All images by Adrienne Pitts

Starting point: ATHENS

WITH THE GRACE AND poise of a ballet dancer, one clogged foot is raised steadily into the air. The leg to which the foot is attached extends with equal measure until it is entirely straight. There it hovers, dead still, until the limb is brought down with sudden force, the stamp of foot on pavement like the shot from a pistol.

It is one small part of a ceremony that takes place every hour outside Athens’ parliament building: the changing of the guard. The soldiers, in beige kilts, red berets and pom-pommed clogs, remain resolutely focussed, even as sweat rolls down their faces and spectators dive in for photos.

The city seems made for drama. In the alleyways of nearby Plaka, waiters invite diners into their restaurants with promises of plate-smashing, while men noisily slap down backgammon counters in smoky bars. Down streets paved with marble and shaded by orange trees, crumbling columns and arches rear up like ancient ghosts. They are but a warm-up act to the main stealer of limelight in the city, though: the 2,500-yearold Acropolis that presides over Athens from a hill right at its heart.

Built as home of the gods, with a temple devoted to Athena at its core, the survival of the complex is due in part to its ability to change purpose over the millennia, from temple to mosque, church to harem. Now, it serves both as a Greek history lesson brought to life, with archaeologists and tourists alike gathering to wonder at the ingenuity of its makers, and a romantic backdrop for the couples who gather to watch the sunset from the olive groves of nearby Filopappou Hill.

There are different gods to worship these days. At Brettos, Villy Saraidari, resplendent as Athena in an electric blue dress, pours clear liquid from an oak barrel and places the glass on the marble counter. A photo of Mr Brettos, who founded the ouzo distillery in 1909, hangs in the room that has changed little since. Villy fell in love with the place as a customer, and now indulges her passion for its many types of ouzo from behind the bar. ‘We have people come in who are 70 years old and they start crying. They remember being here as kids,’ she says. ‘It still has the same spirit, the same history.’

In Gazarte, home to the old city gasworks and a rapidly changing nightlife, bartenders are somewhat less respectful of tradition. ‘People said when we started that this was a terrible idea, that the Greeks only like what they already know,’ says owner Thodoris Koutsovoulos, sitting under a fig tree in the backyard of MoMix, an operation that is part theatre, part laboratory, part bar. Cocktails are presented in solid, wobbly bubbles that explode in the mouth, in chewy, deceptively alcoholic lozenges, or in glasses that swirl with dry ice. The place is full every night.

Round the corner from MoMix, there is no grand announcement for Funky Gourmet: just a nondescript door and a doorbell. Head chef Georgianna Hiliadaki, her blonde hair in wild curls, makes sure all the drama comes out of the kitchen. Placing a lamb’s tongue in a gold-painted sheep’s skull, part of a dish called Silence of the Lamb on the flamboyant tasting menu, she says, ‘Diners come because they want an experience. It’s not just going out for dinner, it is like going to the opera.’ The approach has earned Funky Gourmet two Michelin stars, and endless bookings of its nine tables. Here, it seems, the Athenian love of performance has reached its zenith.

hop one: Mykonos

THERE’S A DECEPTIVE CALM to Hora town at midday. A few people drift between the boutiques, staring at Gucci watches or Chanel sunglasses through the windows, or loll on restaurant terraces, iced coffees and plates of steamed mussels on order. The twisting flagstone alleys that tumble down to the seafront, built to block the wind or to baffle the pirates who swept through the Cyclades hundreds of years ago, are largely quiet. Above town, the seven windmills that feature on so many of the island’s postcards lie dormant. There is little hint of the role they played in creating vast wealth for their owners: the grain they milled was once so valuable, it was known as ‘white gold’. 

Come late afternoon, all changes. Troops of people emerge from B&Bs housed in the tightly packed white buildings of Hora, the blue of their painted shutters matched only in intensity by the sky above. They squeeze down streets now merry with the sound of chatter and music, heading to the harbour for cocktails and the catch of the day. Little Venice, a wall of merchant’s houses hanging over the sea, is the sunset location of choice; a forest of selfie-sticks is hoisted endlessly in front of it as day edges into night.

Wisps of local culture still peek out here and there, despite the tourist hubbub. Candles are still lit in the town’s many churches each morning. Men still gather at the shore with a fishing rod each evening. Nikoleta the weaver, dressed all in black, stills earns her living at an ancient loom in her seafront workshop. ‘Of the next generation, only my daughter knows how to use this old thing,’ she says, a cheerful smile on her lined face. ‘She wants to keep the tradition going. But I say, you cannot eat tradition!’

Dimitra Asimomyti might well disagree. An islander by birth, she left to make a new life, returning to her parents’ vineyard when the recession hit. ‘A friend tried to persuade me to take over my father’s business but I was never interested,’ she says, pulling on a bike helmet. ‘The wine is not my passion, it is his. And then I thought of my idea. I was so excited I didn’t sleep that night.’ Her idea was to marry her love of cycling with her desire to show people a part of Mykonos far from the circus of Hora. She leads tours from the family farm, Vioma, taking guests down quiet country lanes banked by stone walls, behind which fig trees grow and goats bleat. With the light turning gold, cyclists are rewarded with a picnic of homemade buns and cups of wine on a remote beach. Sharing the sunset here is but a group of three horse-riders from a neighbouring farm.

