Ios Tours

Ios tours take place on a Cycladic island in the South Aegean, between Naxos and Santorini. Topics run from Chora and the church of Panagia Gremniotissa to the Odysseas Elytis Theatre and Skarkos. Palaiokastro, Psathi, Agia Theodoti and Manganari beach follow, with stories of Homer and the small islands nearby. Related pages include Best Cyclades islands, Santorini day trip from Athens and Greece island hopping tours. Island and mainland trips of every kind sit under Greece tours.

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What are Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to an Aegean island that Greece places in its South Aegean region, among the Cyclades. The Cyclades form a cluster of isles south-east of the Greek mainland. That cluster lies in the waters between Greece and Turkey.

Ios tours unfold on an island measured along two main axes. The longest axis runs to the northwest and spans 17.5 kilometres. Here an axis means a straight line drawn across the full length of a shape. The second axis runs from the northeast towards the southwest. Along that line, the island measures about 14 kilometres.

In the 20th century, Ios had 3,500 inhabitants, a higher figure than at the 2021 census. The word inhabitants names the people who make a place their year-round home. Since the 1990s, under Mayor Pousseos, the island has worked to draw different kinds of tourists. A mayor heads the elected council of a town or island.

Ios tours rest on an island with excellent tourist infrastructure. Infrastructure means the basic services that a place needs, such as water, power and transport. The island also has an adequate road network. Taken together, the roads that tie a place’s towns, villages and beaches form its road network.

• Concerts: The Municipality of Ios and a local tourism company hold concerts at the theatre each year.
• Distance: The village of Psathi, on the island of Ios, lies 200 kilometres from Athens.
• Region: The Thira regional unit covers Santorini, Anafi, Folegandros, Ios, Sikinos and smaller islands.

In the 1970s, Ios began to emerge as a popular holiday island for young people from across Europe. For Ios tours, that decade marks the start of the modern visitor story. Ten years in a row make up one decade.

How does Chora shape the story of Ios tours?

Ios tours share their island with Chora, also written Hora, which is the capital town. Its official name is Ios, the same as the island. A capital town is the main seat of local life and offices on an island.

Chora is the largest settlement anywhere on Ios. The name Chora goes back to a Greek term for a main settlement. Settlement here means a spot where people have put up homes and live side by side. For Ios tours, this means that Chora is both a place name and an ordinary Greek word.

The town of Chora is built between two small hills. The modern town sits on the ruins of the ancient polis of Ios. In a polis, or city-state, one city governed itself together with its farmland. The word ruins refers to what is left of fallen buildings, streets and walls.

Chora has only a handful of small roads open to cars. A large share of its paths are open only to people on foot. For Ios tours, a footpath means a way too narrow for any vehicle. Vehicles are machines on wheels, such as cars and vans, that carry people or goods.

• Lodging: Chora holds a large share of the island’s hotels, apartments and other tourist facilities.
• Churches: At least 24 small churches stand within the town of Chora on Ios.
• Buildings: Shops, cafes and restaurants fill the ground floors, while residents live on the floors above.

Almost all buildings in Chora are coated with white lime, a wash made from burnt stone. Their doors and window frames are painted sea blue. On Ios tours, this style is called Cycladic, after the Cyclades, the island chain of Ios.

Which legend gives Panagia Gremniotissa its place in Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to an island where Panagia Gremniotissa stands in Chora, the capital town. It is a Greek Orthodox church, part of the main Christian church of Greece. A legend about a floating image explains how this church came to be built.

The legend of the church begins in Crete during Ottoman rule. People there set a religious image of Panagia on a wooden raft. A raft is a flat boat made of logs or planks tied together. They placed a lit candle on it, hoping that someone will find and rescue the image.

Later, a night-shepherd noticed a light on the beach of Milopota, on Ios. He found the raft and the image there. For Ios tours, a night-shepherd means a herder who watches sheep or goats in the dark. The finders took the image to the church of Saint Nikolas.

The next morning, according to the legend, the image had moved by itself. It was found in the church of Saint Eleftherios in Palaiokastro. A legend is a traditional story handed down by word of mouth over the generations. For Ios tours, Saint Eleftherios thus becomes the second church in the story of the image.

• Bricks: Each time locals began a new church, they found the bricks beside Saint Eleftherios.
• Site: The people of Ios chose a building site from which the island of Crete is visible.
• Height: The church stands 150 metres above sea level, almost at the top of Chora’s cliff.

The name Gremniotissa means “of the cliff”, so the full title reads Virgin Mary of the Cliff. The church is also spelled Gremiotissa. For Ios tours, both spellings point to the same church in Chora, on the island of Ios.

What does the Odysseas Elytis Theatre add to Ios tours?

Ios tours unfold on an island with an open-air theatre in the ancient Greek style. Its name is the Odysseas Elytis Theatre. Open-air means the theatre has no roof, so plays, concerts and festivals take place under the open sky.

The theatre was designed by the architect Peter Haupt. He was a professor of architecture at the University of Berlin. The building was modelled on the ancient theatres of Greece and Magna Graecia. For Ios tours, Magna Graecia, Latin for Great Greece, names the Greek-settled coast of southern Italy.

Its stands are made of marble and can hold 1,100 spectators. Stands are the rising rows of seats where an audience sits. Spectators are the people in the audience who watch a show or a match. The stage has a diameter of 12 metres. The diameter of a circle is the distance across it through the middle.

The theatre is named after the Greek poet Odysseas Elytis. A poet is a person who writes poems, which are pieces of writing set out in lines. Naming a building after a person is a way to honour that person. For Ios tours, the theatre therefore carries the name of a modern Greek writer.

