Geographically, historically and architecturally, Astypálea (alias Astropália) would be more at home among the Cyclades - on a clear day you can see Anáfi or Amorgós (to the southwest and northwest respectively) far more easily than any of the other Dodecanese. Moreover, Astypálea's inhabitants are descendants of medieval colonists from the Cyclades, and the island looks and feels more like these than its neighbours to the east.

 

Despite an evocative butterfly shape, Astypálea does not immediately impress you as the most beautiful of islands. The heights, which offer modest walking opportunities, are windswept and covered in thornbush or dwarf juniper. Yet the herb alisfakiá , brewed as a tea, flourishes too, and hundreds of sheep and goats manage to survive - as opposed to snakes, which are (uniquely in the Aegean) entirely absent. Lush citrus groves and vegetable patches in the valleys signal a relative abundance of water, hoarded in a reservoir. The various beaches along the bleak, heavily indented coastline often have reef underfoot and suffer periodic dumpings of seaweed.

In antiquity the island's most famous citizen was Kleomedes, a boxer disqualified from an early Olympic Games for causing the death of his opponent. He came home so enraged that he demolished the local school, killing all its pupils. Things have calmed down a bit in the intervening 2500 years, and today Astypálea is renowned mainly for its honey, fish and lobster (which finds its way into the local dish of astakomakaronádha ); the abundant local catch has only been shipped to Athens since the late 1980s, a reflection of the traditionally poor ferry links in every direction. These have improved recently with the introduction of extra services towards Piréas via select Cyclades, and high-season links with Rhodes via a few intervening islets, but outside July or August you still risk being marooned here for a day or two longer than intended. There is, curiously, no conventional package tourism here since Laskarina Holidays deleted the island from their list in 1995, frustrated by chronically unreliable connections to Kós and its airport.

Despite this relative isolation, plenty of people find their way to Astypálea during the short, intense midsummer season (mid-July to the first Sept Sun before school starts), when the 1500 permanent inhabitants are all but overrun by upwards of 7000 guests a day. Most arrivals are Athenians, French or Italians, supplemented by large numbers of yachties and foreign owners of holiday homes in the understandably popular Hóra. At such times you won't find a bed without reserving well in advance, and camping rough is expressly frowned upon