Skyros

Skyros sits apart from the rest of the Sporades, the southernmost of the islands and the most distinctive by far. That distance has kept it whole: while other islands have opened up to tourism, Skyros has held onto its own architecture, its own crafts and its own unhurried way of life. To arrive here is to step somewhere that still belongs entirely to itself.

The heart of the island is its Old Town, a maze of whitewashed cube houses climbing a hillside beneath a Byzantine castle, closer in feel to the Cyclades than to the green north of the Sporades. Behind the doors, traditional Skyrian homes are furnished with hand-carved wood, ceramics and copper, an interior style so particular it has become part of the island's identity. The workshops that make them are still working ones.

Beyond the town, Skyros is a landscape of two halves: gentle, green and cultivated in the north, wild and rocky in the south, where the island's small native horses still roam. Between them lie long, quiet beaches and coves where, more often than not, you will share the sand with no one at all.

With our local guides and captains, the island reveals itself at its own pace: a morning among the craftsmen of the Old Town, an afternoon on a beach reached by a winding road or a boat, a table where the recipes have not changed in generations. You arrive, and the most authentic corner of the Sporades is arranged around you.