• Seats: The seats face south, a layout that shields spectators from the summer winds.
• Poet: Odysseas Alepoudelis, who lived from 1911 to 1996, wrote under the pen name Elytis.
• Festival: Omiria events from the fifth month to September include a school theatre contest and sports.

The first name Odysseas is the modern Greek form of Odysseus. Odysseus is the hero of the Odyssey, the long poem credited to Homer. For Ios tours, the theatre’s name thus joins a modern poet to an ancient hero.

Why does Skarkos matter to Ios tours?

Ios tours have a prehistoric neighbour in Skarkos, on a hill at the edge of Chora. Chora is the main town of Ios. Prehistoric means from the long age before people kept written records. Skarkos itself was a settlement, a cluster of homes.

The excavations at Skarkos covered the hill on its northern and eastern flanks. An excavation is a careful dig by archaeologists to bring old remains to light. The homes found there are rectangular and built of stone. Archaeologists are scholars who study the human past through objects and buildings.

The digs also uncovered public spaces at Skarkos. A public space is an open area that the whole community shares, such as a square. Finds from the site include vessels made of marble and of other stone. For Ios tours, a vessel means a hollow container such as a bowl, jar or cup.

The conservation project at Skarkos won the 2008 EU Prize for Cultural Heritage. The award is also known as the Europa Nostra Top Prize for Conservation. Conservation is the work of protecting old remains from further decay. For Ios tours, cultural heritage is what a people hands down: buildings, objects and customs.

• Museum: Chora’s archaeological museum puts a share of the finds from Skarkos on public display.
• Praise: The award praised the minimal, gentle interventions, which did no harm to the landscape.
• Name: Europa Nostra, a name in Latin, is a pan-European federation for cultural heritage.

Europa Nostra speaks for citizens’ groups that work to safeguard Europe’s cultural and natural heritage. A federation is a union of groups that keep their own identity but act together. For Ios tours, the prize ties Skarkos to that wider European effort.

What story does the Church of Saint Irene bring to Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to an island with the Church of Saint Irene, a Greek Orthodox church on Ios. In Greek, the church is called Agia Eirini. The name Irene means peace, and a saint is a holy person honoured by the Church.

Saint Irene rises at the southern edge of the port of Ios, in Yialos. For Ios tours, Yialos is a Greek word for the shore, used for the harbour quarter. Ships tie up, load and unload at a port, the working harbour of a town. The church was built in the 17th century.

The church of Saint Irene on Ios has two bell towers. One rises over the church entrance, and the other stands over the gate. Bell towers lift church bells high, so that their ringing carries a long way. The first tower holds seven bells, and the second holds three.

Very close to the church, under a tree, lies a mysterious grave from the 17th to 18th century. A grave is a place in the ground where a dead person is buried. Mysterious means hard to explain or not fully understood. For Ios tours, the grave stands as one of the riddles of the harbour of Yialos.

• Symbols: The grave bears an engraved square and compasses, along with a skull and bones.
• Square: The square and compasses is the best-known symbol of Freemasonry; both are tools of architects.
• Skull: The skull and crossbones became linked with piracy through its use on Jolly Roger flags.

Nobody knows whose grave it is, but people assume that it belonged to a pirate. A pirate is a sea robber who attacks ships and coastal towns. On Ios tours, the owner of the grave thus remains a question without an answer.

Where does Palaiokastro fit into Ios tours?

Ios tours take place where Palaiokastro, whose name means old castle, stands in eastern Ios. A castle is a strong building with thick walls, raised to defend people and land. Its Greek name joins palaio, meaning old, and kastro, meaning castle.

The castle was built in 1397 by Francesco I Crispo, the Duke of Naxos. A duke is a noble ruler, ranked just below a king. Crispo based his castle on an older Byzantine castle in the same area. For Ios tours, Byzantine describes the empire of the eastern Romans, which was ruled from Constantinople.

Before he became duke, Crispo was Lord of Milos. That title made him a vassal of the Duke of Naxos. A vassal holds land in return for loyalty to a stronger lord. Through marriage and the will of Venice, he became the tenth Duke of the Archipelago. The word archipelago names a chain or cluster of islands.

Palaiokastro lies on the top of a hill, at an altitude of 275 metres. Altitude means the height of a place above the level of the sea. A hill is a raised area of land, lower and gentler than a mountain. For Ios tours, the castle thus belongs to the high ground of eastern Ios.

• Distance: Palaiokastro stands 17 kilometres from Chora, the capital town of the island.
• Ruins: Today only parts of the walls and the ruins of inner buildings remain.
• Chapel: The small Church of Panagia Paleokastritsa now stands inside the old walls.

One of Crispo’s children, Marco I Crispo, held the title Lord of Ios. A lord was a noble who ruled land and people under a higher ruler. For Ios tours, the castle thus links the island to one noble family of the Aegean.

How does Psathi connect with Ios tours?

Ios tours happen on an island where Psathi, a small settlement, lies 8 kilometres from Chora. Chora is the capital town of Ios. In English, a very small settlement is called a hamlet. Hamlets rank below villages in size.

Government Gazette number 161 B of 1995 declared the area of Psathi an archaeological site. For Ios tours, a government gazette is the official paper where a state prints its decisions. The decision protects the remains of two ancient temples. Today, two churches stand right on top of those temple remains.

The site also holds the remains of a Roman aqueduct. An aqueduct is a channel or bridge built to carry water over a distance. Remains of an ancient proto-Cycladic settlement and cemetery also lie there. A cemetery is a burial ground. Proto-Cycladic refers to the first phase of Cycladic life in the Bronze Age.

The islet of Psathonisi is named after the nearby village of Psathi. An islet, in plain terms, is a tiny island, too small for a town. In Greek, nisi means island, so the name joins Psathi with the Greek word for island. For Ios tours, the name Psathonisi thus simply means the island of Psathi.

