Ios Offers Best of Cyclades Without the Crowds

All of the colors of the Cyclades are prime. There’s a rich simplicity, a single purity to the landscape, from the craggy, penurious hills covered in scrub to the houses sheathed in white light, like a sort of celestial glow. Pristine and brilliant.

If the hallmark of Greece lies in the quality of its light, as author Henry Miller suggests, then the Cyclades are the essence of the Greek experience. To journey through Greece and not cruise the Cyclades Islands is like touring France without tasting the wine.

The Cyclades--clustered roughly in a circle in the southern Aegean equidistant between Athens and Rhodes--have long been known for their seductive beauty.

Delos, the central island, was the sacred isle where Apollo, the god of music, poetry, prophecy and medicine, and the goddess Artemis were born. Naxos, whose orchards and vineyards still suggest richness and plenty, was once known as Dionysius after the god of wine and revelry.

And Milos is inseparably associated with Venus, the goddess of love.

Today’s visitors come for the sun and to view green glens, tiny, sugar-cube towns, colorful harbors and glowing beaches. Sometimes, the silence is broken only by the braying of a mule or the distant chiming of a church bell.

But the quintessential Greek island is Ios, with its famous windmills and phosphorescent-white villages.

Ios’ charm owes much to its small size and serenity. Homer, it is said, came here to die. His tomb, on the northern flank of Mt. Pirgos, is an inspirational site disturbed only by the wind and by sheep and goats.

The late spring, when the wildflowers are in bloom, is a good time to visit Ios. Then, a cooling breeze prevents the temperatures from getting uncomfortable.

Mercifully, Ios is spared traffic, save the aging bus that climbs the serpentine lane from the port to the little white town of Hora, perched harmoniously atop the crown of the hill like a pile of sugar cubes about to come tumbling down.

The village was built this way--”compartmented,” says Lawrence Durrell, “upon the same mathematical principle as the pomegranate”--to foil would-be Turkish marauders. It worked. Latter-day visitors with no intention of pillage and plunder are immediately lost amid the honeycombed alleyways.

Ios is such an unfathomable maze of alleyways that it is a blessed relief when you plunge, unexpectedly, from the labyrinth into the tiny village square, with its taverns set under awnings and shaded by mulberry trees.

In springtime, the island vibrates with color, those of exorbitant fuchsias and bougainvilleas and the glimmering walls that the law requires be whitewashed twice a year.

Pleasure-seekers flock to the Cyclades each summer to indulge their hedonistic whims.

The bronzed and the beautiful bask in the sun on the huge scalloped white beach of Milipotas, the more remote beaches of Manganari, Kalamos and Psathi and on the rocky promontories that divide them.

As on other isles, most of the beaches have informal tavernas offering lunch: freshly grilled fish, tzatziki (yogurt, garlic and cucumbers) and salata horiatiko (fresh mixed salad), washed down with retsina , the resin-laced Greek wine.

The ideal way to see the island is on foot. With luck, a path may lead to a quiet cove backed by fig trees, where the water is warm. There, visitors can rest beneath the shade of an old tree, musing, until the sound of the cicadas and the warm, pleasing fragrance of lemons and vines puts you to sleep.

Though well known by Europeans as the island to visit, Ios has escaped the international fame of Mykonos, with its windsurfers, water skiers and speedboats. In the daytime, all is serene.

Come evening, however, and the sleepy village shows another face, like a classical Greek actor changing his mask. Ios begins to rock, disco and boogie through the night and the aromas of roast lamb on a spit or succulent fish cooking over hot coals fills the air.

Go into a kitchen, as is Greek custom, to see and sniff what’s cooking before making a choice. Leave the elegant clothes packed for your visit to Mykonos. Ios is for the informal.

Club Ios is popular with romantics who gather to watch the sun set to the accompaniment of classical music. As the stars come out, the lamplit village square slowly begins to fill. Greek villagers--the same dramatis personae of an Aristophanes play--sit around, taking the alien scene in stride between gulps of ouzo as the bazoukis gradually give way to more raucous music.

Homer’s Cave, Bobby’s Club and a dozen others hidden within the warren of alleys make Ios one of the world’s best social scenes for nocturnal sybarites.

Disco 69 attracts swingers with the earthy songs of Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones.

Beneath the low vaulted ceilings of the Orange Club the young squeeze together, moving to the beat of Whitney Houston, Santana and James Brown.

From the Cavo D’Oro the sounds of Dire Straits or Earth, Wind and Fire escape from the steamy interior where bodies pulsate through the night.

Jazz fans choose the candlelit Kalamera Club, which has the warmth of a grandfatherly hug.

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During late spring and summer, a ferry runs daily between Athens and the Cyclades. The 10-hour journey, which can be surprisingly cold at any time of year, includes stops at the islands of Naxos, Paros, Seriphos, Sifnos and Thira (Santorini). The return journey to the Athenian port of Piraeus is often overnight.

Tickets can be bought from agencies wharfside at Piraeus and on each of the islands for only a few dollars. Short excursions between adjacent islands are generally twice as expensive as the regular inter-island passenger service out of Piraeus.

Most visitors to Ios rent rooms in a pension. If you arrive by ferry and don’t have a room reservation, don’t fret, just keep your ears open for cries of spiti-spiti! (house).

Some tourist-class hotels have recently been completed; most have moderate prices. The Hotel Phillipon costs approximately $26 U.S. for a double room, shower included. The 12-room Aphrodite is clean, has all marble floors and costs $29, including breakfast. At Milopotas Beach, the Hotel Acropolis is a steal for $15 double, including shower and balcony overlooking the sea.

A tourist information office can be found at the port. They should be able to provide directions to any of the hotels.

For more information on travel to Greece, contact the Greek National Tourist Organization, 611 West 6th St., Suite 1998, Los Angeles 90017, (213) 626-6696.