Ios has a picturesque little main town sitting on a couple of hills behind the port of Gialos. The island is known as a party island but it is also fantastic for food.

If you do not wish to stay the island can be visited on a day trip from the other central Cycladic islands. And there are still a couple of strolls and/or shorter walks you can do.

Gialos has several friendly restaurants where you can sample some delights while waiting for your ferry.

Mylopotas may have the best food on any Greek island. With modern takes on Greek classics as well as loads of other delicacies they consistently offered me the best meals ever for an entire week. It is up-market, it is fairly expensive, but it is well worth it in my opinion. And service is usually top notch as well.

For the walker however the situation is more grim. Even if paths are marked to a degree they seem generally badly maintained, partly overgrown, destroyed by collapsed stone walls or very difficult to access because of road building.

Selected walks: For walks on Ios take a look in “Walking the Aegean Islands” by Dieter Graf or his newer “Santorini, Sifnos and the Western & Southern Cyclades” (referred to below as /Graf/), which should be a bit more up-to-date.

•1 GIALOS – CHORA (17 mins, to the main church): A short and obvious stroll. Fork left from the round-about just after leaving the ferry. A couple of hundred meters ahead a staired street will take you all the way. Cross the main road again just before the big main church.

•2 CHORA – CHORA HILL (12 mins, from the main church to the little chapel on the hill top): A very short but fun stroll. You will have a nice overview of the town and much of the island. The path to the summit runs from the front yard of a church to the east of the top (if the gates are open, I believe they close at 10 pm). Signs do point you in the direction of this church. If you can’t find it, other options do exist, but you will have to scramble over rocks and stone the final bit. It is well worth the climb, although it might be a little too hot in the middle of the day. But then you will have the whole place more or less to yourself. Most people go up here to admire the sunset.

•3 MYLOPOTAS – CHORA (2 hours return, I turned around a few minutes before the main road though): Take official route 4 from behind the Harmony restaurant. Beware that shortly after the tiny beach you must double back right up stairs that seem to just go to a private gate. Notice the faint red blob on these stairs. Also note that I approached this walk from the far side of the beach, starting (recommended!) with a long inland detour via the dam/reservoir. A path starts from a house just below the dam. Notice the gate secured with a rope here.

•4 MYLOPOTAS – SAPOUNOCHOMA (3 hours return, includes some extra research but skipping the actual beach): Inspired by walk 30 in /Graf/, my intention was not to follow the route in the book but instead using official route 4. This also proved difficult as the approach was destroyed by a recent expansion of the road which was now under asphalt. Not good for my 64-year-old self. No other possible short-cuts worked either, former paths (found on maps) were either overgrown or obliterated by road-building. I had no useful choice but to stroll along the asphalt until an access road right at last took me down to the continuation of route 4. The way towards Sapounochoma was then clear. The path ended at a crossroads with a newly bulldozed dirt road towards the beach, at a gate. This gate was open but with a picture of an angry dog. The beach may now be private and any access banned. I opted to just take the road back. Higher up there was another gate, this time closed, but it was easily climbed. Eventually back up on the main road a long and winding asphalt walk took me back to Mylopotas. Not a fantastic walk.

•5 MYLOPOTAS – CHORA – PROFITIS ILIAS – CHORA – MYLOPOTAS (4 hours): “Short cut” version of walk 28 in /Graf/ but starting and ending in Mylopotas. I just used the main road for maximum efficiency to/from Chora. The walk does not go the top of Profitis Ilias but it is accessible if you really want to. This is the official route 2 but unfortunately this route was even here made more difficult by being badly maintained (if at all). Overgrown in places requiring detours or very careful navigation, some thorns, the stone walls collapsed into the path etc. Where a creek had dug a huge ditch that seemed almost unpassable /Graf/ turns left and downhill, steeply. This hillside had burned and was now covered with charred remains of branches as well as loose gravel and looked very dangerous. The book suggests a “Short cut” here anyway, by returning the same way, an option I gladly took.

• Good starting points: • Gialos • Chora • Mylopotas

• How to get there: • By ferry from other islands in the Cyclades • By ferry from the mainland

• More info: Sorry, none yet