Pserimos (Kapari)

Map of Pserimos

The little island of Pserimos (or Kapari), 80 population-15km² extension, filled with remote beaches, is one of the smallest islands of Aegean and is located between Kalymnos and Kos. Belongs to Dodecanese complex. The northern end of the island called "Akra Vasiliki", while the southernmost "Akra Roussa" and the north "Akra Koraki." It got its name because of the homonymous plant that grows there.

Throughout the season, so many excursion boats arrive that they have had to build a second jetty at little Avlakia port. In midsummer, day-trippers blanket the main sandy beach that curves in front of Avlakia's thirty-odd houses and huge communal olive grove. Three other beaches are within easy reach: the clean sand-and-gravel strand at Vathy is a well-marked, 30minute walk east, starting from behind the Taverna Iy Pserimos. It takes 45 minutes of walking north along the main trans-island track to get to grubbier Marathounda, composed of pebbles. Best of all is Grafiotissa, a 300m-long beach of near-Caribbean quality half an hour's walk west of town.

Nissyros

Map of Nissyros

The volcanic island of Nissyros is unlike its neighbours in almost every respect. Its much greener than dry Tilos and Halki to the south, blessed with rich soil that nurtures a distinctive flora, and it supported a large agricultural population in ancient times. In contrast to long flat Kos to the north, Nissyros is round and tall, with the high walls of its central caldera rising abruptly from the shoreline around its entire perimeter. And Nissyros conceals a startling secret. Behind those encircling hills, the interior of the island is hollow. For most visitors, the volcano is Nissyros' main attraction. It's easy enough to see it on a day trip from Kos.

The port and sole large town, Mandhraki on the northwest coast, is an appealing tight-knit community with some fine ancient ruins, while two delightful villages, Emborio and Nikia, straddle the crater ridge.

Much of the island's income is derived from the offshore islet of Yiali, a vast lump of pumice, all too clearly visible just north of Mandhraki, that's slowly being quarried away. Substantial concession fees have given the islander's economic security.

Nissyros also offers good walking, on trails that lead through a countryside studded with oak and terebinth.

Tilos

Map of Tilos

Tilos (61km²  extension and 780 population) shares the characteristics of its closest neighbours: limestone mountains like those of Halki, plus volcanic lowlands, pumice beds and red-lava sand as on Nissyros. With ample groundwater and rich volcanic soil, the islanders could afford to turn their backs on the sea, and made Tilos the breadbasket of the Dodecanese. Until the 1970s, travellers were greeted by the sight of shimmering  fields of grain bowing in the wind. Nowadays the hillside terraces languish abandoned, and the population of five hundred dwindles to barely a hundred in winter.

While recent development has turned the port of Livadhia ever more towards  tourism, Tilos remains low-key. This is still a place where visitors come to get away from it all, often for extended stays.

Kasos

Map of Kasos

Kasos, the southrnmost Dodecanese island with 66km² and 1.100 inhabitants, less than 48km northeast of Crete, is very much off the beaten tourist track. Eever since 1824, when an Egyptian fleet punished Kasos for its active participation in the Greek revolution by slaughtering most of the 11.000 Kassiots, the island has remained barren and depopulated. Sheer gorges slash through lunar terrain relieved only by fenced smallholdings of midget olive trees. Spring grain crops briefly soften usually fallow terraces, and livestock somehow survives on a thin furze of scrub. The remaining population occupies five villages facing Karpathos, leaving most of the island uninhabited and uncultivated , with crumbling old houses poignantly recalling better days.

Halki

The little island of Halki (27km² extension and approximately 500 residents), a waterless limestone speck west of Rhodes, continues to count as a fully fledged member of the Dodecanese, even if its population haw dwindled from three thousand to barely three hundred n the century since its Italian rulers imposed restrictions on sponge-fishing.

While visitation has brought the island back to life, except at the height of summer Halki tends to be very quiet indeed. That said, in the middle of the day in high season, when day-trippers from Rhodes vastly outnumber locals in its broad quayside-cum-

square, Emborio can feel more like a stage set that a genuine town.

Kastellorizo(Megisti)

Map of Kastellorizo

Although Kastellorizo's official name of Meyisti means "Biggest", it's actually among the very smallest Dodecanese islands with 9km²  extension and 500 residents. It's just the biggest of a local archipelago of islets. It's also extremely remote, located more than 100km east of Rhodes and barely more than a nautical mile off mainland Asia. At night its lights are outnumbered by those of the Turkish town of Kas opposite, with which Kastellorizo has excellent relations.

The island's population has dwindled from around ten thousand a century ago to five hundreds now. Having been an Ottoman possession since 1552, it was occupied by the French from 1915 until 1921, and then by the Italians. When Italy capitulated to the Allies in 1943, 1500 Commonwealth commandos occupied Kastellorizo. Most departed that November, after the Germans captured the other Dodecanese, which left the island vulnerable to looters, both Greek and British. By the time a fuel fire in 1944 triggered the explosion of an adjacent arsenal, demolishing half the houses of Kastellorizo, most islanders had already left. Those who remain are supported by remittances from more than 30,000 emigrants, as well as subsidies from the Greek government to prevent the island reverting to Turkey.

Yet Kastellorizo has a future of sorts, thanks partly to repatriating "Kassies" returning each summer to renovate their crumbling ancestral houses as second homes. Visitors tend either to love Kastellorizo and stay a week, or crave escape after a day. Detractors dismiss it as a human zoo maintained by the Greek government to placate nationalists, while devotees celebrate an atmospheric, little-commercialized outpost of Hellenism.

Rhodes

Map of Rhodes

Rhodes(Rodos), the biggest island of Dodecanese islands with 1.401km² and 115.500 population, is deservedly among the most visited of all Greek islands. Its star attraction is the beautiful medieval Old Town that lies at the heart of its capital, Rhodes Town - a legacy of the crusading Knights of St John, who used the island as their main base from 1309 until 1522. The ravishing hillside village of Lindhos, topped by an ancient acropolis, is another worth visiting place. It marks the midpoint of the island's long eastern shoreline, adorned with numerous sandy beaches that have attracted considerable resort development. At the southern cape, Prassonisi is one of the best windsurfing spots in Europe.

Rhodes Town

By far the largest town on the island, Rhodes Town straddles its northernmost headland, in full view of Turkey less than 20km north. The ancient city that occupied this site, laid out during the fifth century BC by Hippodamos of Miletos, was almost twice the size of its modern counterpart, and at 100.000 held more than double its population.

While the fortified enclave now known as the Old Town is of more recent construction, created by the Knights Hospitaller in the 14th century, it' one of the finest medieval walled cities. It gets overcrowded with day-trippers in high season, but at night it's quite magical, and well worth an extended stay.