• Shape: Psathonisi is too steep for beaches, rises to 53 metres and is mostly slate, a layered rock.
• Plants: The islet has no trees, only small bushes, like the neighbouring island of Ios.
• Past: Psathonisi counts as an archaeological site, with remains of a proto-Cycladic settlement.

Psathonisi is a small uninhabited island near the castle of Palaiokastro on Ios. Uninhabited means that nobody makes a home there at all. For Ios tours, the islet therefore links the village of Psathi with the old castle that stands nearby.

What links Agia Theodoti to Ios tours?

Ios tours relate to Agia Theodoti, a seaside settlement on Ios, at an altitude of twenty metres. In Greek, Agia means saint and is used for a woman saint. Theodoti is a Greek woman’s name meaning given by God.

Under the Kallikratis reform, Agia Theodoti lies in the regional unit of Thira, in the South Aegean region. Each Greek region divides into smaller regional units. Before the reforms, it belonged to the province of Thira, within the prefecture of the Cyclades. The word prefecture names the older Greek districts that came before regional units.

The Thira regional unit took shape in 2011, carved from the former Cyclades Prefecture. Thira divides into 5 municipalities. Each municipality covers a local area and has its own elected council. Elected means chosen by the votes of local people. For Ios tours, a council means the elected body that decides local matters.

Count Pasch van Krienen once searched Ios for the grave of Homer. After spending much time and money, he gave up the hunt. Two graves also turned up at Agia Theodoti before he stopped searching. For Ios tours, Homer names the poet of two long Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

• Kallikratis: The Kallikratis Programme takes its name from Callicrates, an architect of ancient Greece.
• Timing: The programme began with the November 2010 local elections and was complete by January 2011.
• Kapodistrias: The Kapodistrias reform honours the statesman Ioannis Kapodistrias and passed the Greek parliament in 1997.

Under the Kapodistrias system, Greek communities were sometimes as small as a single village. A community was a unit of Greek local government, smaller than a municipality. For Ios tours, local government means the councils that run towns and villages.

What film links Manganari to Ios tours?

Ios tours connect with cinema through Manganari, a filming site of The Big Blue on Ios. A filming site is a real spot where scenes are shot, away from a studio. Cinema means the art and business of making films.

Luc Besson co-wrote the drama film The Big Blue and also directed it. Directors lead the actors and decide how each scene of a film looks. In certain countries, the film came out under its French title, Le Grand Bleu. For Ios tours, Le Grand Bleu is simply French for The Big Blue.

Jacques Mayol and Enzo Maiorca, two real free divers, inspired the heavily fictionalised story. Fictionalised means changed and dramatised for the screen rather than told exactly. For Ios tours, freediving means diving on held breath until the diver returns to the surface. It uses no breathing apparatus, such as tanks of air.

Jean-Marc Barr played Jacques Mayol in the film. Jean Reno played Enzo, whose name the film changed to Enzo Molinari. An actor is a person who plays a part in a film or a play. For Ios tours, the cast is the full group of actors who appear in a film.

• Success: No French film of the 1980s earned more money than The Big Blue.
• Tickets: The film sold 9,193,873 tickets in France alone and ran in cinemas there for a year.
• Cameo: Luc Besson appears briefly in the film as one of the divers, a part called a cameo.

Manganari is one of the main beaches of Ios, with a small cluster of houses set behind it. A cluster here means a small group of buildings set close together. For Ios tours, a beach settlement means homes built just back from the shore.

Why is Homer tied so closely to Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to an island bound up with Homer, an ancient Greek poet. He was possibly born around the 8th century BC, though the date is unsure. The majority of accounts of his death set that event on Ios itself.

In the bulk of ancient biographies, Homer appears as a blind man. A biography is the written story of a person’s life. Pindar, a poet of ancient Greece, is said to have traced Homer to Chios and Smyrna. Other writers of the fifth century also named those same places as his home.

Behind Ios tours lies a legend in which Homer broke a Pythian oracle and died for it. An oracle was a message from a god, given at a holy place. The Pythia was the priestess who gave such messages at Delphi. A Pythian oracle was therefore a reply spoken through her.

A second version of the story gives a different cause of death. In it, Homer died of sadness because he failed to solve a puzzle. The puzzle was a riddle, which is a question with a hidden or tricky answer. Grief, in this version, was what ended the poet’s life.

• Third version: Homer was already gravely ill and went to Ios in the knowledge that death was near.
• Origins: No single account of where Homer came from ever became the mainstream view.
• Pausanias: For Ios tours, Pausanias stands as the writer who simply recorded a popular narrative.

For Ios tours, the death of Homer remains a matter of legend, not of history. The tale grows from myths and oral tradition, with no historical records behind it. Oral tradition means tales passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next.

What do sources say about the tomb of Homer and Ios tours?

Ios tours have a setting that Greek verse names as the burial place of Homer. Two epigrams by Alcaeus of Messene in the Greek Anthology mark his death and burial on Ios. An epigram is a short poem, and an anthology is a collection.

In 1771, a count named Heinrich Leonard Pasch van Krienen arrived on Ios on a search. A count is a nobleman of high rank. His goal was to find the grave of Homer on the island. He set out after reading the old narrative of how the poet died.

In the story behind Ios tours, a local priest gave him a lead. The priest served the chapel of Saint Catherine, or Agia Aikaterini. A chapel is a small church. He spoke of a place on Ios where marble pieces lay. Part of those marbles carried inscriptions, which are words cut into stone.

He was told that the marbles were made long after the death of Homer. Marble is a hard, pale stone used for carving and building. Pasch van Krienen persisted with the search on Ios all the same. To persist is to keep going in spite of doubts or warnings.

