Sifnos
Quiet Cycladic Island Of Whitewashed Villages, Hundreds Of Chapels, A Marked Footpath Network, Chickpea Stews Baked In Clay And A Living Pottery Tradition · Apollonia, South Aegean
Sifnos is the quiet, well-fed island of the western Cyclades: a compact landscape of terraced hillsides, whitewashed villages that run into one another, several hundred small chapels and a marked network of old stone footpaths said to run to about 200 kilometres. It has a serious cooking reputation, and it earned it: Nikolaos Tselementes, whose name became the Greek word for a cookbook, came from here, and the island still bakes chickpeas overnight in clay pots for Sunday and cooks lamb in wine in sealed clay vessels for Easter. The clay matters too: Sifnos has thrown pots for centuries, and its workshops still turn out the chimney pots and cooking vessels the recipes need. The sights are small: Kastro, the medieval capital on a cliff with ancient sarcophagi built into its walls, and Chrysopigi monastery on its little rock peninsula, which is on every Greek calendar. Honest caveats: no big monuments, no airport and no nightlife, the beaches are pleasant rather than famous, the port and the villages are far apart, and almost everything shuts from November to April.
Sifnos, western Cyclades; Kamares port, Apollonia in the centre, Kastro on the east cliff and Chrysopigi monastery on its rock; ferries from Piraeus, Apollonia, South Aegean, Greece
Sifnos has no ticketed main attraction and no gate. The villages, the footpaths, Kastro and the Chrysopigi headland are open at all hours and free. The small Archaeological Museum at Kastro and the folklore collection in Apollonia keep short hours, typically mornings and some late afternoons in summer and erratically or not at all in winter - confirm locally. Churches and monasteries are often locked and are opened by a keeper or on feast days; ask in the village. Pottery workshops open through the day in season and many close in winter. Ferries from Piraeus take roughly 3 hours on a fast boat and roughly 5 hours on a conventional one, on the western Cyclades line with Serifos, Kythnos, Milos and Folegandros; there is no airport. Book ferries and rooms well ahead for August and for Easter.