More Greek Islands You'll Love | Travel + Leisure

More Greek Islands You'll Love

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Cephalonia
Made famous by Captain Corelli's Mandolin, this Ionian island is perfect for families, with its intimate resorts, dazzling beaches—don't miss the powdery sand of Myrtos—and plenty to keep everyone entertained: kids can watch wild horses at Mount Ainos National Park; adults can visit the Drogarati Cave, where Maria Callas once sang.

Chios
The verdant interior of Chios, a 45-minute ferry ride from Cesme, in Turkey, is reminiscent of Tuscany: sprawling, cypress-and-citrus-lined farmhouses and charming agritourism inns. The 14th-century village of Pyrgi still harvests mastic, the resinous ancestor of modern chewing gum (packs of Elma gum are available all over the island).

Crete
Although hideously overdeveloped in parts, the largest and southernmost island in Greece beguiles with enigmatic Minoan ruinsand the stunning Samaria Gorge. Stay south and west, avoiding the rowdy scene along the northeast's endless stretch of Irish pubs.

Folegandros
The Cinderella of the Cyclades, Folegandros is a sleepy oasis with a cliff town rivaled only by the ones on Santorini, its nearby neighbor to the southeast. "Folegandros can boast of the most majestic coastline...anywhere," wrote 19th-century traveler and archaeologist Theodore Bent.

Ikaria
On a pristine northeast Aegean island known as Red Rock (Communists were once exiled here), you'll find dramatic hill villages, unspoiled beaches on the northern coast, and the popular cooking school of Diane Kochilas, the world's leading authority on Greek cuisine.

Ithaka
"I shall not see on earth a place more dear," Odysseus says of Ithaka, a quiet Ionian isle three hours from the mainland, beloved by Greece's sailors for its secluded coves, sweet coastal villages, and fish tavernas.

Kárpathos
This slender island between Crete and Rhodes is a gateway to the past. In the mountaintop village of Olymbos, villagers dress, worship, and live much as they did half a millennium ago; they even speak a Doric dialect.

Kíthira
Athenian cognoscenti love the aristocratic mountain villages, the endless walks, and the powerful sense of history that permeates this island south of the Peloponnese (Aphrodite is said to have risen from the crystal-clear waters just off Kíthira's shores). Don't miss the uncrowded Kaladi and Fyri Ammos beaches, or just-caught lobster at the warm, family-run Manolis taverna in the port town of Diakofti.

Koufonisia
These two tiny, virgin islands just south of Naxos in the Cyclades offer some of the best diving and snorkeling in Greece: submerged ruins, stalactite caves, Technicolor starfish, pastel coral, morays, and schools of sea bream.

Lesbos
Blanketed with millions of olive trees, Lesbos is the legendary birthplace of the poet Sappho and the producer of Greece's finest ouzo. The village of Molyvos, a former Genoese fortress town with distinctive red-roofed houses, is an excellent staging ground for visits around the island. You're also just a short ferry ride away from the classical sites of Ephesus and Pergamon, in Turkey.

Naxos
A six-hour ferry ride southeast of the Athenian port of Piraeus, Naxos is the largest of the Cyclades and is home to Mount Zeus, at 3,294 feet the island chain's highest peak. Theseus abandoned Ariadne on these lush shores, which beckon modern trekkers with fertile valleys, citadels topped by Venetian ruins, and miles of silver beaches.

Rhodes
Its imposing Gothic Old Town (built by the multi-ethnic 14th-century Knights of St. John) and the labyrinthine village of Lindos are reason enough to brave the marauding crowds of British tourists. Located in the southeastern Aegean, Rhodes is also Europe's sunniest spot.

Samothrace
Twenty miles southwest of the northern city Alexandroúpolis, this island was once the beacon of the Aegean; Poseidon watched the Trojan War from its mighty Mountain of the Moon. Today, much of Samothrace (of Winged Victory fame) is a virtual wildlife refuge teeming with rare flora and fauna—and very few foreign tourists.

Santorini
Five hours southeast of Piraeus, Santorini has something for everyone: sublime views of exploding sunsets, sexy black volcanic beaches, the Aegean's finest winemakers, cave-rock hotels, startling wall paintings at Akrotiri, and postcard-perfect cliff-hanging towns.

Sifnos
There's no glitz on this small Cycladic isle, just miles of olive and almond groves, respectful tourists, and lovely villages like Kastro, a captivating maze of houses on a precarious cliff.

Sími
Hugging the southern coast of Turkey, the island of Sími has a graceful main port that resembles a wedding cake of Neoclassical villas. Greece's onetime sponge-fishing capital is now a center of aquaculture and boatbuilding.

Skopelos
Aleppo pines (which yield the resin used for flavoring retsina), plane trees, and chestnuts cover nearly half of this enchanted island, a 21/2-hour ferry ride from the mainland, in the Sporades. Save for a lively port—where neon is banned—Skopelos is for wanderers and nature-lovers.

Skyros
Five and a half hours northeast of Athens, in the Sporades, Skyros is known for unusual attractions, both traditional and New Age. It houses Europe's oldest holistic arts center (poetry, filmmaking, salsa, yoga) and plays host to an outrageous pre-Easter carnival where men dress as wild goats and vast quantities of wine are consumed—the Skyrianversion of Mardi Gras.

Syros
This island's elegant port, Ermoúpolis, four hours southeast of Athens, brings Venice to mind; its huge ballroom of a square recalls St. Mark's. Once labeled the Pope's Island and still a Roman Catholic enclave, Syros has serene beaches and a wild interior that are little known to non-Greeks.

Tínos
At the Lourdes of Greece, as it's sometimes called, the Greek Orthodox faithful climb on bloodied knees to the hilltop Church of the Annunciation, one of 750 churches on the island. This former Venetian stronghold, a 30-minute ferry ride north from Mykonos, also has thousands of dovecotes that are lessons in geometry.
—G.A.M.

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