• Helper: In the tomb story of Ios tours, Spyridon Valetas gave Pasch van Krienen help.
• End: After spending considerable time and money, he chose to give up the hunt.
• Later writing: Theodore Bent’s research in the Aegean led to his book The Cyclades in 1885.

The verses by Alcaeus stress the immortal fame of Homer. Immortal fame is renown that lives on without end. They also honour the little island said to hold his grave. For Ios tours, that island is Ios itself, the place named in both poems.

Who was Critheïs in the stories behind Ios tours?

Ios tours unfold on an island that one ancient story gives as the home of Homer’s mother. In that telling, Critheïs was a young girl of Ios. A telling, or version, is one form of a story that has more than one form.

The best-known accounts of Critheïs appear in two ancient Lives of Homer. A Life, in this sense, is an old biography that tells the story of a famous person. One Life bears the name Pseudo-Herodotus and the other Pseudo-Plutarch. The Pseudo-Plutarch credits one version of her story to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher.

In that version, she became pregnant by a local god who danced with the Muses. The Muses were goddesses of poetry, music and the arts in Greek myth. Ashamed of her condition, the girl went into hiding. She hid at a place called Aegina, according to the Ios telling of the story.

The name Critheïs is possibly linked with krithe, an ancient Greek word. That word meant barley, a cereal plant grown for its grain. A cereal is a kind of grass whose seeds people eat as food. For Ios tours, her name thus carries an old word from the farming world.

• Pirates: In the version linked to Ios tours, pirates from Smyrna seized her as a slave.
• Marriage: The pirates handed her to Maeon, King of the Lydians, and he married her.
• Birth: Critheïs died just after giving birth, and Maeon took charge of the baby.

In the Ios telling, the boy later took the name Homer. He chose it when he decided to follow the people who raised him. The Greek verb homerein means to follow. For Ios tours, the poet’s very name thus comes from this act of following.

Which ending does the ancient Life of Homer give Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to the island where one ancient biography sets the death of Homer. In that text, the poet died on Ios while on a voyage to Athens. A voyage is a long journey, here one made by sea.

The text tied to Ios tours is the Life of Homer, by an unknown author. That author goes by the name Pseudo-Herodotus, since pseudo means false. The opening lines claim that the early historian Herodotus compiled the work. Historians study past events and set down written accounts of them.

The Life closes with a sum that dates the birth of the poet. By that calculation, Homer was born in 1102 BC. The letters BC mean before Christ, and such years count back from the start of the Christian era. For Ios tours, the date remains the claim of one ancient text.

In the Life, Homer lost his sight at Colophon on the way home from Ithaca. Later, at Phocaea, a teacher named Thestorides offered him food and lodging. Lodging means a room or a home to live in. In return, Thestorides gained the right to write down the poems that Homer recited.

• Chios: On Chios, Homer made works for children, among them the Battle of the Frogs and Mice.
• Samos: At the end of his life, the poet made a journey to Samos.
• Writing: Alone among the ancient Lives, it claims that writing was known around Homer.

For Ios tours, the Life also stands as a store of verse. It preserves 17 epigrams that are credited to Homer. An epigram is a brief poem that ends with a witty turn. To preserve a poem is to keep it safe from loss.

How does the ancient League of the Islanders connect with Ios tours?

Ios tours share a past with the League of the Islanders, an ancient alliance of the Cyclades. It was a federal league, or koinon, of Greek city-states. A federal league joins separate states under shared rules while each keeps its own government.

For Ios tours, the league took shape under Antigonus Monophthalmus in about 314/3 BC. His byname, Monophthalmus, is Greek for one-eyed. The split date marks an ancient year that crossed the line between modern years. No literary sources on the league have survived. All that is known comes from inscriptions, words carved into stone.

Under Antigonus, the league certainly held Mykonos, Kythnos and Keos. Ios, the setting of Ios tours, was a probable member as well. The centre of the league was Delos, a sacred island, and its yearly festivals took place there. A sacred island is one held holy by believers. A festival here means a public religious celebration.

At the head of the league stood a nesiarchos and a council. The ancient Greek word nesiarchos means ruler of the islands. It joins nesos, meaning island, with archos, meaning ruler or leader. A council is a body of chosen members who meet together to decide shared public matters.

• Citizenship: Citizenship granted by any member counted at once in every other member state.
• Rhodes: When rule by the Ptolemaic Kingdom first broke, the Rhodians made alliances with islands such as Ios.
• Coins: As part of the league, Ios minted its own coins during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

For Ios tours, the league fits a time when the island held real weight. Ios was a strong and important city in the Classical and Hellenistic ages. Hellenistic describes the age of Greek kingdoms that followed Alexander the Great.

What role did Adriana Crispo hold on the island behind Ios tours?

Ios tours centre on an island once held by Adriana Crispo, a noblewoman of the Crispo family. She bore the title lady of Ios, which marked her as its ruler. A noblewoman is a woman of high birth who holds a title and lands.

The House of Crispo was a Lombard noble family from the city of Verona. Lombard here means of the Lombards, an old people of northern Italy. The family ruled the Duchy of the Archipelago. Archipelago names a sea scattered with islands that lie close together. A duke rules a duchy, as a king rules a kingdom.

In 1508, Adriana took over from her father, Marco, as lady of the islands of Ios and Therasia. Marco was a great-grandson of an earlier Francesco Crispo. In that same year she married Alvise, also named Alessandro, Pisani. Pisani was a Venetian noble, a man of high rank from the city of Venice.

Adriana, in the history behind Ios tours, co-ruled with her husband jure uxoris. To co-rule is to share power jointly with another person. Jure uxoris is a Latin phrase that means by right of his wife. Latin, the tongue of the Romans, stayed in use for law across western Europe.