‘I am not a monuments expert,’ says Dimitra, back at Vioma, serving a feast of cured ham, tomatoes piled high on rusks, just-made cheese and honey fresh from the beehive. ‘It is local life I love to share.’ Dad Nikos and mum Helena potter about the terrace, pouring more wine and loading plates with small almond and lemon cakes.

Panagia Tourliani, the monastery that owns the land here, is just visible, perched high on a hill beyond the rows of low-lying vines. Standing guard, too, and forming a chain to the sea, are the crumbling watch-towers that once protected the fields and farmhouses from raiders. ‘I like to go to Hora now and then,’ says Dimitra, as a light breeze ripples down the valley. ‘But here it’s a completely different side to the island. Here, you see our heritage is very dear to us.’

hop two: Paros

‘PAROS IS THE ARK THAT saved the Malvasia grape from extinction,’ says Savvas Moraitis, standing in the stone cellar of his winery in Naoussa. ‘We were the only place not affected by the phylloxera that wiped it out in the rest of Europe.’ He pours a glass of Malvasia and takes a sip. ‘See, it is clean and crisp, just like the sea.’

The ocean is never far from the thoughts of Parians, even when talking about wine. The sea breeze, limited freshwater and loose sandy soil create a terroir unique to the islands, producing wines different to any in Europe. In pride of place in the Moraitis winery sits a model of Seveasti, the boat that once transported their produce all over the Aegean, setting sail from a nearby beach. ‘The sea is why anyone on this island is here,’ explains Savvas.

Down in the harbour, a short walk away, white-haired men sit chatting on benches from dawn to dusk, rising occasionally to check their fishing lines. Costa, a retired engineer from Athens, spends six months of the year on the island. ‘This is my work now,’ he says, gesturing at the water. ‘I fish, I eat fish, I watch the fishing boats come in.’ He is not the only one drawn to such simple preoccupations. As the shadows start to lengthen across the cobbled quayside, the tables fill at restaurants that sit barely a metre from the water’s edge. Waiters hang octopus from the doorways to advertise their wares, and sardines, lobsters and red mullets are put on ice at high tables, to the immense frustration of local cats.

Fishing boats come and go, puttering out from the harbour, past the fort that once protected the town from pirate attack. In unlikely homage to those days, the familiar skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger flag flies over several of the town’s bars, their interiors liberally decorated with fishing nets and glass floats. Customers flit in and out, seeking a position closest to the water, trailing snorkels and beach bags.

Most spent the day dispersed around the island, on the hunt for a beach that’s just right. Everyone has a different definition of what that means on Paros. There are sandy beaches accessed by clifftop paths lined with heather and buzzing with cicadas. Beaches where children search through rock pools, keeping their catch in plastic buckets. Beaches whose rocks have magic exfoliating powers when rubbed on the skin. Beaches where teenagers play keepy-uppy before heading out to windsurf. Beaches with parasols and pedalos, and beaches where there is nothing but pebbles, the gently lapping waves and the wide sky above.

Olivier Kindinis maintains, however, that the very best beaches can only be reached by boat. The owner of activity company Paros Adventures, he has teamed up with local skipper Ilias and his converted fishing boat, Rofos, in a mission to reveal the hidden coves and islands of the Parian coastline to summer visitors. ‘I’m a city boy originally,’ says Olivier as the Rofos eases over the crystal-clear waters of the Blue Lagoon, its sandy bottom clearly visible 14m down. ‘But being by the sea, you wake with a smile on your face.’ The boat passes Nikolas

Church, built on an islet in honour of Paros’s fishermen, candles in its windows doing the job of a lighthouse on dark nights. Drawing into a sheltered bay ringed by tall cliffs, Ilias cuts the engine. ‘If you come to Paros and don’t go out on a boat, you miss the whole point of it,’ says Olivier. ‘You miss all this.’ He gestures at the luminous water, sun bouncing off the surface like diamonds. The only spectators are the swifts circling above. It’s impossible to resist diving in.

hop three: NAXOS

THE ISLAND OF NAXOS looks so different to its neighbours, it’s hard to believe it’s part of the same Cycladic chain. From the shore, plains covered in golden fronds of wheat rise up through foothills covered in cedars and thick, gnarly olive trees half a millennium old. Tractors chug along narrow roads lined with cactuses, granite mountains rearing up around them and casting dark shadows over the valley. Far above, a solitary eagle floats on the wind.

