Because she’s Madonna.

Who goes to Mykonos is new money and people who think luxury travel means spending $3,000 a night to stay in the same kind of sanitized corporate luxehole you can find in Westlake Village. That’s not Madonna.

Champagne shower Madonna? Long gone are the days when the Material Girl partied like it was 1999. So it’s no wonder she traded a Mykonos-esque Greek summer break for a private villa in always classy Corfu. She also took a private helicopter tour of Meteora as part of her 68th birthday weekend celebration.

Like a Prayer

According to Orthodox Times, Madonna spent three hours at Varlaam Monastery in Meteora on Friday, meeting with the abbot. That source reported that “during her conversation with the 49-year-old Abbot, who was elected in February 2022, Madonna reportedly showed particular interest in matters of spirituality and asked him for ‘spiritual guidance.’ She also asked him about the prayer rope he was holding.”

Then she and her posse traveled back to Corfu. By helicopter.

As we reported before The Sun did, Madonna’s favored a north Corfu location with its own marina. La Isla Bonita? No, La Isla Corfu, with a yacht outing.

Her beau du jour, Akeem Morris, 30 — no one is sure what he does — tagged along along with son Rocco, 26. Young vibes all around!

But what’s next?

We’re going to bring in a Greek word here: hypothesis. It’s ours that after a few days of kicking about Corfu — which is a wonderful island though not necessarily our favorite — Madonna may head east. Specifically, to Patmos.

Why? Because she’s a on spirtual journey. The new albums is Confessions II. It’s the follow up to the much better Confessions on a Dance Floor. Forget all the Kabbalah blabla, for Madonna is Catholic to the core. A sometimes bad girl, even a girl gone wild, who “wants so badly to be good” as she sings:

That’s why we think…

She may make one more Greek island stop before riding out the tail end of summer in the Hamptons. The the island where Saint John wrote the Book of Revelation. Yes, that Revelation. Apocalyptic. Biblical. Heavy stuff.

But there’s something about Patmos that forces you to slow down. Not in a preachy wellness-retreat way, but in a “why would I rush when the sea looks like this or Madonna 2026” kind of way.

Towering above the island’s capital, Chora, the 11th-century monastery is Patmos’s most iconic site. Founded in 1088, it resembles a medieval fortress with high walls and a mix of Byzantine and post-Byzantine architecture. Inside, you’ll find beautiful frescoes, ancient manuscripts, and a peaceful courtyard offering panoramic views.

Cave of the Apocalypse

This small grotto halfway between Skala and Chora is believed to be where St. John received the visions that inspired the Book of Revelation. You can still see the fissure in the rock that tradition holds was formed by the voice of God. The atmosphere inside is famously calm and otherworldly.

If Madonna does manage to fit in a visit, just remember that she’s probably not going to shout about it. She might whisper it though, on Instagram, eventually. It’s what she did after celebrating her bday last year in Morocco.

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Madonna is winning.

While you’re either sitting at home wondering where the hell the summer went, or fighting gale-force winds and/or crowds to get on a Greek ferry, the Queen of Pop just took a private helicopter tour of Meteora and is now luxuriating in the manicured wilds of northern Corfu.

You didn’t think the Like a Virgin singer was going to celebrate her 643rd birthday in Michigan, did you? Okay, Madge isn’t officially in Methuselah territory yet, but as part of her 68th birthday she is going slightly biblical — and in a much cooler way than church-led Rick Steves ever would. Our sources tell us that she and her entourage took a private helicopter to facilitate a private tour of the imposing Varlaam monastery in Meteora.

Let’s back up a bit: taking a page out of the Taylor Swift playbook, Madonna had already touched down in Greece by private jet. That’s somewhat unusual, because we know that the frugal-ish Madonna tends to fly commercial, often favoring first class aboard airlines such as El Al to Tel Aviv and British Airways to or from London (flight attendants tells us she’s a bit frosty on board but hey, she’s Madonna). Whether or not she flew from London to Corfu on private jet directly, we were unable to confirm.

But Corfu, it seems, is the main birthday goal. She’s going off-grid, but in her own private rented villa with private beach and marina access kind of way. Northern, more sedate half of Corfu. Our guess is somewhere in the vicinity of Paleokastritsa, with its gorgeous Agios Spiridon beach and Odyssey-adjacent lore (a shipwrecked Odysseus is said to have come ashore here).

