Syros

ΑA city that happens to be on an island

Nothing prepares you for the arrival. The ferry comes round the headland and Ermoupoli rises out of the water in tiers of neoclassical facades, marble streets and two hills crowned by two cathedrals — one Orthodox, one Catholic. This is not a village that grew; it is a nineteenth-century city, built from nothing in the 1820s by refugees from Chios and Psara during the War of Independence, and for several decades the busiest port in Greece, ahead of Piraeus.

Piraeus overtook it, the shipyards shrank, and the city stayed. Today Ermoupoli is the capital of the South Aegean region and the seat of the Cyclades, with a courthouse, a hospital, a university department and 21,000 people who live here all year. That changes everything about a visit: the bakeries are open in February, the tavernas cook for locals, and nothing is seasonal theatre.

ΒWhat to see in Ermoupoli

Miaouli Square, a vast marble plateia with the town hall across one end, is where the whole city walks in the evening. A few steps away is the Apollon Theatre, built in 1862–64 to designs by the Italian architect Pietro Sampò and opened with Rigoletto — a full horseshoe opera house, tier on tier, in a town of this size.

North of the square the Vaporia quarter drops straight into the sea: the captains' houses, and the blue-domed church of Agios Nikolaos above the rocks where people swim off ladders. Uphill to the west, Ano Syros is the medieval town the Venetians founded in the thirteenth century, reached by around a thousand marble steps, Catholic to this day and topped by the cathedral of Saint George. The rebetiko musician Markos Vamvakaris was born in its lanes and is remembered there.

The Industrial Museum in the old works south of the port is the best explanation anywhere of why this island was once the engine of Greek shipping.

ΓBeaches

They are modest by Cycladic standards and that is part of the appeal — these are beaches for swimming rather than for photographs. Galissas, Kini, Vari and Megas Gialos are the organised ones, all sand, all with tavernas. Agathopes and Komito in the south-west are prettier and quieter. In the empty north, Grammata is a bay whose rocks carry inscriptions left by ancient sailors asking for a safe passage; most people get there by boat.

ΔEating

Syros has its own food, which is rare on a small island: San Michali, a hard cows'-milk cheese with protected designation of origin, louza, and the loukoumi and halvadopita sold in shops that have been making them for a century. Eat in Ermoupoli for the range and in Ano Syros for the view.

ΕGetting there and when to go

Ferries from Piraeus take roughly two and a half to four hours, and Syros is a junction — boats go on from here to almost every other Cyclade, which makes it a good first or last stop on an island-hopping route. There is also a small airport with flights from Athens. Because the city lives all year, Syros is one of the few Greek islands worth visiting in October, March or at Easter.