Sérifos

Where its neighbour Sífnos welcomes visitors with soft green terraces and dovecotes, Sérifos, ‘the barren one’, can take your breath away, with wild rocky terrain so stark against the deep blue of the Aegean. Laid back and peaceful, but just beginning to be discovered by a few Athenians in the know, Sérifos has 70 beaches, many of them wild, virgin of sunbeds and cantinas. The best require some tramping down rocky paths, but worth it for anyone after some of the clearest turquoise seas in Greece.

As for the rest, Sérifos is pure Cyclades; Chóra, high above the sea, provides one of the most visually dramatic introductions any island can offer, seemingly inaccessible as it tumbles down the steep slopes (although you can walk up to it in less than an hour). The appealing 1980s-style port of Livádi provides the informal foreground to this postcard shot.

History