Léros is so indented with deep, sheltered anchorages that during World War II it harboured, in turn, the entire Italian, German and British Mediterranean fleets. Unfortunately, many of these magnificent fjords and bays seem to absorb rather than reflect light, and the island's relative fertility can seem scraggly and unkempt when compared with the crisp lines of its more barren neighbours. These characteristics, plus the island's lack of spectacularly good beaches, meant that until the late 1980s just a few thousand foreigners (mostly Italians who grew up on the island), and not many more Greeks, came to visit each year, mostly in August.

 

Such a pattern is now history, with German, Dutch, Danish and British package operators at the vanguard of those "discovering" Léros and the company of islanders unjaded by mass tourism. Foreign-visitor numbers have, however, levelled off since the late 1990s, with matters unlikely to change until and unless the tiny airport is expanded to accommodate jets.

Not that Léros needs, or strenuously encourages, mass tourism; various prisons and sanatoriums have dominated the Lerian economy since the 1950s, directly or indirectly employing about a third of the population. During the junta era, the island hosted a notorious detention centre at Parthéni, and today the mental hospital on Léros remains the repository for many of Greece's more intractable psychiatric cases; another asylum is home to hundreds of mentally handicapped children. The island's domestic image problem is compounded by its name, the butt of jokes by mainlanders who pounce on its similarity to the word lerá , connoting rascality and unsavouriness.

In 1989, a major scandal emerged concerning the administration of the various asylums, with EU maintenance and development funds found to have been embezzled by administrators and staff, and the inmates kept in degrading and inhumane conditions. Since then, an influx of EU inspectors, foreign psychiatrists and extra funding have resulted in drastic improvements in patient treatment, including the establishment of halfway houses across the island.

More obvious is the legacy of the Battle of Léros on November 12-16, 1943, when overwhelming German forces displaced a Commonwealth division which had landed on the island following the Italian capitulation. Bomb nose-cones and shell casings still turn up as gaily painted garden ornaments in the courtyards of churches and tavernas, or have been pressed into service as gateposts. Each year for three days following September 26, memorial services and a naval festival commemorate the sinking of the Greek battleships Queen Olga and Intrepid during the German attack.

Unusually for a small island, Léros has abundant ground water, channelled into potable cisterns at several points. These, plus low-lying ground staked with the avenues of eucalyptus trees planted by the Italians, make for an unusually active mosquito contingent, so come prepared. The island is compact enough to walk around, with sufficient hills to give mountain-bikers a good work-out. There is a reasonable bus service, plus several scooter- and bicycle-rental outfits, of which Motoland (branches at Álynda and Pandélli) have proven the most reliable