Contact Admin. In the third instalment of our four-part series on Greek Islands, produced in association with Lonely Planet, Des Hannigan explores a scattered Aegean archipelago. The Cycladic islands are scattered like fragments of a mosaic across the heart of the Aegean Sea: sun-drenched outposts of hills and limestone cliffs dotted by villages of snow-white cube-shaped buildings. Ferry-hopping is the key to getting the best from the Cyclades. You can while away a week or two on the glittering party venues of Mykonos and Santorini, but the essence of the Cyclades lies in the dozen or so other islands of the archipelago that lie, always just in sight, amid the golden haze of the Aegean.
Prepare to sail like a modern Odysseus. The name Cyclades is taken from the Greek word for circle, kyklos, a reflection of the archipelago's notional encirclement of the sacred island of Delos, where the archaeological riches of the Cyclades begin. Once Delos was a shrine to Apollo and later became the classical Wall Street of the Mediterranean, where the Delian League of merchants and bankers stored their gold.
Just across the sea from Delos is Mykonos, the jewel in the Cycladic crown, relentlessly fashionable and exciting and with some of the best, if busiest, beaches in the Aegean.
North of Mykonos lie the more subdued Tinos and Andros, old-style Greece in the relaxed pace of their small resorts and in their compelling landscapes of tawny hills and cypresses. Also worth visiting is Syros, a few miles west of Mykonos. The island's main settlement of Ermoupoli, capital of the Cyclades, is one of the most attractive small cities in Greece.
To the south lies the pivotal Cycladic duo of Paros and Naxos. Both are meeting points of the major ferry routes. Paros is all smooth hills and wandering coastline while Naxos is an absorbing world of landlocked villages and fertile plateaux. Both have main towns that are blessed with the Venetian architectural legacy. Directly south of Naxos are Iraklia, Schinoussa and Koufonisia, a magical procession of tiny islands leading to the most easterly of the Cyclades, the dragon-backed Amorgos, an island of singular beauty and serenity.
