Ikaria

Ikaria lies in the eastern Aegean between Samos and the Cyclades, a long, narrow, mountainous island of 255 square kilometres with around 8,800 residents. It is known for two things that have nothing to do with each other: the myth that gave it its name, and the fact that its people live an unusually long time.

Historical Significance

Icarus

The island takes its name from Icarus, son of the craftsman Daedalus, who in the myth flew too near the sun, lost the wax holding his feathered wings together and fell into the sea off this coast. The stretch of water between Ikaria, Samos and the Cyclades has been called the Icarian Sea ever since, and it had a reputation for rough going long before the myth was attached to it.

Ancient settlement

There is evidence of habitation from at least 7000 BC, in the Neolithic, associated with the pre-Greek Pelasgians. Around 750 BC settlers arrived from Miletus, the leading Ionian city on the Asia Minor coast, and built their town at what is now Kampos; the ancient city there was called Oenoe, a name derived from wine. The island's best-known ancient building is the Tauropolion, the temple of Artemis Tauropolos, which stood at Nas on the north-west coast and dates to around the sixth century BC. It was still in reasonable condition in the mid-nineteenth century, when villagers carted off its marble for building stone; a smaller precinct of the same goddess stood at Oenoe.

Coast, mountains and beaches

The Aitheras range runs the length of the island east to west and tops out at 1,037 metres, which is why the north and south coasts feel like two different islands. Trails cross the ridge through forest and hill villages, following stone paths that are still the shortest route between some settlements.

The coastline runs to about 160 kilometres. Livadi and Messakti, on the north coast near Armenistis, are the long sand beaches - both with a real undertow when the swell is up. Seychelles, on the south coast below Magganitis, is a cove of large white boulders reached down a rough path or by boat. Nas sits at the mouth of the Halari gorge on the north-west coast, and is the one to combine with the temple, since the ruins stand on the headland directly above the beach. At Therma, just east of Agios Kirykos, and at Therma Lefkados further along the coast, hot mineral springs have been used as a spa since antiquity.

Boats should treat Ikaria with respect rather than as an easy cruising ground. The Icarian Sea was proverbially dangerous in antiquity - Homer used its changeability, Horace named its waves in a line about shipwreck - and the meltemi still funnels down the strait from Samos with force in July and August. There are three usable harbours: Agios Kirykos, the capital, on the south-east coast; Evdilos on the north; and the small fishing port of Gialiskari further west along the north coast.

The Blue Zone

Ikaria is one of five regions worldwide identified as a Blue Zone, where an unusual share of the population reaches very advanced ages. The explanations generally offered are a largely plant-based diet built on wild greens, pulses, olive oil and local wine; constant low-level physical work on steep ground rather than deliberate exercise; an afternoon rest that is genuinely observed; and village and family networks dense enough that almost nobody is isolated. The all-night village feasts, the panigyria, run through the summer and function as a social institution rather than a tourist event - they are where the island's food, wine and dancing are all in one place.

Wine

Ikaria has a documented wine history going back to Homer. Pramnian wine, pramneios oinos, is named in both the Iliad, where it goes into a restorative drink mixed for a wounded warrior, and the Odyssey, where Circe uses it as the base of her potion. Ancient writers describe it as strong, dry and austere rather than sweet, and Hippocrates and Galen both wrote about it as a medicine. Local tradition claims Dionysus was born on Ikaria, and his cult was certainly active on the island alongside that of Artemis. Wine is still made on terraced slopes across Ikaria, some of it sold under the old name, and the small producers pour at the summer festivals.

Getting there and getting around

Ikaria has a national airport near Faros at the north-east tip, built in the 1990s, with flights from Athens. Ferries connect Piraeus, Samos, Chios, Kos, Patmos and Mykonos. Summer highs sit around 33C (92F) in July and August and the sea reaches about 27C (81F). The clear water and the wrecks make for good diving, the meltemi suits windsurfers, and the sheltered stretches of the south coast are the ones to kayak. The north coast between Evdilos and Armenistis is worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet in Greece, though skippers tend to schedule Ikaria as a settled-weather leg rather than a fixed date on the itinerary.