Kitriani Island

Just off the southern coast of Sifnos, in the heart of the Cyclades, lies the tiny, uninhabited islet of Kitriani. Separated from Sifnos by roughly 350 metres of open water, it covers less than one square kilometre — Greek records give its area as about 0.937 square kilometres, rising to a high point of some 103 metres — and the 2021 census recorded no permanent residents at all. There are no roads and no facilities of any kind, only steep, rocky shores that drop into clear Aegean water. The islet's single structure is the whitewashed church of Panagia Kitriani, believed to date from the late 10th or early 11th century, which locals consider the oldest church on Sifnos.

The Oldest Church on Sifnos

Panagia Kitriani is a cross-in-square church crowned by a dome, a plan characteristic of the middle Byzantine period, and Greek heritage records describe it as the oldest surviving ecclesiastical monument on the island. Island tradition holds that it was raised on the site of an earlier place of worship, a pattern repeated across the Cyclades, though no excavation has confirmed it. Inside, the carved iconostasis carries the date 1732, showing that the chapel was still being maintained and enriched more than six centuries after it was first built. Whitewashed walls, a low dome and a bare rocky setting make it one of the most photographed small monuments in this corner of the Aegean, even though almost nobody sets foot on the islet outside the sailing season.

For generations, sailors and fishermen from Sifnos have regarded Panagia Kitriani as a protector of safe passage, and each year on the feast day of the Virgin Mary the community crosses the strait to hold a service and celebration at the chapel. The islet lies opposite Cape Akrotiri, on the stretch of coast between the bays of Platys Gialos and Vathi, so the crossing is short but completely exposed — a reminder of why a church dedicated to safe passage was built out here in the first place.

Approaching by Sea

Because Kitriani has no jetty or harbour, the small cove beneath the church offers the only practical anchorage, and it remains largely undisturbed outside of the July and August peak. Crews normally work out of the two nearest harbours on Sifnos: Platys Gialos, which has a small mole on its north-eastern side, and Vathi, a deep, almost landlocked inlet widely rated the most sheltered anchorage on the island. Neither is entirely calm in summer, since the northerly meltemi that dominates the Cyclades from roughly June to September can funnel down over the hills in sharp gusts, and cruising guides routinely advise laying extra ground tackle in Vathi when it blows. The water around the islet is also prized by local fishermen, who work the rocky ground and clear depths beneath its cliffs.

Sifnos, the Island Next Door

Sifnos itself covers about 74 square kilometres and has roughly 2,625 permanent residents, with the inland capital of Apollonia strung along a ridge and the main ferry port at Kamares on the west coast. The island is known within Greece for two things in particular: a living pottery tradition, with workshops still operating at Kamares, Artemonas and Platys Gialos, and a restored network of some 200 kilometres of waymarked footpaths, brought back into use by a community-led project from 2015 onwards. In antiquity the island mattered far more than its size suggests — Herodotus called the Siphnians the wealthiest of the islanders thanks to their gold and silver mines, and around 525 BC they spent a tithe of that income on the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, the first Greek building constructed entirely of marble.

Set against that history, Kitriani is deliberately modest: a bare rock, a single chapel and a cove with room for a handful of boats. For yacht crews it is a reminder that some of the best stops are the smallest ones — quiet, history-laden water that is simply one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet cruise in Greece, tucked a few hundred metres off a coast most visitors only ever see from the road.