The Greek islands I can’t res­ist

Author VICTORIA HISLOP has vis­ited 50 of Greece’s gems. From Homer’s Ithaca to the marble vil­lages of Tinos, she reveals her favour­ites – and the best ways to exper­i­ence them your­self.

IF THERE there is a line between pas­sion and obses­sion, I think my love for Greek islands has finally crossed it. This year I vis­ited my 50th.

What is it that draws me to these often water­less and bar­ren rocks in the middle of the deep blue sea, some with pop­u­la­tions of no more than a few hun­dred? The answer is simple. Each one, however small, is unique and beau­ti­ful.

These days we group the islands with col­lect­ive names such as ‘the Cyc­lades’ or ‘the Sporades’. Yet a few thou­sand years ago, they were indi­vidual and autonom­ous places. For this reason, every island developed its own cus­toms, dances, dishes, flora, fauna, archae­ology, myth­o­logy, geo­logy and even dia­lect. It is this vari­ety, this oppor­tun­ity for adven­ture, that keeps me addicted.

When I think of Greek islands, it is of lots of tiny coun­tries. Yes, they are now part of the Greek state, but not so long ago they might have been under Italian, French, Brit­ish or Otto­man rule – and these back­grounds form lay­ers of Greece’s com­plex his­tory, leav­ing rich legacies.

Dis­cov­er­ing the Greek islands is like being given a pir­ate’s chest that’s been pulled up from the ocean. You lift the lid and find glit­ter­ing gems of every col­our and size. And if you’re greedy like me, you want to grasp them all.

For me, it all began with island­hop­ping in my gap year – sleep­ing on fer­ries or on the beach for days at a time, and liv­ing mostly on water­melon, toma­toes and bread. It was bliss then, and still is, and it makes me smile that the fer­ries have hardly changed since the late 1970s.

You still have the same smells, the same huge lounges with sprawls of plastic fur­niture, the same toasted cheese sand­wiches which are the main fare, along with strong cof­fee. The sense of going back in time is intensely nos­tal­gic. Even the scent of diesel and dough­nuts trans­ports me.

Some islands also have air­ports now, but the real pleas­ure of Greek island travel is arrival by boat, approach­ing from the sea: stand­ing on deck to watch the anchor being dropped and enjoy­ing the chaotic mer­ging of dis­em­bark­ing and board­ing pas­sen­gers.

There are islands on all sides of main­land Greece, and I have favour­ites in every part. Most are best vis­ited after high sea­son and my top months to go are Septem­ber and Octo­ber. Even up to the end of Novem­ber, though, swim­ming is won­der­ful.

Every Phil­hel­lene (Greece lover), like me, has their favour­ite islands. It’s all ter­ribly sub­ject­ive, so often about an emo­tional response, a feel­ing you get when you step off the ferry, a cat you see lit­er­ally pulling fish from the sea with its paw, a tasty dish, a kind wel­come.

My memor­ies of every island, bar few, are pos­it­ive and warm – and I still have many more to find. I can hardly wait for the next one.

LEGENDARY ITHACA

THIS was the island of Homer’s Odys­seus and when I approached by boat I under­stood his need to return. It is almost pain­fully beau­ti­ful, with trees down to the water’s edge, a safe nat­ural har­bour and the clearest waters I have swum in. Everything is small-scale, intim­ate and wel­com­ing. There are pretty double-fron­ted houses and with scores of vis­it­ing yachts, the qual­ity of tav­ernas is high – as are the irres­ist­ible boutiques next to them. At one, I pur­chased a beau­ti­ful ring inscribed with a poem by Seferis: ‘The secrets of the seas are for­got­ten on the shores.’ It’s a lovely souvenir.

CORELLI IN KEFALONIA

ADJACENT to Ithaca, Kefa­lo­nia is much big­ger but I was drawn there by another writer: Louis de Berni­eres. The novel Cap­tain Corelli’s Man­dolin had just been pub­lished when I first vis­ited, and read­ing it enriched my under­stand­ing of what Greece suffered under occu­pa­tion in the 20th cen­tury. Tour­ism came after­wards to trans­form many islanders’ lives, lift­ing loc­als out of poverty.

This island enjoys one of Greece’s best beaches: Myr­tos, a huge semi-circle of pale sand by the clear Ionian Sea. Vil­lages are pristine and bou­gain­villea covered; the most glor­i­ous of them is the little port of Assos.

SECRETS OF CHIOS

OVER on the far east­ern side of the Aegean, so close to Tur­key you could almost swim there, is Chios. Untouched by tour­ism, this island provided so much inspir­a­tion that much of my new novel – The Wine-dark Sea – is set there. It’s home to an indi­gen­ous tree that yields a spe­cial health-giv­ing mas­tic (known as ‘tears’) as well as the site of the first lep­rosar­ium (a lep­rosy colony) in Europe. Chios, with its medi­eval vil­lages, was once where many of the power­ful Greek ship­ping fam­il­ies lived and whose man­sions still stand. It’s a place over­flow­ing with drama in both his­tory and land­scape – and said to be the birth­place of Homer.

