Komito Beach on Syros: The Wild Sandy Bay on the Southwest Tip

Komito Beach on Syros: The Wild Sandy Bay on the Southwest Tip

Komito beach is a long stretch of soft sand on the southwest tip of Syros, below the village of Poseidonia and fringed with a line of tamarisk trees that give natural shade. The shallow, calm water and the near-total lack of development make it one of the quietest, wildest beaches on the island. Plan the … Read more

Poseidonia (Delagrazia) on Syros: The Aristocratic Villa Village of the Southern Coast

Poseidonia (Delagrazia) on Syros: The Aristocratic Villa Village of the Southern Coast

Poseidonia, also called Delagrazia, is the aristocratic villa village on the southwest coast of Syros, roughly 12 kilometres from the port capital Ermoupoli. Wealthy Ermoupoli merchants built eclectic and neoclassical mansions here in the late nineteenth century, giving the village a character unlike any other Cycladic settlement. Plan the whole trip with Greece Tours. The … Read more

The Apollon Theatre of Ermoupoli: The Little La Scala of Syros

The Apollon Theatre of Ermoupoli: The Little La Scala of Syros

The Apollon Theatre is the municipal opera house of Ermoupoli, the capital of Syros, and the oldest surviving theatre of its kind in Greece. Merchant wealth built it in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the port ran as the busiest trading harbour in the young Greek state. The Italian-trained architect Pietro Sampo modelled … Read more

Vari Beach on Syros: The Sheltered South-Coast Family Bay

Vari Beach on Syros: The Sheltered South-Coast Family Bay

Vari beach is the sheltered family bay on the south coast of Syros, a narrow, deeply cut inlet of shallow, warm water backed by a resort settlement of hotels and tavernas. The calm sea and gentle sandy floor make it the safest choice on the island for families with young children. Plan the whole trip … Read more

Syros Loukoumi: The Island’s Signature Sweet and Its Ermoupoli Tradition

Syros Loukoumi: The Island's Signature Sweet and Its Ermoupoli Tradition

Syros loukoumi is the island’s signature confection, a soft, sugar-dusted sweet that made Ermoupoli famous across Greece from the 19th century onward. The gel of sugar and starch, scented with rose or mastic, travels home in ribboned boxes as the classic souvenir of the island. Plan the whole trip with Greece Tours. The sweet arrived … Read more

Galissas Beach on Syros: The Sheltered West-Coast Sandy Bay

Galissas Beach on Syros: The Sheltered West-Coast Sandy Bay

Galissas beach is the main sandy bay on the west coast of Syros, a sheltered crescent of pale sand fringed by tamarisk trees and backed by a small village of tavernas and rooms. The shallow, calm water and easy bus link from Ermoupoli make it the island’s most family-friendly stretch of coast. Plan the whole … Read more

Ano Syros: The Medieval Catholic Hilltop Town Above Ermoupoli

Ano Syros: The Medieval Catholic Hilltop Town Above Ermoupoli

Ano Syros is the medieval Catholic town that crowns the ridge above Ermoupoli on the island of Syros. Venetian settlers founded it in the thirteenth century on the hill of San Giorgio, ringing the summit with houses built for defence against pirates. The settlement kept a Roman Catholic majority through the Ottoman centuries, protected by … Read more

Ermoupoli: The Neoclassical Capital of Syros and the Cyclades

Ermoupoli: The Neoclassical Capital of Syros and the Cyclades

Ermoupoli is the capital of Syros and the neoclassical showpiece of the Cyclades, built by refugees in the 1820s who turned a bare harbour into the leading commercial port of nineteenth-century Greece. Marble squares, an opera house modelled on La Scala, and mansions raised by sea-captains give the town a scale found in no other … Read more

Prehistoric Thassos: The Island’s Oldest History

Prehistoric Thassos: The Island's Oldest History

Prehistoric Thassos reaches back tens of thousands of years, long before the marble city of the classical age rose on the northern coast. Deep beneath the hills near Limenaria, miners of the Old Stone Age cut galleries into the rock to reach red ochre, leaving one of the oldest underground mines known in Europe. Farmers … Read more

The Monument of Glaukos in Thassos

The Monument of Glaukos in Thassos

The Monument of Glaukos stands in the ancient agora of Thassos, a plain marble memorial that carries one of the oldest Greek inscriptions ever found. The block names Glaukos, son of Leptines, a warrior and companion of the poet Archilochos who helped the Parians settle the island in the early seventh century BC. Few objects … Read more

Evraiokastro in Thassos: The Headland Basilica

Evraiokastro in Thassos: The Headland Basilica

Evraiokastro in Thassos is a low rocky headland that juts into the sea beside the old harbour of Limenas, the main town of the island. Ruins of a large Early Christian basilica of the fifth and sixth centuries AD crown its summit, while the sacred deposits of an ancient sanctuary lie buried at its foot. … Read more