Naxos has always been a place apart. Its inhabitants look inward and to each other for survival with little reliance on the sea and all that lies beyond. Its most important towns lie in the interior, not on the coast. Halki, deep in the mountains, was its capital until the 1950s, when administrative life shifted to the port town of Naxos. Unlike in Naoussa on Paros or Hora on Mykonos, most old-town buildings here are not white with blue shutters. The streets are wide. Houses are painted in pastel shades and built in the Neoclassical style, with imposing windows.

Halki fell into disrepair in the second half of the 20th century, but is once again the cultural heart of the island. Katharina Bolesch and Alexander Reichardt are credited with its revival. A married couple, they have lived in the town since 1989, producing ceramics, jewellery, lithographs and marble pieces in their workshop. A constant stream of visitors wanders in and out of their gallery, Fish & Olive. ‘All roads lead to Halki,’ says Katharina, delicately placing a pottery olive on the side of a vase, while Alex paints the outline of a fish on a bowl. ‘No-one lived on the coast – we always had what we needed right here. Life was always in the centre of the island.’

In Apiranthos, a few miles along the road, a women’s cooperative has been making the same point since the 1980s. In a room near the top of the village, its windows flung open to the cool mountain air, up to 20 women work embroidering shepherd’s shirts, and weaving tablecloths and blankets ready for sale. Their purpose is to keep the traditions of the mountains alive, and to maintain that all-important self-reliance.

The most fertile of the Cyclades, Naxos’s autonomy was assured by the bounty of its soil. No-one has to cross the oceans to bring in supplies. Even in Halki, apricot, pear and lemon trees grow in every back garden, the fat fruit lying where it falls. It’s no surprise that the protector of the island is Dionysos, god of wine and joy and fertility. ‘People say there was so much wine here, it ran in the rivers,’ says guide Eleni Kontopidi with a laugh. ‘Perhaps the abundance makes people create. You take everything you have and turn it into art.’

The abundance also makes Naxians preternaturally compelled to eat and to feed. In a farmhouse kitchen in the valley below Halki, Eleni introduces goat farmers Yannis – who sits stirring a fresh batch of cheese, glass of raki resting on the arm of his chair – and wife Maria. She immediately brings out plate after plate of food: courgette fritters; spanakopita pastries spilling out spinach; salads of tomato, cucumber and fennel; and baklava with jelly – all of it home-made with their own produce. They worry they’ve not provided enough.

‘We take hospitality very seriously on Naxos,’ explains Eleni, trying the goat’s cheese. ‘Living in the mountains, you are cut off from the world, and it makes you feel more solidarity with each other. We don’t spend a lot of money on things, but we always share what we have.’

final port of call: SANTORINI

LIFE ON SANTORINI STOPS IN its tracks an hour or so before dusk. Beaches are abandoned, guided tours are ditched, kids are bundled away from hotel pools, drives are hurriedly completed. It is an unspoken rule that the sole focus of any activity from this point until nightfall is finding an elevated and comfortable spot from which to watch the sun sink slowly and gloriously into the Aegean.

Most head to Oia, a town at the northern end of Santorini, the view from which may have been photographed more than any other in Greece. Fira offers a slightly less frenetic perch for sunset musings. Like Oia, its white buildings and domed churches spill down the cliff-side, seeming to cling to the rock in defiance of all known laws of gravity and engineering.

As the sky starts to fade to violet, through various shades of gold, amber and mauve, couples find a quiet step on which to share a bottle of wine, the conversation from the wedding parties in full swing on restaurant terraces dies down, and the speedboats and yachts on the water spin to face west. All eyes fix on the sunset, and stay fixed until the first stars and a sliver of silver moon appear in the darkening sky. Then cocktails are ordered, the chatter resumes and the important business of holiday carousing begins again in earnest.

Santorini’s high position on the list of the world’s best sunset locations owes much to geology: the island, and the islets off-shore, are all that remain of a volcano that erupted over 3,500 years ago. Its towns, the essential foreground in any memorable Santorini sunset shot, are built into the caldera’s edge. The ash from the explosion has been instrumental in its modern-day survival too, creating fertile plains which sustained the island’s most unlikely hero: the tomato.

At a factory in the southern plains, Antonis Valvis cranks up a steel engine the size of a combine harvester. Belts whirr, cogs grind and wheels clank. The factory, closed in 1981, once shipped canned tomatoes and tomato paste all over the region, providing the Greek army for over a decade. As the old machines spring to life, a contented smile spreads over the face of Antonis, former chief engineer and now occasional guide. ‘When the factory was built after WWII, it was very harsh times for Santorini,’ he says. ‘It provided a lot of opportunity. It’s how the villages of the island survived.’

It has now been resurrected as a museum, with all its Heath-Robinson-style machinery intact, art exhibitions housed in the old warehouses and concerts staged in the grounds. No-one leaves without trying the sweet, freshly pressed juice of a Santorini tomato, served in a plastic cup – red from the blood of each farmer and with a scent like the sun, according to Antonis. ‘To the people of Santorini, this factory is a temple,’ he says, knocking back his juice. ‘So come here first, and then go and see the sunset.’