CHARMING OINOUSSA

THIS tiny jewel of an island is next to Chios, rich in stor­ies of ship-build­ing, with its own Mari­time Academy and museum of ship­ping his­tory. When I approached the little har­bour in a caique (a tra­di­tional sail­ing boat), I was wel­comed by the island’s guard­ian, a bronze mer­maid perched on a rock, and when I left I heard the vale­dict­ory sound of a fog horn being soun­ded (charm­ingly arranged for me by the mayor). Though inhab­ited by just a few hun­dred, with one shop, I would hap­pily live there for the time it took to write a novel.

TREASURES OF TINOS

TINOS, within the circle of islands known as the Cyc­lades, fea­tures sculp­ted marble archi­tec­ture almost every­where you look; the island has a rich source of the stone. Even houses in tiny vil­lages have elab­or­ate lin­tels, while ornate foun­tains are com­mon­place. It also has a school of sculp­ture and was the birth­place of the artist Chale­pas. Expect ancient foot­paths, deser­ted beaches in autumn and many ‘pigeon­niers’, pretty cream towers hous­ing pigeons (provid­ing farm­ers with fer­til­iser). Simple tav­ernas offer the freshest fish; my favour­ite is in Agapi, a vil­lage whose name trans­lates as ‘love’.

DIVE INTO MILOS

MILOS, another Cyc­ladic island, is dra­matic. It was formed by vol­canic activ­ity and its rock form­a­tions are oth­er­worldly. At Sarakiniko, you can dive into the tur­quoise waters from the acres of smooth, undu­lat­ing white rock – but the island also has dozens of divine beaches too, none over­de­veloped. It’s a swim­mer’s para­dise.

Cul­tur­ally it’s rich too. Milos was where the sculp­ture Venus de Milo was dis­covered, cur­rently in the Louvre, although there’s a rep­lica in a local museum, plus many authen­tic objets from antiquity includ­ing clay anim­als and painted pot­tery.

REMOTE KARPATHOS

I LIKE to embark on a mini odys­sey in Greece every sum­mer and the more remote the island, the bet­ter. Karpathos in the Dodecanese is a case in point. It’s reached by the occa­sional ferry or flight from east­ern Crete – and its isol­a­tion means it has pre­served much of its cul­ture. The land­scape is rugged, with hill­top vil­lages enjoy­ing dra­matic sea views.

There’s a strong Italian influ­ence; the island was under Vene­tian rule for two cen­tur­ies from 1304, and Italian con­trol for around 20 years in the early 20th cen­tury. Many islanders speak per­fect Italian and the deli­cious local sig­na­ture dish is handrolled pasta with a sauce of car­a­mel­ised onions and grated sheep’s cheese.

DIVINE NAXOS

WHEN you visit Naxos, yet another Cyc­ladic island, you’re wel­comed by a mighty temple to Apollo. It’s more than 2,500 years old and the scale is extraordin­ary – a reminder of human insig­ni­fic­ance in rela­tion to the divine.

Naxos is home to the best cheese on the planet (something like a Parmesan but cream­ier). And hid­den away on two dif­fer­ent hill­sides are two monu­mental uncom­pleted statues (due to cracks dis­covered in the marble).

The main town has a superb museum in the old castle, with simple statuettes made 5,000 years ago. The ori­ginal use remains mys­ter­i­ous but their beauty inspired mod­ern artists such as Picasso and Giac­ometti.

STRESS-FREE IKARIA

IKARIA is one of the world’s few ‘Blue Zone’ loc­a­tions, where healthy life­styles high pro­por­tion eld­erly people.

I was scep­tical until I saw the num­ber of sprightly octo- and nona­gen­ari­ans with full heads of res­ult in a of healthy sil­ver hair, bright eyes and smooth skin. The island feels stress-free: shops do not open until late morn­ing, and you can relax in healthy, min­er­al­rich hot springs. A mys­ter­i­ous boulder off one of the beaches is sup­posedly where Ikarus, after whom the island is named, fell into the sea when the wax that attached his wings melted away.

HIDEOUT ON KIMOLOS

THIS feels like a private island. It’s a few minutes’ boat ride from Milos, even more pic­tur­esque and with a charm­ing res­taur­ant. A short walk from where the ferry drops you is one of my favour­ite Greek museums, so small there’s only really room for two people at a time. How life was lived here in past cen­tur­ies is beau­ti­fully evoked by the tools and the house­hold utensils on dis­play. Kimo­los feels like a place where you could hap­pily sur­vive self-suf­fi­ciently. If I ever decide to be a her­mit, this is where I’ll go.

COLOURFUL ANDROS

DISTINCTIVE for its grand pas­tel-painted homes where shipown­ers lived in the 20th cen­tury, Andros, in the Cyc­lades, is a delight, espe­cially if you stay at Micra Anglia (Little Eng­land), an eleg­ant boutique hotel con­ver­ted from one of the shipown­ers’ houses.

The other big draw is the Museum of Con­tem­por­ary Art, with its col­lec­tion of mar­vel­lous mod­ern sculp­tures by Michalis Tombros, whose fam­ily came from the island. There is often a tem­por­ary exhib­i­tion, with Rodin or Matisse, for example – aston­ish­ing to dis­cover on this small, remote island. Stretch your legs on its well-main­tained net­work of path­ways.