Ios

Ios used to be the Greek island a certain kind of British 19-year-old went to. Some of that is still true: the harbour bars in Mylopotas and the clubs of the Chora, the main village, run loud in summer. The picture is more interesting now. The island has considered hotels at its quieter end, restaurants that take Cycladic cooking seriously, and a daytime calm Mykonos does not have. It helps to understand the rhythm.

Mornings on Ios belong to swimmers and walkers. Mylopotas Beach, a long curve of fine golden sand backed by a single road, slopes gently into warm water. From there, marked footpaths lead north to a series of small coves and to the supposed tomb of Homer on the northern headland. Tradition holds that the poet’s mother was Iote and that he died here.

The Chora is small, steep and picture-perfect. White cubes pile down a conical hill, crowned by windmills and a blue-domed church, and the streets are too narrow for cars. Walk it at 5pm, when the light has turned and the bars have not yet woken up.

A practical word. The party-island reputation peaks in late July and August. In late May, June or September the quieter Ios is in good order, the restaurants are still open and prices are visibly lower. Three nights is enough.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    Ios has no airport. Ferries run from Piraeus or Rafina to Ormos Iou, the harbour: about four hours by SeaJet, or seven on a conventional ferry. The island has its own heliport, and the nearest runway is on Santorini. The faster way is a helicopter direct, or a flight into Naxos or Mykonos and a tender across. The Chora stands on the hill above the port.

  2. Calilo

    Calilo is Angelos Michalopoulos’s resort: 36 individual suites on a private bay at the south-eastern edge of Ios, set in 1,000 acres of protected land. It has hand-crafted mosaics, private pools, and heart-shaped pools in the signature suites. Its maximalist style sets it apart from the Aegean white-cube norm. It is the headline address on Ios.

  3. The Calilo kitchens

    The resort has three places to eat. CALILO Restaurant sits beside the pool, with tables in the water, and is open from breakfast until late. CHES is the fine-dining room, open in the evenings only, where Alex Tsiotinis takes a Cycladic angle. The beach cabana serves lunch under thatched shade. Booking is sensible from late June to August, and the kitchens run for the resort’s full season.

  4. The Tomb of Homer

    On Psathopyrgos Hill in northern Ios, above the ruined settlement of Plakotos, stand the remains of a Hellenistic tower the islanders have always taken for Homer’s grave. Strabo, Pausanias and the 10th-century Byzantine Suda each name Ios as the poet’s burial place. Coins of Ios in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC carried his image. A marked ten-minute path reaches the site, with a roofed gazebo at the top.

  5. Skarkos

    Skarkos is the early Bronze Age settlement on the hill west of Chora, from the mid-3rd millennium BC. Marisa Marthari excavated it from 1984 to 1997. It is so well preserved that 55 buildings still stand, with two-storey walls 4 metres high and their original stone staircases. Finds include marble figurines, obsidian tools and schist chests: Skarkos was a considerable Cycladic marble-working centre.

  6. Southern beaches, by boat

    Manganari is four sand beaches in a row along a single lagoon on the southern coast. The first has services and the other three are quiet. Tris Klisies lies north-east of it, reached by a rough path or by sea. Kalamos, on the eastern coast, is long sand with no facilities. Charter the south-coast run from Mylopotas, past Pikri Nero, Tripiti, Tris Klisies, Manganari, Plakes and Kalamos, for a day or a half day.

  7. The Michalopoulos vision

    Angelos Michalopoulos and Vassiliki Petridou own about a third of Ios but build on only 1% of it. Their six hotels and restaurants sit under the LuxurIOS umbrella, and the rest is kept as protected land. Such restraint is unusual in the Cyclades, and the view across generations is the stated point. Pathos at Koumbara, Free Beach Bar at Mylopotas and Steps Bar in Chora run under the same plan.

  8. Panagia Gremiotissa

    Panagia Gremiotissa, the Virgin Mary of the Steep Cliff, is the blue-domed church above Chora, built in 1797. It stands 150 metres above the sea on the town’s cliff, with a single palm tree beside the bell tower, and can be seen from anywhere in the village. Climb the steps an hour before sunset for the view over the white cubes to the harbour.

  9. The window

    June brings the swims and a Chora still empty. In mid-September the meltemi, the strong summer wind, softens and the rooms drop their headline rates. The Chora bars and harbour clubs run their full programme only from late June to August.

Anchorage Notes

  1. Ormos

    Ios has one port, at Ormos, which the island also calls Yialos. It lies 111 nautical miles from Piraeus at the head of the bay that takes the island’s name, and the Municipality of Ios names its marina as the place a yacht lies, with fuel, water, electricity and provisions at the quay. The ferries use the same water, and the day boats leave from below the hill of the Chora, the island’s main town.

  2. The Port Fund

    The Municipal Port Fund of Ios is the authority of record: a public-law body seated in the Municipality, responsible for installing, organising and operating the island’s port works and for the commercial, passenger, tourist and fishing traffic that uses them. Its jurisdiction also covers the ports of Sikinos, Folegandros and Anafi. One office answers for a quay on any of the four islands.

  3. Manganari

    Manganari is at the southern end of the island, a run of small bays with tavernas and a beach bar at the shore and nothing behind them. Through the summer the excursion boats come down from Ormos to reach it and the beaches that have no road at all. The boats fill the bay by noon and leave the water quiet again by evening.

  4. Psathi

    Psathi is one of the coastal settlements the Municipality of Ios counts on the island, and it is very small: a long beach broken into smaller bays on the eastern coast, with a taverna behind it. The traffic that fills Mylopotas and the Chora does not come this far. A yacht spends the afternoon here and finds nothing arranged for it.

  5. Kalamos

    Kalamos is on the eastern coast, where a creek runs down to the sea until the spring dries up, with Plakes and Pappas along the same shore. All three are day anchorages: there is no village behind them, nothing at the water is set up for a boat, and the way in is by water, which keeps visitors few.

Mythology

  1. Homer

    Strabo places the poet’s grave on this island, recording it as the place where, in his words, ‘according to some writers, the poet Homer was buried’. It is one claim among several, and his own wording keeps it uncertain.