Symi

Small, rocky Symi sits just off the coast of Turkey, a short hop north of Rhodes, and it delivers one of the great first impressions in the Aegean. Sailing into the harbour of Gialos, you are met by tier upon tier of neoclassical mansions in ochre, blue, cream and terracotta, rising steeply from the water up the surrounding hillsides. It is an almost theatrical sight, and the reason many day-trippers come from Rhodes just to step ashore and gaze.

That grandeur is the legacy of a 19th-century boom in sponge diving and shipbuilding, when Symi was one of the wealthiest islands in the Aegean and its captains built the mansions that still line the harbour. Above Gialos, the old upper town of Chorio rambles across the hilltop, reached by the roughly five hundred stone steps of the Kali Strata or by road, and rewarded with a Byzantine castle, small museums and long views back down to the port.

Symi is dry and steep, with few large beaches, but its coast is scalloped with clear-water coves reached mostly by boat. Agios Nikolaos and Nanou have some sand and shade, while Agios Georgios sits beneath a dramatic cliff. Water taxis fan out from Gialos through the day, making beach-hopping by boat the natural way to swim.

At the island's southern end stands the Monastery of the Archangel Michael at Panormitis, a large seaside complex around a bell tower that is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Dodecanese. Boats and ferries call here directly, and its courtyards, museums and votive offerings draw a steady flow of pilgrims. No visit to Symi is complete without the tiny, sweet Symi shrimp, eaten shell and all, which appears on every harbour-side menu.

Symi has no airport, so almost everyone arrives by boat from Rhodes, a crossing of around an hour. Many come only for the day, but staying overnight is the secret: once the excursion boats leave, the harbour empties, the light softens on the mansions and the island becomes quietly, gloriously its own.