“I have analysis paralysis,” said my friend Maite, an Argentinian living in Madrid. Maite is a world traveler but has always been blocked when it comes to Greece. “There are too many islands. How do you decide?’
There are more than 6,000 Greek islands, so it was a fair question — and one that many prospective visitors probably ask. Since I had plans to go to Greece, it was also what I wanted an answer to myself.
I started with a process of elimination: Rule out anything with an airport (too crowded) or uninhabited (too empty). Then add ferry access (I don’t have a yacht), lots of beaches, good local restaurants and nice hotels. In addition, a rich history, a welcoming local population and the proximity to other islands (for day trips). Throw in the mythical Cyclops cave, and we have a winner. Six thousand became one: Serifos.
Serifos is located in the western Cyclades. If you look at a map of the Greek islands, it’s pretty much dead center, sandwiched between Syros, Paros and Milos — but it doesn’t have the name recognition of its neighbors. It’s not huge, only about 29 square miles — but it has 70 beaches. It was settled in the 7th century BC, which makes it one of the newest spots in the archipelago. And a Greek friend had told me it’s the perfect, just-discovered-enough place to spend a week. The Platonic ideal of a Greek island.
So I found myself (with my husband and our two children) at the counter of a car rental company at Livadi Port in Serifos, a few steps from where the ship spat us out.
The gentleman behind the counter gave me a map of the island, which I was waiting for. What I didn’t expect was that as I turned to leave, he stopped me and with a thick black marker, started crossing roads in the southern and western parts of the island.
“You can’t drive here. It would be a big problem,” he said, waving a finger at the map.
Big problem because the roads are impassable, or big problem because the roads were dangerously close to the mythical Cyclops throne, he didn’t specify. So we left the harbor and, heeding his warning, drove north, into the hills and into the main town of the island, Chora.
Calling Chora the capital of Serifos, although true, is misleading. It looks more 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 views, and more steps than you could count in a lifetime. My husband decided he wanted to hike to the Church of St. Constantine, the lookout over the city. My daughter found three boutiques she wanted to explore before dinner. And my son ran to read the menu in a blue and white charmer of a restaurant called Stratos Café. From the moment we set foot in its blindingly white embrace, the Country won us over.
We stayed in a small apartment that we had rented on Airbnb and the next day we started right away. There were miles of beaches to explore, we just had to figure out which ones we wanted to go to — and how to get to them. I asked around and everyone mentioned one thing.
“You have to throw caution to the wind,” said Stephanie Kaselaki Kyles, a Greek-American whose family is from the island and who has been going there for 40 years. “He is formative. Everything in Serifos is shaped by the wind – the hills, the trees, the people.”
You want to make sure you’re on the beach that doesn’t get hit by gusts. So we followed the advice of the locals: If the wind is coming from the north, head south, etc. With a strong breeze coming from the west, we drove to Psili Ammos, a sandy crescent on the east side of the island.
Serifos is hilly and rocky and inhospitable. It is land that has been worn away by millennia and shaped by the will of the mistral winds. Serifos is wild, a place that seems more connected to its mythology than other, more glamorous islands. Even 30 years ago, there were no hotels here. Being in Serifos required quickness. But just when you think the land is barren and empty, Serifos rewards you.
Countless pockets of beauty are hidden in its mountains. When we arrived at Psili Ammos, the waters were clear, shallow and warm, the beach was almost empty and the whole area was overgrown with shady pine trees. After a few hours, we still hadn’t heard a word of English. It was perfect. And when the perfection warmed up, we made our way to the edge of the beach, to an open-air taverna with a stone floor, where people sat in their bathing suits and ate Greek salads and French fries. This was the Manolis tavern, and as far as I was concerned, I would be happy to spend the next four days sitting under its thatched roof.
But the winds are changing.
The next day, with a light breeze coming from the north, the gods pushed us towards the beach of Koutoulas in the south. Here we did exactly the same as the day before. This beach was made up more of small stones and had fewer people, but there were still the same pine trees with welcoming shade, the same water the color of the morning sky and the temperature of a bathtub, and a different tavern that said at the end. . Serifos is Pig Day if they go on holiday.
Honestly, that was fine with me. There is an attraction to doing the same thing every day, in the same place, with the same perfectly cooked sea bream and cold Mythos beer. But I had a job to do, so we decided to see the island from a different perspective: from the water.
Since our family is without a yacht, the only option was to charter one. The next day, we threw caution to the winds and headed for port, in a 20 foot RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and Skipper Yiannis 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.
“It’s a very long vacation,” I said. “Don’t let your mouth make promises your boat can’t deliver.”
“I see we’re going to have to make this extra special,” he said. “Get on board.”
My kids and I did as we were told (my husband had a very bad work meeting ashore). Mr. Gyllis helped us on board and offered us drinks. So far, my money is on him.
And we left.
We zoomed in on the water and Mr. Gyllis’ extremely tanned assistant, Nikos Kottis, turned on the music. The next hour it was just us, Taylor Swift and the wide open Aegean. Our first stop was Polyaigos, a completely uninhabited island if you don’t count the goats that live there year-round. (“Polyaegos” translates to “many goats.”) Gianni led us into a huge open cave, punctuated by a circular hole at the top.
“It’s called Fanara,” he said.
I had never seen anything like it. My children, sitting in the bow of the RIB, kept looking back at me as if asking if I could believe my eyes. I could not. It was the Pantheon that Poseidon designed.
As tempting as it was to dive in, the waves were too rough and Giannis wanted to take us to Kimolos, a neighboring island, and to a place called “Blue Water”. This whole sea could be described as “blue water”. How much bluer than blue water could Blue Water be? Then we saw it.
“It doesn’t seem real,” my daughter said.
It looked like a chemical spill, like dyed water. Gianni explained that minerals from the rocks had been falling into the water for years, turning the water a stunning sapphire hue. I turned to explain it to the kids, but they had already jumped in to explore all that blue up close.
Half an hour later, feeling like the funnest mom in the world, I pulled them out of the water. It’s time to go to Kimolo and an incredible gourmet beach tavern called Kyma. An hour—and the best grilled fish of my life—later, we were back on the boat, salty, happy and at peace, heading back to Serifos. Taylor serenaded us the whole way.
On our last night on the island, my husband and I went to the Serifos Yacht Club, which has no yachts and is not a club. It’s just a very lively, local bar on the water. We were there to have a drink with Giorgos Kaselakis, Stefanie’s father and Serifou expert, 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 had a house for rent. I was driving one day and saw a man with a sign saying he was selling his house. So I bought it.”
I asked Mr. Kaselakis how he thinks Serifos can change in the coming years.
“Serifos is not Mykonos. This place is a zoo. And Paros is even worse – you have to park 10 miles from where you want to be,” he said. “But Serifos will never lose its character. I don’t think the locals would allow it.”