• Antiparos: In 1528 she followed her grandmother, Lucrezia Loredano, as ruler of Antiparos.
• Last rulers: She ranked among the last rulers before the Ottoman conquest of her islands.
• Revival: For Ios tours, the island recovered under the Duchy of Naxos until Ottoman rule interrupted it.

For Ios tours, the year 1537 brought new rulers to the islands. In that same year, the Ottoman Turks conquered the islands that Adriana Crispo had held. Conquest means taking control of a land or a people by armed force.

What links Occhiali to the island history behind Ios tours?

Ios tours are set on an island shaped by Uluç Ali Reis, also called Occhiali. After the defeat at Lepanto, he became the new Kapudan Pasha. Kapudan Pasha meant the grand admiral of the Ottoman fleet. He then began a policy of repopulating the islands.

In 1558, the people of Ios had been sold into slavery. Slavery means owning people and forcing them to work. In 1579, the Orthodox priest Pothetos of Amorgos received leave to settle colonists on Ios. A colonist is a settler who builds a new life in a fresh place.

In the records behind Ios tours, Uluç Ali Reis also appears as Occhiali or Uluj Ali. He was born Giovanni Dionigi Galeni around 1519. Italian by birth, he served as a privateer, an admiral and commander of the Regency of Algiers. A privateer is a sea raider who sails under licence from a ruler.

On 29 April 1536, at about the age of 17, the future admiral was taken captive. His captors forced him to serve as a galley slave. A galley was a long warship driven mainly by banks of oars. A galley slave was a prisoner made to row such a ship.

• Empty island: For Ios tours, Ios was a nearly deserted island when Pothetos received his leave.
• Language: During the 18th century’s second half, the Albanians of Ios took up Greek.
• Title: Sultan Selim II gave him the honorary title Kılıç, which means sword.

For Ios tours, Occhiali is also remembered by a statue. It stands in the centre square of Le Castella in Calabria. Le Castella is the village where he was born. A statue is a figure of a person, carved or cast in a hard material.

Which pirate story do the Téméricourt brothers add to Ios tours?

Ios tours connect with the story of the Téméricourt brothers. They were the best-known pirates of their day in these island waters. The two men came originally from Vexin. Piracy is robbery at sea, aimed at ships and at towns along the shore.

The Cyclades suffered harshly from pirates, losing both wealth and people. The first raiders were Turkmen and Barbary pirates. Barbary pirates were sea raiders who sailed out from bases on the coast of North Africa. Later, in the 17th century, Christian pirates followed them into the waters of the islands.

Each winter, from December to March, the pirates stayed on Paros, Antiparos, Milos or Ios. For Ios tours, that makes the island one of their winter bases. They spent their loot in the Cyclades, where they came back every winter. Loot is goods or money taken from others by force.

In spring 1668, the brothers sailed into Ios harbour with four frigates. A frigate was a fast sailing warship armed with rows of guns. The younger brother, Téméricourt-Beninville, was a knight of Malta. The Knights of Malta were a Catholic order of knights based on the island of Malta.

• Target: For Ios tours, the pirates’ main aim was the trade route linking Egypt with Constantinople.
• Attack: On the second day of the fifth month, the Ottoman fleet tried to drive them out.
• Fate: The younger brother was beheaded in 1673, at the age of 22.

The brothers fought off the Ottoman fleet and inflicted serious damage on it. That success won the two brothers their reputation. A reputation is the name or standing a person gains in the eyes of others. For Ios tours, the clash belongs to the harbour’s past.

Who was Spyridon Valettas, and how does he connect to Ios tours?

Ios tours have their setting on the island where Spyridon Valettas was born. His birthplace was Chora, and he came from a noble family. The Greek word chora names a main settlement. A noble family is one with high rank, titles and inherited standing.

Valettas lived from 1779 to 11 June 1843 and worked as a Greek scholar. Scholars are learned people who explore one field deeply and write about it. He began his training on Ios itself. Later he studied on Patmos and Sifnos, other islands of the Aegean, and then in Constantinople.

For Ios tours, Valettas also stands as a member of the Filiki Eteria. In Greek, that name means Society of Friends. It was a secret society that aimed to end Ottoman rule in Greece. Its other goal was to found a new Greek state that was fully independent. An independent state rules itself.

From 1818, Valettas served in Bucharest as secretary to the ruler Alexandros Soutsos. A secretary in this sense was a trusted official at a court. Such an official wrote letters, kept records and handled papers for the ruler. A court is the household and staff that surround a ruler.

• Translator: He translated a large body of works, signing part of them with a pseudonym, a false name.
• Assembly: For Ios tours, he represented Ios at the Fifth National Assembly in July 1832.
• Minister: In 1841 he briefly served as the first minister of education and church affairs.

For Ios tours, the story of Valettas ends with a gift. He left his fortune to public educational institutions. An institution here means a school, college or similar body run for the public good. A fortune is a large sum of money and property.

How do squash blossoms belong to the island cooking around Ios tours?

Ios tours sit on an island where tsimedia ranks as a popular local dish. Tsimedia is made of pumpkin flowers stuffed with rice. To stuff a flower is to fill its open cup with other food, such as cooked rice.

Squash blossoms are the edible flowers of Cucurbita plants, above all Cucurbita pepo. Cucurbita is the scientific name for a group of squash plants. Edible means safe and fit for people to eat. The blossoms are highly perishable, which means they spoil fast. For that reason, supermarkets rarely keep them in stock.

In Greek, the dish of stuffed blossoms goes by the name kolokythoanthoi. The word joins kolokythi, meaning squash or marrow, with anthoi, meaning blossoms or flowers. In Greece, cooks also fill the blossoms with rice, meat and spices. Spices are dried seeds, barks or roots used to give food flavour.

