LIPSI: "Scribblings" and Pic Gallery.  Click on pics below to enlarge

Lipsi is a very friendly little island.  I visited it for the first time back in the 1990s and found it charming.  It had, at that time, just come into a low-level tourist orbit, with a Greek Island specialist company having established itself there.

I loved it for its simplistic charm.  There were hardly any tourists and facilities were pretty low-key.  Things have moved on since then, and when I was working on Patmos a few years later, I used to pop over to Lipsi once a week for a few days to do some work there as well.  I really looked forward to those days on Lipsi.  I loved the gentle pace.  And Sally, my colleague there, and I, used have great time smiling about how fortunate we were to have just a great job!

It had certainly become more popular, though.  More accommodation was available, and day-trippers from Patmos and Leros would drop in as well.  Still, development was relatively low-key and I found that the island had not been spoilt.

There are some lovely scenic beaches of which Katsadia and Plati Gialos are my favourites.

Much of what happens on Lipsi, though, happens around the harbourside.  The rest of the island is sparsely populated, and barren; but punctuated with many quaint blue-domed chapels.  There are well over a hundred; possibly more.  There is also a remote monastery with just one monk.  If you visit, you can take a packet of biscuits.  He loves them, but the sugar in them has resulted in his losing all his teeth!

Evenings are very laid-back.  There's nothing much to do. Not to be missed though, is a sundowner at Sophokleous' Ouzeri on the waterfront.  It is one of the nicest I have been to, and the owner, himself, is the most amiable of chaps.

Oh, and by the way, you remember the guy who got arrested for running the elusive "November 17" terrorist organisation? He got arrested on Lipsi!  Well, I often wonder if he was ever in the Rock Bar when I was there!  I believe it was a bar he used to frequent.  None of us knew, at the time, what he was up to.  Apparently he seemed such a nice guy really.  Who would have thought!  Lipsi can be an island full of surprises!

MARATHI

If you are staying on Lipsi it is worth your while to take a caique day-trip to Marathi, which is fairly close-by.  Marathi is uninhabited, but duing the the season it has two delightful tavernas, right on the beach. And the snorkelling is quite good, too.

Caiques leave from Lipsi port a couple of times a week.  I always used to travel on the "Black Beauty", skippered by Yiannis Paradissis, whose delightful wife, Rena, runs the travel agent on the island.  Trips can be booked at the agency.

Pics below: