Culture
Walk the Sacred Way at opening time
Be on the first boat and walk the paved processional way between the stoas to the temples of Apollo before the groups catch up.
From the jetty
Delos · Things to do
Things to do in Delos
Beaches, trails, festivals, food and wine: the experiences that make this island its own.
Experiences
Our favourite things to do
Ideas for every kind of day, from a lazy swim to a full-day hike.
Culture
Read the colossus' boast
Find the base of the Naxian Colossus beside the oikos of the Naxians and the archaic inscription claiming statue and base are one stone, then the broken torso by the Artemision.
Sanctuary of Apollo
Hike
Climb Mount Kynthos
Take the ancient stepped path past the Temple of Isis and the granite-roofed cave to the summit, 113 m up, for the view of the islands standing round Delos in their ring.
East of the site
Culture
Hunt for a signature in stone
Look for the name of Asclepiades of Arados in the dolphins mosaic, then for the god riding a leopard in the House of the Masks.
Theatre Quarter
Culture
Meet the real lions
See the original lions indoors, then walk out to the terrace to compare them with their copies above the lake.
Archaeological Museum of Delos
Culture
See the phallus of Dionysus
The god of wine and theatre was honoured with marble phalluses on tall pillars; one, carved with scenes of his followers, still stands, broken but unmistakable.
Stoibadeion, near the museum
Culture
Take a guided tour
The boat companies sell half-day tours with a licensed guide and entry included; on a site this dense, two hours with a guide shows you more than four on your own.
From Mykonos old port
Nature
Ride the afternoon boat
Go over at 17:00 and walk the site in the low light, as the crowds and the heat have gone, and sail back to Mykonos as the sun sets.
From Mykonos old port, May to October
Beach
Swim off Rhenia
Pair Delos with a cruise that anchors in a sandy cove of Rhenia, the island where the Delians buried their dead and where you may swim.
Rhenia, by cruise from Mykonos
Only on Delos
What makes Delos different
What makes Delos different from every other ancient site in Greece.
Three temples to one god
In the heart of the sanctuary three temples of Apollo stand side by side: a little one of poros stone, the Temple of the Athenians with its seven statues and the great Temple of the Delians, begun with the League's money around 476 BC, stalled for some 150 years when the treasury left for Athens, and never finished. Its columns still have only their guide fluting.
A lion that went to Venice
The lean marble beasts the Naxians lined up above the Sacred Lake around 600 BC may well be lionesses. The ones on the terrace are copies; the originals are in the museum, and one has stood at the land gate of the Venice Arsenale since 1716, wearing a head carved for it there.
The altar that stumped Plato
Told by an oracle to double the size of Apollo's cube-shaped altar, the Delians found that doubling each side gave a block eight times bigger. They asked Plato, who answered that the god wanted the Greeks to study geometry. Doubling the cube with ruler and compass, the 'Delian problem', was finally proved impossible in 1837.
Gods from every shore
In the free port, merchants brought their own gods with them: three sanctuaries of Serapis and a Temple of Isis for the Egyptians, a sanctuary with its own small theatre for Hadad and Atargatis of Syria, and inscriptions of Samaritans from Mount Gerizim. A building by the sea is held by many to be one of the oldest synagogues known outside Palestine.
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