Just 40 miles from Athens yet feeling infinitely remote, this tiny islet has long been a bohemian hideout attracting musicians, painters and actors to its car-free cobbled lanes and sea-glinting rocky shores. ‘In the high season, weeks pass when the port feels almost like a little St Tropez, full of visitors lolling over the day’s first glass of Champagne. Other times, you’ll find only a few old men playing backgammon and smooching couples off the early hydrofoil ordering pastries for breakfast,’ says Quirke. Through mariners’ mansions and along pretty streets with no names, in bars clinging to cliffs and on mule rides up monastery-topped hills, she unravels the island’s hypnotic magic as time becomes ‘relative, ever deepening and drifting’.
Music by Giorgos Hatzinasios
This podcast is sponsored by The Greek National Tourism Organisation (visitgreece.gr). From go-slow islands to cutting-edge cities, Greece is an amalgam of beautiful landscapes, powdery beaches, delicious food and wine, and a millennia of culture – an all-time favourite holiday destination steeped in myth and legend. For more information, go to visitgreece.gr.
