Ios · Things to do
Beaches, trails, festivals, food and wine: the experiences that make this island its own.
Experiences
Ideas for every kind of day, from a lazy swim to a full-day hike.
Festival
After eleven at night the lanes around the main square fill with music: Slammer, Escobar and the bars around them, then Disco 69, a few steps from the square since 1979, and Sweet Irish Dream on the road below. Most stay open until four or five in summer.
Chora
Beach
Pools, a restaurant, VIP tables and international DJs on a corner of Mylopotas beach, with events through the summer.
Mylopotas
Culture
The sunset bar on the western hill of Chora, open since 1968, plays classical music as the sun goes down into the sea.
Chora
Culture
Wander the paths among the two-storey houses of Skarkos, then see what was found there in the Archaeological Museum in Chora.
Skarkos
Hike
Drive north to the end of the road and walk up the hill above Plakotos to the stone doorway called the tomb of Homer, with the open sea all around.
Plakotos, the north
Hike
Follow the cobbled path up to the ruins of the Venetian castle and the church of the Panagia inside its walls, for the view over Naxos, Paros and Amorgos.
The east coast
Beach
In summer a boat runs from the port down the coast to the white sandy coves of Manganari, sheltered from the north wind.
Gialos to Manganari
Culture
Take the steps to the top of the Kastro for the church of Panagia Gremniotissa and the view over the port and the sea to Sikinos.
Chora
Festival
The village feasts end in food, wine and fiddle music: Agios Ioannis at Pyrgos on 23–24 June, with the bonfires of Klidonas; Agios Ioannis at Kalamos on 28–29 August; and Agia Theodoti and the Palaiokastritissa on 7–8 September.
Pyrgos, Psathi, Agia Theodoti and Paleokastro
Food & wine
Ios's own soft, sour goat's cheese with herbs, spread on bread or rusks, along with myzithra and the island's thyme honey.
All over the island
Only on Ios
What makes Ios different from every other Greek island.
Herodotus, Pausanias and Strabo all say Homer died on Ios, and the island's ancient coins of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC carry his head. The legend says the poet failed to solve a riddle put to him by fishermen's boys about the lice they had picked, and died soon after. A stone doorway on a hill above Plakotos, in the north, is still called his tomb.
Ios Club opened on the western hill of Chora in 1968, one of the first sunset bars in the Mediterranean, at a time when the island had barely any tourism at all. It still plays classical music as the sun goes into the sea, and the hill it stands on had a sanctuary of Demeter in the 6th century BC.
Skarkos, on a hill between the port and Chora, was a town of about 2800 BC. Its houses had upper floors, and in places their stone walls still stand nearly 3 m high, which is very rare for the Early Cycladic age. It won the Europa Nostra award in 2008.
Of about 86 km of coastline, some 32 km is sandy beach, an unusually high share for the rocky Cyclades: from the party bay of Mylopotas to Manganari, Agia Theodoti, Psathi and Kalamos, which you can still have almost to yourself.
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