For Ios tours, the meatless version links the blossoms with olive oil, rice and spices. Cooks serve it cold, and people eat it frequently as a meze with ouzo. A meze is a small plate of food served with drinks. Ouzo is a clear Greek drink flavoured with anise, a sweet herb seed.

• Cheese: For Ios tours, the island is famous for the local cheeses made there.
• Olive oil: Ios joins Syros, Sifnos and Naxos among the Cyclades islands that export olive oil.
• Vegetables: The island also sends out vegetables, as do Syros, Tinos, Sifnos and Santorini.

Stuffed squash blossoms are a special favourite in coastal parts of Greece and of Turkey. Coastal means lying along or close to the shore of the sea. For Ios tours, this marks the dish as part of the seaside cooking of the wider region.

What story does Sikinos tell for Ios tours?

Ios tours run on an island with Sikinos as a neighbour. Sikinos sits halfway between Ios and Folegandros. In ancient Greece its name was Oenoe, or Oinoe, meaning Island of Wine. Compared with Ios, Sikinos is quiet and relatively less developed.

In Greek, chora names the leading town of an island. On Sikinos the chora joins two settlements standing side by side. Castro lies to the west, and Chorio lies to the east. Seven mapped footpaths cross Sikinos in the area of Ios tours. A footpath is a narrow track made for people on foot.

The island is said to owe the name Sicinos to a son of Thoas and Oenoe. Greek myth calls Oenoe a Naiad, the nymph of this island. A Naiad is a nymph of fresh water, a kind of nature spirit. Ionians were the probable colonists of Sikinos. Ionians formed a major branch of the early Greek people.

On Sikinos, near the setting of Ios tours, an ancient temple of Pythian Apollo became the church Episkopi. Pythian means linked to Delphi. An inscription found there by Ross named its god. The building now counts as a Roman mausoleum, a grand tomb, and later a Byzantine church. Byzantine refers to the later eastern Roman state.

• Population: The 2021 census counted 253 inhabitants in the municipality of Sikinos.
• Land: The total land area of the municipality is 42.507 square kilometres.
• Empire: Sikinos afterwards belonged to the maritime empire of ancient Athens, a power based on ships.

Terraces once used for large-scale farming cover nearly all of Sikinos. A terrace is a levelled shelf on a hillside. Ios tours unfold in the Cyclades, where Sikinos is both an island and a municipality. A municipality here manages the affairs of its island.

How does Schoinoussa fit into Ios tours?

Ios tours sit within the Cyclades, the island group that also holds Schoinoussa, spelt Schinoussa as well. It lies south of Naxos, with Irakleia on one side and Koufonisia on the other. At the 2021 census, 229 people lived on the island.

Schoinoussa ranks fourth in size among the Lesser Cyclades, a cluster of small islands. Only Ano Koufonisi has more people, so it comes second in population. Three settlements stand on the island: Chora, Mesaria and Mersini. In the island world of Ios tours, Chora serves as the capital and Mersini as the port.

The origin of the name Schinoussa is not known precisely. One view sees a corrupted form of the ancient name Echinousa. A corrupted form is a word changed by long use. Another view points to a Venetian nobleman named Schinoza. In the region of Ios tours, Schoinoussa has had residents since antiquity. Antiquity means the ancient past.

Within the wider area of Ios tours, Schoinoussa keeps ancient Greek and Roman ruins. A ruined Byzantine church and a small castle from medieval times stand there too. Medieval describes the Middle Ages. The Hozoviotissa Monastery on Amorgos owned the island from the 11th century onwards. A monastery is a community of monks.

• Climate: The National Observatory of Athens rates the climate of Schoinoussa as hot and semi-arid.
• Rain: Average yearly rainfall is around 240 millimetres, the second lowest figure in Greece.
• Seasons: Winters on the island are very mild, while its summers are hot.

Semi-arid describes a fairly dry climate with little rain. Less than 50 millimetres of rain separates it from a hot desert climate. Since 2011, Schoinoussa has formed a municipal unit within Naxos and Lesser Cyclades. Such a unit is one part of a bigger municipality.

Which houses and customs mark Koufonisia for Ios tours?

Ios tours share the Cyclades with Koufonisia, a small island complex and former community. Its three main islands are Keros, Ano Koufonisi and Kato Koufonisi. Its municipal unit spans 26.025 square kilometres. Ano Koufonisi is also called Pano or Epano, meaning Upper.

For Ios tours, two explanations exist for the name. The first holds that the old name belonged to the gulf separating Koufonisia from Glaronisi. Its full form, Koufos Limin, means a sheltered port where ships anchor. The second, backed by Manesis, points to the high count of caves and sediments found there.

In the area of Ios tours, Koufonisia has had people since prehistoric times. Digs at Epano Mili reached the earliest years of Cycladic civilisation. Cycladic civilisation was the Bronze Age culture of these islands. Pirates once used the strait dividing Pano from Kato Koufonisi as a safe refuge. Koufonisia became part of the Greek state in 1830.

Near the setting of Ios tours, Koufonisia counted 1000 inhabitants after the war. Men then left to work as grummets, the boys who served on ships. A traditional house held a bedroom, a kitchen and a big living room, three rooms in all. Its roof, the Steosa, combined reeds, wood and earth with a wood called kontarida.

• Kato Koufonisi: At 4.3 square kilometres, Kato Koufonisi stands almost uninhabited, with a handful of rural houses.
• Panagia: A little church of Panagia, the Virgin Mary, stands on a jetty built atop ancient ruins.
• Fishing: Pano Koufonisi runs a fishing fleet among the largest in Greece, measured against its population.

