Amorgos

About Amorgos

By the ULTIMATE Athens City Guide Editorial Team

The easternmost of the Cyclades: wild, mountainous and peaceful, with a monastery clinging to a sheer cliff above the sea, a perfect hilltop Chora, deep-blue water and some of the best walking in the islands.

The back story

Long and mountainous, Amorgos was home to three independent city-states in antiquity, Minoa, Arkesini and Aegiali, and the ruins of ancient Minoa can still be seen on a hill above Katapola.

Its most famous building is the Monastery of Panagia Hozoviotissa, built into a vertical cliff about 300 metres above the sea. According to tradition, a miraculous icon arrived here from Palestine, and in 1088 the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos founded the monastery. Its brilliant white walls, just a few metres deep, seem to hang from the rock, and the few monks who live there still welcome visitors.

Its most famous building is the Monastery of Panagia Hozoviotissa, built into a vertical cliff about 300 metres above the sea.

In 1988 the island appeared in Luc Besson’s film The Big Blue, which brought its deep-blue water to the world’s attention.

Chora and the monastery

Chora, the capital, stands high in the centre of the island, a perfect Cycladic village of white lanes, little squares, churches and windmills below a rock crowned by a Venetian castle. From Chora a path leads down to the monastery; dress modestly, go in the morning, and climb the steps to the chapel and its small museum, where the monks often offer visitors a glass of raki and a sweet.

Walks and beaches

Amorgos is a walker’s island, with old mule paths linking villages, monasteries and bays, including the classic route along the island’s spine from Chora to Aegiali. Below the monastery, Agia Anna is a rocky cove with famously clear water, and near Aegiali, in the north, the villages of Tholaria and Langada sit above sandy bays. The wreck of the ship Olympia, which ran aground in 1980, lies in a bay on the west coast.

Getting there

Amorgos has no airport. Ferries from Piraeus take about five and a half to six hours on the fastest boats and seven to nine hours on conventional ferries, calling at Katapola and often at Aegiali too. Local ferries link Amorgos with Naxos and the Small Cyclades, so many visitors fly to Naxos or arrive via Paros.

Amorgos at a glance

Ferry times are typical and change with the season, the boat and the number of stops; check current timetables with the ferry companies or Ferryhopper before you travel.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Amorgos before you go.