Serifos

Serifos lies in the western Cyclades between Kythnos and Sifnos, a stark and mountainous island that has kept much of its raw character. Ferries from Piraeus reach the port of Livadi in around two to two and a half hours by fast boat, making it one of the more accessible of the quieter Cyclades. There is no airport, and the island's rugged, low-rise feel is part of its appeal.

The island's great set piece is its Chora, one of the most dramatic in the Cyclades. It climbs in tiers of sugar-cube houses up a steep granite peak crowned by the ruins of a Venetian castle, with the older Ano Chora at the summit and Kato Chora spilling below. The walk or drive up is rewarded by sweeping views over the Aegean, a handful of tavernas around the main square and lanes that seem carved from the rock itself.

Serifos is steeped in myth. In legend this is the island where Danae and the infant Perseus washed ashore in a wooden chest, and where Perseus later turned the tyrant Polydectes to stone with the head of Medusa. A harder history followed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Serifos was heavily mined for iron and copper; the rusting loading bays and mining ruins near Megalo Livadi recall a bitter 1916 miners' strike, one of the first in Greek labour history.

The coastline is generously supplied with beaches, many of them undeveloped. Psili Ammos on the east coast is often ranked among the finest sandy bays in the Cyclades, while Livadakia, Agios Sostis and Ganema offer sheltered swimming. Inland, footpaths thread past chapels and the fortified monastery of the Taxiarches in the north. Serifos suits travellers who want striking scenery, good walking and a slower, more elemental island mood rather than nightlife and polish.