Pano Koufonisi, at 5.8 square kilometres, held 391 residents in 2021. Locals live mainly from fishing and lately tourism. On 23 April, Saint George’s feast, his icon is carried over streets strewn with rose petals. Icons are holy pictures, painted on wood.

Why does the island of Keros matter to Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to the same island group as Keros. This uninhabited island lies about 10 kilometres southeast of Naxos. It was an important site of the Cycladic civilisation, which flourished around 2500 BC. Keros forms part of the community of Koufonisia.

Within the setting of Ios tours, the Keros Hoard counts as a huge deposit of Cycladic figurines. It was found on Keros itself. A figurine is a small carved statue of a person. A hoard is a store of objects gathered in one place. The figurines in the hoard survive only as fragments.

From 2006 to 2008, a team co-led by Colin Renfrew dug at Kavos. Kavos lies on the west coast of Keros. This area is believed to have yielded the Keros Hoard. All the marble figurines, vessels and finds there were broken before being left. Experts think the pieces were broken elsewhere and carried to Kavos.

No fragments fit together, so only a portion of the broken material was left at Kavos. Studies of the pottery show that material arrived from multiple sources. Pottery means vessels of fired clay. In the region of Ios tours, at least 3,500 voyages carried white marble to Daskalio. The cargo weighed between 7,000 and 10,000 tonnes.

• Height: The highest point of Keros rises to 432 metres above the sea.
• Area: In total size, Keros measures 15 square kilometres of land.
• Access: Nobody is allowed to land on Keros at the present time.

Activity at the neighbouring site of Daskalio dates from 2750 to 2300 BC. That span comes before any known worship of gods in the Aegean. Ios tours belong to the Aegean as well, the sea between mainland Greece and Turkey.

Which myth ties Donousa to Ios tours?

Ios tours take place in the Cyclades, the group that includes Donousa. In myth, Dionysus, god of wine, carried Ariadne away from Naxos and hid her from Theseus. Of all the Lesser Cyclades, Donousa lies furthest east. Agios Stavros is its main port and capital.

Naxos lies 16 kilometres to the west of Donousa. Across the Cyclades of Ios tours, it also sits about 25 kilometres north of Amorgos. The island covers 13.75 square kilometres. Its highest point stands 385 metres above the sea. The 2021 census counted 213 inhabitants on Donousa. A census is a national headcount of residents.

Measurements taken on Donousa point to a hot semi-arid climate. Winters there are mild, and summers are hot. Across a year, the temperature averages around 19.2 degrees on the Celsius scale. Semi-arid here means dry, with little yearly rain. Until the 2011 local government reform, Donousa was a separate community.

In the wider region of Ios tours, people lived on Donousa in the Early Cycladic period. That period dates to around 3,000 BC. BC counts the years before the birth of Christ. In Roman times, the island received exiles sent away by the state. An exile is a person forced to live far from home.

• Rainfall: Between 2012 and 2018, average yearly rainfall on the island reached 260.2 millimetres.
• Pirates: Later, Donousa became a favourite hideout for pirates from across the Mediterranean.
• Rulers: Over the centuries, Venetians and Turks were among the powers that ruled the island.

Donousa is one of only four inhabited islands in the Lesser Cyclades. The other three are Ano Koufonisi, Irakleia and Schoinoussa. Inhabited means lived in by people. In the Cyclades of Ios tours, the Lesser Cyclades lie to the south-east of Naxos.

What links the Lesser Cyclades with Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to the wider Cyclades. Inside that archipelago, the Lesser Cyclades form a complex of 32 islands and rocks. Its chief islands are Irakleia, Schoinoussa, Keros, Donousa and the two Koufonisi islands, Ano and Kato. An archipelago is a large group of islands.

In the seas of Ios tours, Irakleia leads the group in size, with 18 square kilometres. Just two people live on the islet of Kato Antikeri. An islet means a pocket-sized island. In 2011, Ano Koufonisi recorded the largest population, 399 people. Ano and Kato Antikeri belong to the municipality of Amorgos, unlike the rest.

In the last ice age, the greater part of the Cyclades formed one big landmass. Around 9,000 BC the sea level rose, and the Aegean flooded that land. This created the small islands and gave the archipelago its modern shape. In the area of Ios tours, people have lived in the Lesser Cyclades since the Stone Age.

Life on the islands thrived in the early Bronze Age, the era when Cycladic culture arose. In that age, people made tools of bronze. Piracy in medieval and modern times emptied the islands more than once. Shepherds from Amorgos then settled them again. Even today the Hozoviotissa Monastery on Amorgos owns large areas there.

• Region: Naxos and Lesser Cyclades, the local municipality, sits within the South Aegean region.
• Seat: Naxos town serves as the seat, or headquarters, of that municipality.
• Area: The whole municipality, Naxos included, covers 495.867 square kilometres of land.

Six former municipalities merged in 2011 to create this one. Donousa, Irakleia, Koufonisia and Schoinoussa were four of them, beside Drymalia and Naxos town. For Ios tours, the Lesser Cyclades today rank as a popular destination for tourists.

What past does Anafi add to Ios tours?

Ios tours take place inside the Thira regional unit, which also includes Anafi. Anafi lies east of Thira, the island also called Santorini. Anafi covers 40.370 square kilometres of land. The regional unit is a middle tier of Greek local rule.

In myth, Apollo revealed the island to the Argonauts as a refuge from a fierce storm. He lit it up for them with his bow. The Argonauts were heroes of Greek myth who sailed with Jason. Ancient ruins also stand at Kasteli. Statues and other finds now rest in the Chora’s Archaeological Museum.

In the wider region of Ios tours, the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa raided Anafi in 1537. He took every inhabitant away as a slave. The island was later resettled. A Hellenistic statue from Kastelli now stands in the Hermitage Museum. Hellenistic describes Greek art and life after Alexander the Great.

