Unspoilt Greek island perfect for party hopping tourists – with nightclubs as well as stunning secluded beaches
THE white crescent sands of Mylopotas Beach are like a sparkling grin beholding the twinkling Aegean Sea.
Behind the beach, hills with timeless farm terraces, twisty goat paths and just a smattering of hotels glinting in the sun whisper: “Unspoilt Greece.”
Welcome to the Cycladean isle of Ios.
Just the place for hanging out on holiday with Mother Earth — and her wild beaches and mountain treks spared mass tourism.
Yes, Ios is best known for young party people descending by ferry from Santorini and Mykonos.
The revels began during the Seventies with hippies arriving after being turned out of Crete on their pierced ear.
But there is also the “other Ios” — wild nature rather than wild nights.
Visit outside the sweltering party season of July and early August, as this 56-year-old and my wife Nicky did in September, and temperatures in the mid-twenties are perfect for exploring the island.
Most nightclubs in the alleys of the ancient hilltop Chora — island speak for main town, although there is really just one on Ios — are by then shut.
Boogie nights give way to bouzouki in the squares, “souvlucky” party tribes to sandal-wearing foodies in tavernas swooning over homemade taramasalata while discussing their recent days’ secret-beach and trekking discoveries.
At Mylopotas, Ios’s main beach, trendy music bars such as the FarOut Club of hippie legend have changed gear from high-season boom-boom to chill-out, while hipster rest-aurants done out in wood and natural fabrics serve seafood straight from the boat.
If there had been banging parties at Mylopotas and Chora just weeks before we visited, you would never have known.
The island scrubs up a treat, like a naughty teen who tidied the house before Mum and Dad got home.
Not a beer can or cigarette butt in sight.
More discerning tourists — young couples, parents with pre-schoolers, empty-nesters and those of more advancing years — are wooed by an increasing number of boutique hotels on Ios — and in June or September/October prices are down.
Just what the bank manager ordered in these straitened times.
Our base was the family-run Galaxy Hotel, five minutes by flip-flops from Mylopotas.
Owner Antonis Mettos is also the young president of Ios’s tourism committee — on a mission to extend the tourist season beyond just the party months.
“Yes, we are a party island, but want to be for everyone,” he says.
“We’re building small, traditional, family-run hotels so you see the face of the local people.
“Old men and women are working in the same hotels as their children — and you hear their stories.”
Poseidon adventure
His small, gleaming-white hotel with sea-view infinity pool, bougainvillea and olive trees, and comfy double rooms with balconies from just €40 at the start of the season or €120 in party season, speaks to his vision beautifully.
This is a Galaxy far, far away from the daily grind back home.
But Antonis does not want you to just slump on his poolside loungers.
He proudly wants you to see his island of 11 miles by six inside and out, by land and by sea, where the party people rarely bother to venture.
To celebrate our anniversary, we splashed out €350 on our very own, private half-day speedboat tour with Mylopotas Watersports — who also offer various other boat rentals to suit all budgets, as well as scuba, wake-boarding, paddleboarding, kayaking, windsurfing and tube and banana rides.
Within minutes we were whisked along to heart-stopping Tripiti Beach, a tiny lip of sand secreted in a steepling cove that keeps close guard of its golden treasure.
Our Poseidon adventure also took in the sweeping sandy bay of Manganari Beach — where French director Luc Besson shot 1988 free-dive movie The Big Blue — then tiny Pikri Nero beach where it is just you and your snorkel.
But visit Ios outside the sweltering peak season and you should pack walking boots.
Local guide George Dimitropoulos is Ios’s answer to our own, late Lake District mapper Alfred Wainwright and leads tours from €15 per person for a half day.
He has devoted his retirement from the Greek Special Forces to his charity Ios Paths, marshalling volunteers to clear ancient foot-paths which he then digitally archives.
Poignantly, one walk in his book Discovering Ios By Its Footpaths starts on the steps of Chora’s Scorpion nightclub — before leading you smartly out of town on to dreamy chamomile-scented hills dotted with goats and shepherd’s huts, then the tiny, deserted Sapounochoma and Klima beaches.
Other routes pass the remains of Bronze Age settlement Skartos, Greek artists’ hide-aways and mountain chapels apparently attended by few other than goats.
More to behold, with George or by taxi or hire car, includes Homer’s Tomb atop a wild hilltop as epic as the ancient Greek’s poems, Diaseli Cheesery with its recreation of a traditional Cycladic home and delicious cheese-and-wine tasting, and Chora’s treasure-trove archaeological and folklore museums.
The latter is lovingly curated by local eccentric Yiannis Ioukianos, 70, a renowned pebble-mosaic artist whose work adorns the town’s port.
But should all this adventure leave you hungry, then good — Ios meal portions are, well, big, fat and Greek.
Chora’s Lord Byron taverna, where we dined outside under a neighbouring church bell tower, floored us with its preposterously proportioned New York Steak Strips and Pork Roast Mash.
It was a similar story at the town’s Sainis taverna, where the Baby Pork in Honey Sauce is anything but baby — while at Kafenes, by the port, we chowed down next to a table of locals who clearly knew a good thing.
We feasted so sumptuously each night, for €60-odd including carafe of local wine, we could barely face breakfast the next day.
But when we did, our treat was pancakes at Mylopotas’s beachfront Cantina del Mar.
Ios please, can we have some more?
GO: Ios
GETTING THERE: British Airways flies from Heathrow to Santorini from £84 each way.
See ba.com.
Ferry services from Santorini to Ios cost from about £16 (€19) each way.
See ferryhopper.com.
STAYING THERE: Galaxy Hotel has rooms from about £35 per night.
See galaxyhotel.gr.
OUT & ABOUT: See mylopotas-watersports.gr, iospaths.gr for treks with George, and diaseli.com for a cheesery and Cycladean home visit.
Also see visitiosgreece.com/en.