Corfu for culture
If you’ve read reports about Corfu’s past troubles with lager louts, this choice may seem surprising. But the island, with its delightful Venetian-British capital, is simply too beautiful to ignore, and is fighting back with a culture drive, most notably in music.
Home to three-quarters of Greece’s classical musicians, the town hosts the prestigious International [...]
Skiathos for parties
Skiathos is popular with British visitors, and with good reason: it’s a hedonist’s dream island, pine-scented and fringed by 62 of the finest beaches in Greece. These cover the gamut from the celebrated Koukounaries, a curl of silken sands under a forest of Aleppo pines, to the party beach Vromolimnos and the nudist oasis of [...]
Crete for archaelogy
Dwarfing the other Greek islands, Crete has attractions in spades, but it’s as the home of the first literate civilisation in Europe that it deserves special mention here.
The Minoans flourished from about 2600BC until Santorini blew up 1,000 years or so later, wrecking Crete in a rain of ash, enormous earthquakes and tidal waves. A [...]
Samos for nature-lovers
Few people realise that Greece has the most diverse biosphere in Europe, with a truly astonishing array of flora and fauna; and Samos, an island that always owed much of its success to its fertility, is one of the best places to appreciate it.
The birthplace of Pythagoras, the island where Antony and Cleopatra snogged, Samos [...]
Karpathos for time-travellers
Since joining the EU in 1981, Greece has never looked back: even old grannies ambling down the road on their donkeys have been spotted chatting on mobile phones.
Karpathos, however, has charged ahead less than most. “Greek time” reigns, so you can forget your watch. In the evenings, men often indulge in impromptu singing contests [...]
Paros for windsurfers
In antiquity, Paros was famous for the finest white marble in the world; today it’s known for white-sand beaches, windsurfing and a buzzing social life, drawing a younger (and more budget-conscious) crowd than nearby Mykonos.
Every August adepts assemble at Chryssi Akti, on the southeast coast, for the Windsurfers’ World Cup, but if you’d rather swim [...]
Lefkas for sailors
A short drive from Preveza airport, Lefkas barely qualifies as an island, its northernmost tip is linked to the mainland by a floating bridge. But head south to Nikiana and the busy resort of Nidri, and a truly enchanted seascape of wooded hills and green islets fills the horizon.
If sailing to you means drifting [...]
Saronikos for island-hoppers
The majestic Saronic Gulf, between Attica and the Peloponnese, is scattered with islands, including four of the most distinctive: Aegina, Poros, Hydra and Spetses, all linked by frequent ferries and hydrofoils.
An island of faded neoclassical grandeur, Aegina is celebrated for pistachios and the lovely Temple of Aphaia (tel 22970 32398), which dates from the [...]
Mykonos for sophisticates
The epicentre for fashion in the eastern Mediterranean, racy Mykonos throbs all summer long with the glitterati, gay and straight in roughly equal proportion. The Greek smart set regard its exquisite cubist capital and score of soft sandy beaches as a summer home, and they have plenty of company from around the world.
Famous as [...]
Skiros for backpackers
Skiros has long been a favourite backpackers’ hideaway, partly because it’s just hard enough to reach to deter the big tour operators.
Sandy beaches, a charming capital, a quirky, casual atmosphere and enough nightlife to have a good time without breaking the bank are the main attractions.
The locals stalwartly maintain their traditions; many of the [...]