In the island world of Ios tours, Anafi has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. For its small size, the island holds a relatively diverse flora. Flora means plant life. It numbers 314 plant genera and 635 species and subspecies. Of these, 37 are endemic, found only in Greece. Genera, the plural of genus, are groups of closely related species.

• Chart: A sea chart of Anafi from 1859 was drawn under Captain Thomas Spratt.
• Geology: Road works of the 1980s and 1990s let geologists study volcanic ash from Santorini on Anafi.
• Photographs: Margaret Kenna’s photographs of the island since 1966 went to the Benaki Museum archive.

Since 2015 the island has hosted Phenomenon, a biennial art event. Biennial means held once every two years. Ios tours unfold among the Cyclades, where Anafi stands as a Greek island community. Community is the English name for a small local district of Greece.

Which villages make up Therasia for Ios tours?

Ios tours share the Thira regional unit with Therasia, an inhabited island of the Santorini municipality. Every settlement on Therasia falls under the municipality of Thera, also written Thira. In 2011 the former Oia and Thera municipalities merged to form it.

In the Thira area of Ios tours, Therasia had five villages at the 2021 census. Manolas held 140 people, while Potamos held 74. Agia Eirini counted 28 residents, and Agrilia counted 5. Ormos Korfou had just 2. Agia Eirini means Saint Irene, and ormos is the Greek word for a bay.

For Ios tours, Manolas also goes by the name Thirasia, the same as the island. Its notable buildings include a church of Saint Constantine that dates from 1874. An uphill stone path links Manolas with the small port of Korfos, also spelt Corfu. Donkeys are the main means of transport on that path.

Before the Minoan eruption, the caldera was a nearly closed ring. Its single entrance lay between Thera and the islet of Aspronisi. Caldera names the great bowl that forms after a volcano collapses. The eruption broke through the ring in two places, on either side of Therasia. This opened two new channels into the caldera.

• Power: One cable links the power networks of Thirasia and Santorini.
• Community: Oia now forms a community of Thera, made up of Therasia and Oia.
• Eruption: George Cedrenus dates a fresh eruption of the volcano to the summer of 727.

According to his account, steam hot as a furnace rose for days between the two islands. Cedrenus was a Byzantine historian. The Minoan eruption was a huge Bronze Age blast of the Santorini volcano. Ios tours belong to the same regional unit.

What do the Christiana Islands reveal for Ios tours?

Ios tours belong to the Cyclades, like the Christiana Islands, which lie about 16 kilometres southwest of Santorini. Christiani is the largest of the three, beside the smaller Eschati and Askania. Together the three cover an area of about 2.35 square kilometres.

The three islands rise from one submarine volcanic edifice. Submarine means under the sea, and an edifice here is the body of a volcano. Experts assume the volcano has been dormant since the Early Pleistocene. Dormant means sleeping but not dead. The Pleistocene is the era of the ice ages in Earth’s history. Early Pleistocene means its first stage.

In the region of Ios tours, all three islands are now uninhabited. In the mid-1970s, NATO considered Christiani, the largest island, as a military base for a missile silo. NATO is a defence alliance of North American and European states. A missile silo is an underground shelter for launching rockets.

Within the setting of Ios tours, the Christiana Islands belong to private owners, and public entry is limited. Eschati, one of the three, is an uninhabited reef. Reef here means a line of rock just below or above the waves. Its Greek name, Eschati, means the last one in English.

• Farmland: Nobody has lived on or farmed the islands since the 1890s.
• Municipality: The Santorini municipality lists Christiana among its uninhabited islands, with Nea Kameni and Aspronisi.
• Field: Santorini’s caldera forms the heart of a volcanic field named Christiana-Santorini-Kolumbo.

That NATO plan for Christiani never came to pass. A volcanic field is an area that holds a cluster of volcanoes. The field also includes the submarine Kolumbo volcano. Ios tours unfold among the islands of the Cyclades, the same group that holds this field.

What do travellers ask about Ios tours, and what are the answers?

Ios tours take place in the Cyclades, where uninhabited islets lie between the larger islands. The municipality of Sikinos alone includes Kardiotissa and other uninhabited islets. Anydros, another uninhabited islet, belongs to the municipality of Santorini. Islet means a tiny island.

On Ios tours, how large is the island of Irakleia?

Irakleia is also spelt Heraklia. Its land area measures 17.795 square kilometres. Its place is the eastern side of the Lesser Cyclades, south of Naxos. A square kilometre is a square one kilometre on each side. With Schoinoussa, Koufonisi, Donousa and Keros, it makes up the Lesser Cyclades.

Before Ios tours, what was the old name of Kardiotissa?

In ancient times Kardiotissa bore the name Lagusa, also written Lagousa. The island is uninhabited today. For local government it belongs to the island community of Sikinos. It lies midway between Sikinos and the island of Folegandros. A community here means a small self-governing district inside a municipality.

For Ios tours, which earthquake began near Anydros?

Anydros is sometimes called Amorgopoula, meaning little Amorgos. A fault near the islet set off the 1956 Amorgos earthquake. Geologists call a fracture in the rock a fault. The quake reached 7.6 on the Richter scale of strength. A second quake of 7.5 and a 30-metre tsunami followed.

In the waters around Ios tours, what was Daskalio before the sea rose?

Daskalio measures about 150 metres in diameter. It was once a promontory of Keros, a headland jutting into the sea. Rising sea levels turned it into an islet. In 2008 a Cambridge-led dig revealed a large Bronze Age settlement there. Ten years later, researchers found traces of advanced metalworking workshops dating from 2500 BCE.

Featured photo: NorbertNagel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.