Lipsi Island

Lipsi is a small island in the northern Dodecanese, lying between Patmos and Leros and reached almost entirely by boat. It has one village, one harbour, fewer than eight hundred permanent residents and no airport, and that combination has kept it clear of the Aegean mass tourism its neighbours have absorbed. For anyone sailing through the archipelago it is a natural place to break a passage: a deep, well-protected bay with tavernas at the head of it and a scattering of beaches within walking distance of the quay.

The Island and Its Waters

The municipality of Lipsi, Leipsoi in Greek, takes in a whole cluster of small islands and islets, of which the main island accounts for about 15.95 square kilometres of a total of 17.35. Only three are inhabited: Lipsi itself, Arkoi and Marathi. The 2021 census recorded 778 residents, nearly all of them living in the single village that shares the island's name and wraps around the harbour. Administratively the island belongs to the Kalymnos regional unit within the South Aegean region.

The terrain is low and dry, rising to its highest point at Skafi, 277 metres, at the western end, and the coastline is cut into a series of small coves. Platys Gialos in the north-west is the best known of the beaches; Katsadia, Hochlakoura, Monodendri, Kambos and Lientou are the others most often named, some a few minutes on foot from the village, others reached by a track over the hills. Nothing on the island is far from anything else, and the roads that link the settlement to the bays were rebuilt in recent years with European Union funding.

Monks, Empires and a Late Union with Greece

Lipsi's recorded history runs largely through Patmos. In 1088 the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos granted the then-deserted island of Patmos to the monk Christodoulos so that a monastic community could be founded there, and the grant covered Lipsi and the surrounding islets as well; Lipsi has belonged to the Patriarchal Exarchate of Patmos ever since. The island came under Italian occupation in 1912 along with the rest of the Dodecanese, passed to British administration after the Second World War, and was formally united with Greece only on 7 March 1948, within living memory for the oldest islanders.

The most significant building on the island is the church of Panagia tou Harou, founded around 1600 by monks from the Patmos monastery and fortified against pirate raids. Its icon is unusual in Orthodox art: the Virgin holds not the infant Christ but his crucified body. The island's best-known tradition attaches to it, since lilies left before the icon in April 1943 dried out and are said to bloom again each year around 23 August, the leave-taking of the feast of the Dormition, which Lipsi marks with a three-day festival of food, music and dancing. The larger church of Agios Ioannis Theologos on the hill above the town dates from 1931.

Arriving by Sea

There is no airfield on Lipsi; the nearest airports are on Leros and Kos, and the island is served by ferries and hydrofoils from Piraeus, Patmos and Leros, all of which berth in the single harbour. Ashore, the economy still rests on fishing, olives, small vineyards and thyme honey, most of it sold directly by the producers. A winery opened in 2013 makes a sweet red from the Fokiano grape, a variety long grown on these islands.

The bay itself is deep and naturally sheltered, and has been improved steadily over the years so that it now takes everything from local fishing caiques to sizeable yachts. That is why many charter guests exploring Greece anchor here for the afternoon before pushing on towards Patmos or Leros, and why the village manages to feel busy for a couple of hours around the ferry and then empty again for the rest of the day.