Ios offers many secluded bays ideal for yacht explorations, with peaceful, seafood tavernas.
It is a top yacht charter destination. It is a well known destination for youthful, partying tourists, for the intense nightlife that can be experienced in the lively beach resort of Mylopotas and the harbor named Ormos.
The island of Ios, in Greece, is a part of the Cycladic Islands, near Santorini.
The island is steeped in history and offers beautiful, unspoiled beaches. It’s also the reputed resting place of the poet Homer, creator of the Iliad and Odyssey.
It’s a hilly island, largely fringed by cliffs, roughly half-way between Paros or Naxos and Santorini. Until quite recently its only source of income was agriculture on the terraced slopes of the Kato Kamopos valley and its side valleys.
You can try water sports like water ski and solo x or other activities all day on the beach of Mylopotas. In the island there are diving centers where you can try diving with the help of specialized trainers.
The numerous beach bars and clubs of the area are open day and night always full of youthful vibes which will make your holidays an unforgettable experience. In the clubs and bars you can try the different drinks, shots and cocktails, listen to great music, dance and meet new people!
The island offers numerous choices regarding tourist entertainement. If your ideal holidays include beach parties and nightlife Ios is one of the perfect destinations for you.
If you are on holidays with your family and want to spend some relaxing and fun time, or you are eager to learn about the history and culture of the place you can visit the main museum of the island, the Archaeological Museum of Ios, with four exhibition rooms that compines antiquities from surveys, excavations and surface coatings.
If you enjoy learning all about tradition, visiting the numerous churches in the island is the best way to start your holidays. Another cultural point is the house of Giannis Loukianos, at the center of Chora, which is decorated with mosaics. It is an interesting house – laboratory, bulit in the place of the older one, where only the northerly wall is preserved.
The little port of Ios, with the domed Church of Ayia Irini (17th c.) lies in a sheltered bay on the west coast of the island. One kilometre up the fertile Kato Kampos Valley, conspicuously and picturesquely situated on the hillside, is the chief place on the island, Ios. Its white Cycladic houses and 20 or so churches and chapels are enclosed within a dilapidated circuit of medieval walls.
On the hill above the village stands a double of typical windmills. Outside the main sailing season Ios has a relaxed atmosphere, there isn’t much to do but you can wander around, get good provisions and you won’t be disturbed by loads of backpackers.
Ios harbour is located on the west side of the island. The little rocky island Diakofto is stands out clearly on the west side of the entrance of the Ios bay. Care should be taken of the reef running south on the east side of the entntrace of the bay, just 100 m from cape Xeres. When the meltemi is blowing, string gusts are coming into the bay.
GREECE is a unique place to choose for your summer holidays.
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The Greek islands are an ideal place for summer holidays and the best way to explore them is to rent a charter a sailing boat in Greece.
Greece's Island Groups
Greece's roughly 6,000 islands and islets (227 of which are inhabited) are scattered far and wide across the eastern Mediterranean. Most are in the Aegean Sea (south and east of mainland Greece), while a few are in the Ionian Sea (west of the mainland). The islands are divided into distinct clusters:
The Ionian Islands, are Greece's northwest gateway to the Adriatic and the rest of Europe — they've had more foreign invaders and rulers than anywhere else in the country. The main island is Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek), with a bustling, architecturally eclectic main town and a lush, green islandscape dotted with attractions and beaches.
The Saronic Gulf Islands ( Argosaronikos ), conveniently wedged between the Peloponnese and Athens, ooze lots of island charm and give you a chance to get away from it all without actually going very far. Hydra, my favorite, is in this group.
The Sporades Islands, due east of Athens, are dominated by the giant Evia island, which is attached to the mainland by a bridge. Thickly forested and less touristed by international visitors, the Sporades are a popular and handy weekend getaway for Athenians.
The Cycladic Islands (or simply Cyclades ) — a bit farther south, between Athens and Crete — are the prototypical "Greek islands," boasting chalk-white houses with colorful windowsills and doorways; rocky, sun-parched landscapes; delightful beaches; old-fashioned white windmills topped with tufts of grass like unkempt hair; and an almost overwhelming crush of international visitors. Mykonos and Santorini are the two best and most famous of the Cyclades. Near Mykonos is the archaeological site of Delos (one of the most important locales of the ancient world).
The Dodecanese Islands, at the sunny, southeastern end of the Greek lands, are more rustic and less developed than the Cyclades. Their proximity to Turkey and historic ties to Venice give them a hybrid Turkish-Venetian flavor (though the population is mostly ethnic Greek, these islands merged with Greece only after World War II). Rhodes, with an appealing and very real-feeling Old Town, is the biggest of these islands.
The North Aegean Islands, relatively untrampled and remote-feeling, lie roughly between Turkey and Thessaloniki (at the northern end of mainland Greece). The southernmost of these, Samos, is a particularly handy springboard for Turkey, as it's very close to the Turkish port city of Kusadas? (near the remarkable ancient site of Ephesus).
Crete is Greece's biggest island and practically a mini-state of its own (in fact, from 1897 to 1913 it was an autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire). While many of Greece's smaller islands merit a day or two of fun in the sun, Crete could occupy even a busy traveler for a week or more. Historically, Crete was home to the Minoans — the earliest advanced European civilization, peaking around 1950 B.C., centuries before "the ancient Greeks" of Athens. While Crete's modern main city, Iraklio, is drab and uninviting, the rest of the island offers an engaging diversity of attractions: Minoan ruins, scenic mountains, enticing beaches, characteristic rustic villages, and dramatic caves and gorges (including the famous Samaria Gorge).
Even if you are having no sailing experience we can offer you a sailing yacht with a captain.
Experienced sailors can enjoy the strong winds in the Aegean Sea, while others might choose the mild winds and safer bays of Argosaronicos Gulf, Sporades islands or the Ionian Sea. In few words, sailing in Greece can offer all the pleasure a sailor might seek in summer holidays.
