GREECE'S GIFT TO THE WORLD

The Aegean island of Syros is eager to welcome visitors-but on its own terms

- BY Robert Kiener

WHEN I told my Athens-based Greek friend George that I was thinking of visiting the world-famous Greek islands of Mykonos and Santorini, he grew silent.

That wasn’t like George—he has the gift of gab. Something was wrong.

"They are wonderful islands," he said after a long pause. "But the truth is that they have become so jam-packed with tourists, it's hard to see the 'real' Greece through the crowds."

Instead, George said, I should visit the island of Syros. “Its history is fascinating, its beaches are uncrowded, the food is wonderful, and the locals are super friendly.”

I did some reading and quickly discovered that George was not alone in his love for Syros. Fodor's travel guide praised the island’s “untouristy urbanity.” A Lonely Planet travel writer scolded traveLlers who treated Syros as “a brief stopover,” and a Greek journalist noted that many of the island’s small villages had been “practically untouched by tourism.”

I was hooked. I booked a flight to Athens and a ferry to Syros.

AFTER A TWO-HOUR, 150-kilometre ride southeast from Athens's port city of Piraeus, my high-speed ferry cuts its engines to a mild roar as it glides into Ermoupoli, the main harbour of Syros. A handful of luxury yachts are tied up at the seafront, and the semicircular shoreline is dotted with tavernas, shops and small hotels. Instead of the traditional picture-postcard, sugar-cube houses one sees spilling down hillsides on other Greek islands, I am surprised to find that Ermoupoli, which is the capital of both Syros and all of the Cyclades (Greek for ‘circular’) island group, is composed of a cosmopolitan collection of three- and four-storey white, pink, blue and other pastel-coloured buildings that range in design from traditional to neoclassical to Italianate to Byzantine.