Rhenia Island

Rhenia — Rineia in modern Greek — lies just west of Delos and south-west of Mykonos, separated from Delos by a channel about a kilometre wide. It covers roughly 14 square kilometres, some four times the area of Delos, and rises to 136 metres. Nobody lives there. A small population held on until the 1980s, and since then the island has been empty apart from goats, a handful of chapels and farm buildings, and the guardians who look after its ruins. Permanent residence and construction are not allowed, and there is no plumbing, electricity or telephone line anywhere on it — which is why the coast looks the way it does.

What to Expect

Rhenia sits minutes from one of the busiest islands in Greece and is still barely known, even to Greeks. There is no ferry service. The only way ashore is a private boat or an organised day cruise out of Mykonos, and that alone keeps it quiet through August. What arrives into view on the approach is a low, dry, rocky island cut by deep bays, with nothing built along the shoreline and no facilities of any kind.

The Cycladic Sisters: One History Across Three Islands

Mykonos, Delos and Rhenia are sometimes grouped together as the Cycladic Sisters, on account of their shared history and their position in the same small patch of sea. Rhenia also goes by Great Delos or Big Delos, a reference to its size next to the sacred island. Geologically it is two separate land masses joined by a narrow isthmus, though in practice it is treated as one island.

Its past is bound to Delos. In the 6th century BC Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, took Rhenia and dedicated it to Delian Apollo, symbolically chaining it to the sanctuary across the strait. The link became a practical one in 426/425 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens purified Delos. Thucydides records the terms: nobody was to die or give birth on the sacred island, and the dying and women close to labour were to be carried over to Rhenia. Existing graves on Delos were emptied and their contents reburied together in a single pit at Agia Kyriaki bay. The southern half of Rhenia served as the Delian necropolis, and burials excavated there span the 8th to the 5th century BC. The finds are dispersed today: the Archaeological Museum of Mykonos holds a large share, with more on Delos and in collections in Venice, London, Paris, Vienna and Copenhagen.

Wind and Anchorage

The meltemi that runs down the Aegean gives reliable sailing through the summer, and Rhenia's deeply indented coast offers shelter from open-sea swell whichever way the wind sits, which is why it has become one of the standard anchorages for boats working the Mykonos–Delos area. Winds are strongest from October to March, averaging above 13.4 miles per hour, and ease between April and September to around 10.9 miles per hour.

There is no water, no fuel and no shore power. Arrive in daylight, carry what you need, and plan it as a day stop rather than an overnight base. It is a classic stop on a Greece blue cruise itinerary precisely because it puts an empty bay within an hour of a crowded harbour.

Bays and Beaches

The four best-known beaches — Ambelia, Lia, Stena and Glyfada — each sit in their own well-protected bay, and the rest of the coast rewards anyone willing to work along it by tender. Water temperatures hold above 72°F (22°C) from late June to early October, which is also the busiest part of the season, although busy here rarely means more than a few boats at anchor.

The coves mix sand and pebble and get hot underfoot, so sea shoes are useful going ashore. Many shelve gently into deeper water, but there are no lifeguards, no shade and no way to call for help quickly, which makes Rhenia a poor choice with small children and a good one for a long swim away from crowds.

Ruins, Graves and Chapels

Survey and excavation by the Cyclades Ephorate of Antiquities have recorded farmhouses belonging to the sanctuary of Delian Apollo, a previously unknown ancient road, and a sanctuary site at Chomasovouni, alongside later dry-stone walls, pits and chapels from the Byzantine period onwards. Walking inland from the bays, visitors come across the remains of buildings and stretches of road; across the southern half of the island, grave markers and burial stones from the Delian necropolis are still lying where they were left.

There are also several small 20th-century chapels, whitewashed in the usual Cycladic manner and sited for the view. One is dedicated to Agia Triada and looks out over a wide sweep of the surrounding Cyclades. Another, the church of Agios Georgios, stands on Kounelonisi, a rocky islet off Rhenia's north-eastern coast.