Greece - Korina Miller [339]
Slammer Bar ( 22860 92119; Main Sq, Hora) Hammers out house, rock and Latin, as well as multiple tequila shots; head-banging in every sense.
Superfly ( 22860 92259; Main Sq, Hora) Plays funky house tunes.
Disco 69 ( 22860 91064; Main Sq, Hora) Hard-core drinking – and hard-core T-shirts – to a background of disco and current hits.
Other central venues are Blue Note, Flames Bar, Red Bull and Liquid.
Outside the centre of Hora are equally popular bars and some bigger dance clubs.
Ios Club ( 22860 91410) Head here for a cocktail and watch the sun set to classical, Latin and jazz music from a great terrace with sweeping views. It’s along the pathway by Sweet Irish Dream.
Orange Bar ( 22860 91814) A more easy-paced music bar playing rock, indie and Brit-pop just outside the war zone.
Scorpion’s is a late-night dance-to-trance and progressive venue with laser shows. A great favourite is Kandi featuring top Norwegian guest DJs, while Aftershock goes for sensation with raunchy dancers and house, trance and Greek hits.
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AROUND IOS
Travellers are lured to Ios by its nightlife, but also by its beaches. Vying with Mylopotas as one of the best is Manganari, a long swath of fine white sand on the south coast, reached by bus or by caïque in summer (see Getting Around, Click here).
From Ormos, it’s a 10-minute walk past the little church of Agia Irini for Valmas Beach. A 1.3km walk northwest of Ormos, Koumbara is the official clothes-optional beach. Tsamaria, nearby, is nice and sheltered when it’s windy elsewhere.
Agia Theodoti, Psathi and Kalamos Beaches, all on the northeast coast, are more remote. Psathi is a good windsurfing venue.
On Cape Gero Angeli, near Plakoto Beach at the northernmost tip of the island and 12km from Hora, is the alleged site of Homer’s Grave (boxed text).
Moni Kalamou, on the way to Manganari and Kalamos Beaches, stages a huge religious festival in late August and a festival of music and dance in September.
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SANTORINI (THIRA) ΣΑΝΤΟΡΙΝΗ (ΘΗΡΑ)
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Santorini will take your breath away. Even the most jaded traveller succumbs to the spectacle of this surreal landscape, relic of what was probably the biggest eruption in recorded history. You do share the experience with hordes of other visitors, but the island somehow manages to cope with it all.
The caldera and its vast curtain of multicoloured cliffs is truly awesome. If you want to experience the full dramatic impact it’s worth arriving by a slower ferry with open decks, rather than by enclosed catamaran or hydrofoil.
Santorini is famous for its spectacular sunsets. The village of Oia on the northern tip of the island is a hugely popular sunset-viewing site because there is an uninterrupted view of the sun as it finally sinks below the horizon.
Santorini is not all about the caldera, however. The east side of the island has black-sand beaches at popular resorts such as Kamari and Perissa and although the famous archaeological site of Akrotiri is closed for the forseeable future, Ancient Thira above Kamari is a major site.
The island’s main port, Athinios, stands on a cramped shelf of land at the base of Sphinxlike cliffs and is a scene of marvellous chaos that always seems to work itself out when ferries arrive. Buses (and taxis) meet all ferries and then cart passengers through an ever-rising series of S-bends to the capital, Fira, which fringes the edge of the cliffs like a snowy cornice.
History
Minor eruptions have been the norm in Greece’s earthquake record, but Santorini has bucked the trend – with attitude – throughout history. Eruptions here were genuinely earth-shattering, and so wrenching that they changed the shape of the island several times.
Dorians, Venetians and Turks occupied Santorini, as they did all other Cycladic islands, but its most influential early inhabitants were Minoans. They