This week’s travel dream: The Greek islands as they once were

Getting to the Little Cyclades isn’t easy, but the trouble’s well worth it, said Jeffrey Taylor in Condé Nast Traveler. Tucked among larger islands in the southern Aegean, this small archipelago feels like a “hidden Hellenic paradise.” Of all the Greek isles, these tiny specks—Pano Koufonisi, Schinousa, Iraklia, Donousa—best preserve the “peaceable experience” of island life before heavy tourism. Luxury hotels are nonexistent; instead proprietors seeking tenants greet you at the harbor. Paved roads are few and cars not needed: These bare, rocky islands are made for walking. The number of visitors is modest, as is the number of locals. Pano Koufonisi, the most populated of the far-flung isles, is home to only 366 residents, many of whom are grizzled fishermen.

Pulling into Pano Koufonisi, “I feel as if I am a privileged guest” of the Greek gods. “Meltemi-driven waves are crashing against the shore, and the wind is roaring plaintively through the pines, sounding like a dirge from aeons past.” Thrilled to have finally reached land, I set out to find one of the Cyclades’ “exquisitely empty” beaches. Soon I’m clambering up “sun-drenched windy hills of beige-mottled rock” and reach the other side of the island in just 45 minutes. I’m almost completely alone, except for a few goats. Leaving them to their grazing, I trek down to Pori beach’s golden shores and dive into the “frothy, green-blue water.” The beach is nearly all mine, and “I’m so relaxed I can’t remember what day of the week it is.”

Still thinking I’ve yet to locate the “ideal Cycladic beach,” I step off the dock in Agios Georgios, a “hamlet of white-washed, blue-trimmed houses” on Iraklia. Home to only 115 people, Iraklia is the largest and “most scenic” of the islands, with footpaths leading to historic windmills, 19th-century churches, “stalagmite-studded caves,” and “lonely escarpments above the sea.” I follow one of the paths south to Livadi, where I find myself alone on a “half-mile stretch of powder-fine sand, beneath a crumbling Hellenistic fortress.” As I emerge from the cool sea, I take in the “iconic, almost dreamy” scene: “a Greek beach awash in the sun, a temple on the slopes, emblematic of a civilization past.”

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