A tale of twin peaks
Nigel Summerley explores a Greek island that has never made a fuss about its many attractions or its remarkable history
Icouldn’t remember the last time I’d knelt in a church, but when I walked into the splendid cathedral of Agios Giorgios, having scaled the steep 600ft hill of Ano Syros, and saw the padded kneeler in front of the pews, it was a no-brainer. I sank down, rested my legs, closed my eyes and gave a silent prayer of thanks that I’d made it. That I was praying was unusual enough. But this huge church commanding the heights of a Cycladic island was Roman Catholic – in a place where Greek Orthodox is the expected norm.
To understand, you have to know the far-from-usual history of Syros, an island almost unknown to foreign tourists, mainly because it has never really needed them. It sits in the middle of the Cyclades surrounded by holiday hot spots such as Mykonos and Paros, but it’s always been different.
Under Frankish rule after the Crusades until the 16th century, it – and its established Catholics – remained under French protection into the 19th century. So it became a safe haven for refugees fleeing Turkish ethnic cleansing during the war for Greek independence in 1822.
Chios, an island next-door to Turkey, was right in the firing line and many of its inhabitants fled west to Syros to establish their own community on the hill here they named Vrontado (after their lost home town). Vrontado and Ano Syros are the twin peaks that constitute Ermoupolis, city of Hermes, capital of Syros and of the Cyclades.
After prayers in the Roman Catholic cathedral, I went out and looked across the wide and windy space to Vrontado, which is topped by the great Orthodox church of Anastasis. Apart from being crowned by churches, the thing the two mounts have in common is that they are both a bloody hard climb (by stairways with hundreds of steps) – but worth it for the amazing views of the pretty town and its vast natural harbour.
French protection and the arrival of enterprising refugees set the scene for Syros to be a prosperous centre of commerce, including a thriving shipyard. The idea of making money from tourism remained an irrelevance until 2007/8 and what locals call ‘the crisis’.
Eleni Prochori, who rents out small apartments in her large garden, in the central hamlet of Malia, said: ‘There was not much tourism here before that. In the past few years it has grown rapidly, with a lot of development along “the beach”.’ By this she means the west coast north and south of Galissas, a small village with a lovely sandy beach and almost perfect swimming (for perfect, you have to go a little farther afield).
There are rumours of a wealthy American-greek who plans to revive the shipyard – with part of the deal being some sort of American naval base. What do the islanders think? ‘They’re very happy,’ said Eleni. ‘They see dollars.’ But wouldn’t there be a downside? ‘Of course.’
Ermoupolis doesn’t appear economically desperate. Small and humble houses may pack the labyrinthine back alleys of Ano Syros, but Vrontado has comfortable-looking homes, and its neighbouring suburb of Vaporia is dotted with rich mansions.
At the centre of the town is wide, palm-lined Miaoulis Square and the imposing neoclassical town hall, built in the 1870s, which gives one the feeling of being in mainland Europe rather than on a small Aegean island.
Ermoupolis is a cultured place. The Archaeological Museum, next door to the town hall, is packed with remarkable finds from the islands, many dating from earlier than 2000 BC.
And the town’s Apollo Theatre, deliberately modelled on the likes of La Scala, Milan, and the Teatro dell Pergola, Florence, is an architectural gem. It opened in 1864 with a performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto, and now stages everything from classical to pop. I joined a capacity crowd of locals dressed in casual elegance for a concert by two phenomenal talents: virtuoso guitarist Panagiotis Margaris and legendary diva Eleni Vitali. Together they produced not simply music but passionate high drama.
Beyond Ermoupolis, the natural music of Syros is the sound of sparrows, chickens, dogs, sheep, goats... often, just the breeze, and sometimes total silence, particularly if you take the coastal path to explore the beaches north of Galissas. Such as Kini... the name sounded vaguely naughty, suggesting the sight of something smaller than a bikini, tinier even than a monokini, but in reality it’s a conventional little seaside village with a busy-ish beach and swim-friendly bay.
Farther north was quieter Delfini where a couple of tavernas did little business, and a group of burnt-red English lads concentrated on applying suncream to their girlfriends’ naked backs – rather than their own.
And then, up and over rugged hillsides, there eventually was the Greek beach of your dreams, Varvarousa. Only reachable by foot or small boat, it was just pale sand and motionless clear water where you could swim and float amid clouds of little fish.
The remoteness of Varvarousa makes it nudist-friendly, although
the island’s official naturist beach is just south of Galissas, a short climb and descent down to the bay at Agia Pakous. (There is good swimming here too, but you’ll have to take all your clothes off otherwise the regulars will think you’re a bit odd.)
Walking and swimming are good preparations for eating. Back at Kini, I sat in a waterside café and ate what looked like a gigantic slice of cheesecake but was in fact made of beetroot (root and leaves) and garlicky tsatsiki.
Ermoupolis has so many restaurants (in narrow streets and along the seafront) that you could eat in a different one every night for weeks.
The town isn’t short of churches either. As well as the big ones on the twin peaks, there are plenty of (Orthodox) others, including: stunning Agios Nikolaos with remarkable modernist block-colour stained-glass windows; the Church of the Dormition (next to the Casino) which boasts an icon of the death of the Virgin Mary by El Greco; and the Cathedral of the Metamorphosis built in 1824 by refugees grateful to have escaped the Turks.
Today, ferries from Athens/ Piraeus regularly make the threeand-a-half-hour crossing to Syros; the island welcomes visitors – but gives the impression it could still manage very well without them.