“I have analysis paralysis,” said my friend Maite, an Argentinian living in Madrid. Maite is a world traveler, but she always gets stuck when it comes to Greece. “There are so many islands. How do you decide?’
There are more than 6,000 Greek islands and islets, so it’s a fair question – and one that probably has a lot of potential visitors.
“Since I have plans to go to Greece, this is also a question that I want to find the answer to myself,” explained Danielle Pergament to the New York Times.
A way of thinking
I started a process of exclusion: I didn’t include anything with an airport (too many) or no home (empty). Then I added access to ferries (I don’t have a yacht), lots of beaches, good local restaurants and nice hotels.
In addition, a lot of history, welcoming local population and proximity to other islands (for day trips). I also added the mythical Cyclops cave and I have a winner. Six thousand islands and islets become one: Serifos.
Serifos is located in the western Cyclades. If you look at the map of the Greek islands, it is somewhat in the middle, between Syros, Paros and Milos – but it does not recognize the name of its neighbors. It’s not big—about 29 square kilometers in all—but it has 70 beaches
That’s how I found myself in Livadi tis Serifos
Life in Serifos began in the 7th century BC, making it one of the oldest places in the archipelago. And as a Greek friend said “this is the perfect island to spend a week on”. The Platonic ideal of a Greek island, so to speak.
So I found myself (with my husband and our two children) at the counter of a car rental company in Livadi in Serifos, a few steps from where we boarded the ferry.
The gentleman behind the counter gave me a map of the island, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was when I turned to leave, he stopped me and with a thick black marker started erasing the roads on the south and west side of the island.
“You can’t drive here. This is a big problem,” he said, pointing to the map.
Big problem because the roads are impassable, or big problem because the roads are dangerously close to the mythical Cyclops throne, he didn’t mention. So we left the harbor and, following his warning, headed north into the hills and into the island’s big town, Chora.
A ton of views
The name of Chora as the capital of Serifos, although true, is misleading. It looks like a cluster of square, whitewashed houses clinging to the top of a small mountain overlooking the sea. The town consists of sunny cafes, local bakeries, a few churches, zero roads that can accommodate a car, a ton of sights, and more stairs than you can count in a lifetime. .
My husband decided he wanted to go to the Church of St. Constantine, the watchtower of the city. My daughter found three boutiques she wanted to check out before dinner. And my son ran to read the catalog of a blue and white restaurant called Stratos Café. From the moment we stepped into its white embrace, the Nation conquered us.
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“You gotta throw caution to the wind”
We stayed in a small apartment we rented on Airbnb and the next day we started right away. There are miles of beaches to explore, we just need to know which ones we want to go to – and how to get to them. I asked around and there was one thing everyone was talking about.
“You have to throw caution to the wind,” said Stefanie Kasselakis Kyles, a Greek-American whose family is from the island and who has been there for 40 years. “He is formative. Everything in Serifos is shaped by the wind – the hills, the trees, the people.
Want to make sure you’re on the beach without getting hit by a gust of wind? So we followed the advice of the people there: If the wind is from the north, towards the south, etc. With a strong wind blowing from the west, we headed for Psili Ammos, a sandy crescent on the eastern side of the island.
Serifos is hilly, rocky and inhospitable
It is a land that has been eroded by millennia and shaped by the will of the wind. Serifos is wild, a place that seems more connected to its mythology than the other, glossier islands.
Just 30 years ago, there were no hotels here. To exist in Serifos one needs energy. But if you think that the land is barren and empty, Serifos rewards you.
Hidden in its mountains are countless pockets of beauty. When we arrived at Psili Ammos, the water was clear, shallow and warm, the beach was almost empty and the whole area was covered with shady pine trees. A few hours later, we still didn’t hear any English. It’s perfect.
And when the sun started to warm, we went to the other end of the beach, to an outdoor taverna with a stone floor, where people sat in their bathing suits and ate Greek salads and French fries. This is Manolis’s tavern, and as for me, I will happily spend the next four days sitting under the roof of this shack.
But the wind is changing
The next day, with a light breeze from the north, the gods pushed us towards the coast of Koutoulas in the south.
Here we did the same thing the other day. This beach is more made of pebbles and has less people, but it has the same pine trees with a welcoming shade, the same water color as the morning sky and the temperature of the bathtub, and a different tavern beckoning us to the other side. side .
Serifos is Marmot Day, when marmots are on vacation.
Honestly, I don’t have a problem. There’s a certain charm to doing the same thing every day, in the same place, with the same perfectly grilled bream and the same pitcher of cold Mythos beer. But I had work, so we decided to see the island from another angle: from the water.
A Greek Ernest Hemingway
Since our family does not own a yacht, the only option is to charter one. The next day, we threw caution to the wind and headed to the port, aboard a 20 foot RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) captained by Giannis Gyllis.
“Our mission today is to give you the best day of your vacation,” said Mr. Gyllis, a large man with a white beard. A Greek Ernest Hemingway.
“Our vacation has been amazing,” I said. “Don’t promise us something your ship can’t deliver.”
“I see we have to make it very special,” he said. “Get on board.”
My children and I did as he told us (my husband had an unscheduled business meeting back on earth). Mr. helped us. Gylis boarded and offered us drinks. Right now, he has my money. And we left.
Amazing stuff
We zoomed over the water, and the very tanned assistant of Mr. Gyllis, Nikos Kottis, operated the music. For the next hour, it’s just us, Taylor Swift and the vast Aegean.
Our first stop was Polyaigos, an uninhabited island, if you don’t count the goats that live there year-round. (“Polyaegos” translates as “many goats.”) John led us into a large open cave, interrupted by a circular hole at the top.
“It’s called Fanara,” he said.
I have never seen anything like it. My children, who were sitting in the bow, kept looking at me as if asking me if I believed my eyes. I can’t do it. This is the Pantheon designed by Poseidon.
Despite the temptation to dive, the waves are very strong and Giannis wants to take us to Kimolos, a neighboring island, and to a place called “Blue Water”. This entire ocean can be described as “blue water”. How blue is Blue Water than blue water? Then we saw it.
“It doesn’t seem real,” said my daughter. It looks like a chemical spill, with dyed water. John explained that minerals from the rocks had fallen into the water over the years, turning the water into a beautiful sapphire color. I went back to explain this to the kids, but they had already jumped off to explore all the blue nearby.
A house for rent through and through
Half an hour later, feeling like the most ungrateful mother in the world, I pulled them out of the water. Time to go to Kimolos and an amazing gourmet beach taverna called Kyma.
An hour – and the best grilled fish of my life – later, we were back on the boat, salty, happy and peaceful, heading for Serifos. Taylor Swift made us sing.
On our last night on the island, my husband and I went to the Serifos Nautical Club, which has no boats and is not a club. It’s just a lively, local bar on the water. We were there to have a drink with George Kasselakis, Stefania’s father and an acquaintance of Serifos, who has lived on the island for 40 years.
“When I came here in the 1980s, there was a restaurant,” he said. “The whole island has houses for rent. One day I was driving and I saw a guy with a sign that said he was selling his house. That’s what I bought.”
“Serifos is not Mykonos”
I asked Mr. Kasselakis how he thinks Serifos will change in the coming years.
“Serifos is not Mykonos. Mykonos is a zoo. And Paros is even worse – you have to park 10 miles from where you want to go,” he said. “But Serifos never loses its character. I don’t think the locals will allow it.”