, Zakinthos and Kithira. They lie in the Ionian Sea between the west coast of Greece and Italy. Historically these islands have formed a bridge between Greece and Continental Europe since earliest times and they … Read More
Prospero’s Magical Garden Isle Corfu is back in fashion – though for the true Corfiot lovers and cognoscenti it never went out of style! But being beautiful and close to Italy meant it suffered the first mass tourist invasion of Greece by western Europeans back in the 80s. The heady days of Lawrence and Gerald … Read More
Mountains and Beaches Pelion is polished wood, cobbled pathways, flowers, backgammon under the plane trees, burbling springs, fresh, earthy peasant food, painted ceilings, warm fire-glow, fallen bronze leaves, stone solidity, salty well-being and civilized equilibrium. The densely-wooded mountain of Pelion was home to centaurs – mythical half- human, half-horse beings. Chiron, the wisest of them … Read More
