Chíos

Soak me with jars of Chian wine and say ‘Enjoy yourself, Hedylus. I hate living emptily, not drunk with wine.’ Hedylus, c. 280 BC

Chíos is a fascinating and wealthy island, the fifth largest in Greece, celebrated for its shipowners, friendly good humour, its delicious tangerines and the gum mastic that grows here and nowhere else in the world in 34 fascinating ‘mastic villages’—not surprisingly its nickname in Greek is myrovólos (Μυροβόλος Χίος, the aromatic). It is atypical in other ways, too—more introspective, more interested in doing business than in tourism.

It has lush fertile plains, thick pine forests, quiet beaches, Mediterranean scrublands tufted with maquis and startlingly barren mountains that bring to mind the ‘craggy Chíos’ of Homer, who may have been born on the island. Its architecture is unique and varied, and its church of Néa Moní has some of the finest 11th-century Byzantine mosaics anywhere.

History