The ruins of Delos seen from the slopes of Mount Kynthos

Delos · Towns & villages

Towns & villages of Delos

Harbour towns, mountain hamlets and the places where island life still follows its own rhythm.

Sacred Harbour & the sanctuary

The Sacred Harbour

Where pilgrims, merchants and today's day-trippers all stepped ashore

The boats from Mykonos tie up in the same sheltered bay on the west coast that served the ancient sanctuary. In antiquity it was the Sacred Harbour, kept for pilgrims and religious missions, while the cargo ships of the Hellenistic and Roman free port used the commercial quays further south. From the jetty you walk straight into the past: the ticket office, then the paved square of the Agora of the Competaliasts and the start of the Sacred Way, all within a couple of minutes.

The landing stage, with the sanctuary right behind it
The Agora of the Competaliasts, a square run by freedmen and slaves
The postholes in the paving where market awnings stood
The view across the strait to Rhenia

Discover The Sacred Harbour

Sacred Harbour & the sanctuary

The Sanctuary of Apollo

Three temples to one god side by side, a colossus felled by a bronze palm, and a temple that took two centuries and was never finished

The heart of Delos is a walled precinct a short way up the Sacred Way from the harbour, crowded with more than a thousand years of offerings to Apollo. Its centre is unique in Greece: three temples to the same god standing in a row, a small one of poros stone, the marble Temple of the Athenians and the big Doric Temple of the Delians. Around them lie the oikos of the Naxians, the base and broken limbs of their colossal statue, a row of treasuries, long stoas given by Hellenistic kings and the altar Apollo was said to have built with his own hands.

The three temples of Apollo in a row
The base of the Naxian Colossus: 'I am the same stone, statue and base'
The Stoa of Philip V and its king's dedication
The oikos of the Naxians, with its marble frame
The Artemision and the torso of the Colossus beside it

Discover The Sanctuary of Apollo

Lions & Sacred Lake

The Terrace of the Lions & the Sacred Lake

Lean marble beasts guarding a lake that is no longer there, where Leto clung to a palm tree to give birth

North of the sanctuary a row of marble animals sits on its haunches facing east, over the hollow where the Sacred Lake used to be. The Naxians set them up at the end of the 7th century BC along the processional route, and they are some of the oldest monumental animal sculpture in Greece. Look closely: with their lean bodies, ribs showing and small heads, many scholars see them as lionesses rather than lions. The ones on the terrace today are casts; the originals stand indoors in the museum, out of the salt wind. Below them, the lake that the sacred swans of Apollo swam on is a dry, oval basin with a single palm tree.

The row of marble lions above the dry lake
The lone palm tree in the lake bed, a nod to the myth of Leto
The Agora of the Italians, one of the biggest buildings on Delos
The Letoon, the temple of Apollo's mother

Discover The Terrace of the Lions & the Sacred Lake

Lions & Sacred Lake

The Archaeological Museum of Delos

The real lions, a Mycenaean warrior in ivory and the signature of a 7th-century BC sculptor, in the only shade on the island

A low building in the middle of the site, opened in 1904 with five rooms and enlarged in 1931 and 1972 to nine, holds the finds that could not be left out in the weather. Your site ticket includes it. It is where the original marble lions now stand, where you see the archaic statues and sphinx of the early sanctuary, and where the houses of the Theatre Quarter give up their small, domestic things.

The original lions of the Naxians, side by side indoors
The Mycenaean ivory plaque of a warrior in a boar's-tusk helmet
The base signed 'Euthykartides the Naxian made me'
The statues of Cleopatra and Dioskourides
Boreas carrying off Oreithyia, from the Temple of the Athenians

Discover The Archaeological Museum of Delos

Theatre Quarter

The Theatre Quarter

Narrow streets of rich merchants' houses, their floors still carpeted with mosaics, below a marble theatre and its great cistern

South of the harbour the town of the free port climbs the slope in lanes of tall stone walls: houses of merchants and bankers of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, built round courtyards with marble columns and, under foot, mosaics. Delos has some 350 mosaic floors, and many are still in the houses they were made for. At the top of the quarter is the theatre, and beside it a vast arched cistern that caught the winter rain for a town with no river.

The theatre, rebuilt in marble from shortly after 300 BC
The arched cistern beside the theatre
The dolphins mosaic signed by Asclepiades of Arados
Dionysus riding a big cat in the House of the Masks
The statues of Cleopatra and Dioskourides in their own house

Discover The Theatre Quarter

Mount Kynthos & the foreign gods

A 113 m climb past the temples of Isis, Serapis and the Syrian gods to Zeus on the summit and the whole Cyclades at your feet

Mount Kynthos is the island's only real hill, a granite cone of 113 m east of the town. On its lower slopes, terraces held the sanctuaries of the gods the traders brought with them: three Serapeia for the Egyptian Serapis, the Temple of Isis with its restored front, and the sanctuary of the Syrian gods Hadad and Atargatis with its own small theatre. A stepped ancient path climbs on past a cave roofed with granite slabs to the summit sanctuary of Zeus Kynthios and Athena Kynthia, where the first Delians lived some 4,500 years ago.

The Temple of Isis, its columns set up again
The three Serapeia of the Egyptian gods
The theatre of the Syrian gods, for a few hundred worshippers
The granite-roofed cave on the slope
The summit view over Delos, Rhenia, Mykonos and the ring of the Cyclades

Discover Mount Kynthos & the foreign gods

Rhenia

The bigger, empty island across the strait: Apollo's land, the graveyard of Delos and today its swimming beach

Rhenia lies less than a kilometre west of Delos, an empty island of about 13.9 km² made of two hills of 136 m joined by an isthmus only some 60 m wide. In antiquity it was where Delos sent everything that could not touch sacred ground: the dead, the dying and women about to give birth. Today no one lives there, it is a protected Natura 2000 area, and in summer cruise boats from Mykonos anchor in its coves so that visitors to Delos can swim.

Sandy coves with no road and no buildings
The ancient necropolis of Delos
The view back across the strait to the sanctuary

Discover Rhenia

Regions

Where to base yourself in Delos

Sacred Harbour & the sanctuary

The landing, the Agora of the Competaliasts and the walled precinct of Apollo, with its three temples, the Naxian oikos and colossus, the treasuries and the stoas of kings.

Lions & Sacred Lake

The Terrace of the Lions above the dry lake of Apollo's birth, the Letoon, the vast Agora of the Italians and the museum.

Theatre Quarter

The town of the free port: lanes of merchants' houses with mosaic floors, the marble theatre and its arched cistern.

Mount Kynthos & the foreign gods

The terraces of Isis, Serapis and the Syrian gods, a cave roofed with granite and the summit sanctuary of Zeus and Athena.

Rhenia

The empty island across the strait, Apollo's since the 6th century BC, the graveyard of Delos and its swimming coves today.

Mykonos Old Port

Where the Delos boats leave, and where you sleep and eat: nobody may stay on Delos overnight.

Find a place to stay

Browse hotels and guesthouses across Delos, filtered by region and price.

Browse hotels

Last updated 9 November 2026