Luxury holidays in Syros

One of the smallest (but grandest) of the Cyclades’ sun-spangled islands, Syros owes itself to the tide’s good fortunes. When the ship of the island’s ancient king, Koiranos, sank between Paros and Naxos, it was a dolphin that came to his rescue, transporting him back to the safety of his native shores. Likewise, the Agios Stefanos, a chapel built among the rocky caves of Galissas was created by a fisherman whose life was saved by a giant octopus. Indeed it seems that Poseiden has been keeping an eye out for craggy old Syros, whose next maritime miracle came in the form of merchant refugees fleeing the Greek war of independence. Among them were skilled stonemasons from neighbouring Tinos and Paros who paved the streets with marble and erected decadent neoclassical buildings that transformed the island from a rocky port to an architectural hotspot full of aristocratic flair. Today, the island is a cultural banquet that extends far beyond the beach (though you’ll certainly find them, too). The swaggering locus of Ermoupoli has all the pizzazz of a Venetian fever dream, with ornate palazzos, gold-domed theatres and prodigious piazzas, but outside of the capital things get a little more Cycladic; think rugged hillsides, ancient churches and the indulgently idle passage of time.