A love letter to Patmos: the most serene of all the Greek islands

Saint John lived in a cave here and wrote about the Apocalypse, but these days the quiet shores of beautiful Patmos nurture happier thoughts

Of all the Greek islands, Patmos is easily the most serene to me. Although a little smaller in area than, say, Cambridge (at about 13 square miles), it’s richly sprinkled with monasteries, and is known as the “Jerusalem of the Aegean”. The main town, Chora, has more than 40 chapels, and not a single cornershop or grocery. Meanwhile, down on Petra Bay, there’s a rock for hermits, rising up like a five-storey Swiss cheese, complete with cells and cisterns and 11th-century plumbing.

Patmians are still happily self-contained. During our week, we met some who’d never left the island. Others would save up all their medical problems for an annual, eight-hour voyage to Athens. But most were happy just being Patmian: fishing, thinking, building little hotels or teasing vegetables out of the rock.

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