What’s up on Madonna’s Greek summer itinerary après-Corfu? The celebrity rumor mill is at full tilt as we hit the dead center of August, but our money puts the Material Girl’s next move on an island imbued with both yachties and Julia Roberts sightings plus major religious significance: check it out with her.

Plan Your Own Greek Odyssey Now

We just endured a video of Rick Steves flitting around London. America’s patron saint of saccharine road shows visited the British Museum and wasn’t troubled at all by some of the choice purloined property contained therein.

The famed “Elgin” marbles that once formed part of the Parthenon could soon be heading back to Athens from their current perch in the British Museum — not necessarily on a one-way ticket, mind you. And with approximately zero help from tone-deaf barkers of mass tourism like Steves.

The fate of the renowned statuary looms large in the Greek public consciousness. In advocating for their return, famed Greek actress Melina Mercouri, who served as Greece’s minister of culture for many years in the 1980s and 1990s, once said, “You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are the supreme symbol of nobility.”

Calls for their return to Greece have intensified in recent years. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis even raised the issue in a speech he delivered to a joint session of Congress.

The story of how the 21 figures from the Parthenon’s pediments, sculpted by Phidias some 2,450 years ago, along with 246 feet of the Parthenon frieze, ended up in the British Museum is well known. In 1801, grabby Lord Elgin set about removing the mostly loose statuary from the Acropolis with the disputed consent of the Ottoman authorities. The marbles now form an integral part of the collection of the world-renowned British Museum.

The lingering debate over the legality of the acquisition, which Lord Byron memorably decried as “pilfered prey,” has receded somewhat. The literally weighty matter of getting the marbles back to their original home is now at the fore.

George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, has previously warmed to a compromise that would allow the sculptures to return to Athens “on an open-ended loan in return for shorter loans of exhibits stored at the Acropolis Museum.” Such an arrangement would “circumvent the obstacle presented by the fact that the trustees of the British Museum own the friezes and are prevented by law from giving them away.”

In a press statement, the British Museum has said, “We’re actively seeking a new Parthenon partnership with our friends in Greece, and as we enter a new year constructive discussions are ongoing.”

The contours of a long-term loan could resemble those of a deal struck in recent years between Greece and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the progressive return to Athens of 161 ancient artifacts in exchange for others going to the Met. That process could last until 2048, and the artifacts involved do not carry the same psychological weight as those from the Parthenon.

What has truly stymied the marbles’ Acropolis-bound trajectory to date is less bureaucracy than culture. Ancient treasures such as the Parthenon statuary have long been regarded in Britain as part of what makes the British Museum a universal institution.

This is where the argument gets especially strange. To the British Museum, the marbles are evidence of its status as a great encyclopedic institution. To Greece, they are pieces of one of the most recognizable monuments in human history that were removed from their original home and carried halfway around the world.

As a sign of how difficult it is to part with what is, for some, a legitimate portion of a world-class collection—and for others, loot—a museum official insisted last year that much of the frieze had been removed not from the Parthenon itself, but from the rubble around it.

“These items were not all hacked from the building as has been suggested,” the museum’s deputy director, Jonathan Williams, told delegates to a UNESCO meeting.

But essentially, they were.

And even if one accepts every British argument about the circumstances of their removal, there is something faintly ridiculous about treating the question as though the marbles’ natural habitat is a glass case in Bloomsbury.

Should the carved figures and frieze be returned to Athens, they would be displayed in the Acropolis Museum, not reinserted into the fragile ancient temple itself. The museum has already set aside gallery space for the artifacts. As of yet, though, no official announcement has been made and no timeline for an eventual return has been offered.

Even if London relinquishes its grip, the fine print could turn into the making or unmaking of Mitsotakis, who faces a re-election campaign next year. Should he be able to wrangle full restitution of the goods, it would be considered a boost to his poll numbers, healthy as they are at present.

If Greece is granted a deal in the form of a long-term loan, however, the narrative would put London, and not Athens, in the driver’s seat. That is something upon which Mitsotakis’ rivals will surely pounce.

Mitsotakis is well aware of the stakes.

The Greek news site Newsbreak was unsparing in its assessment, stating that “if we judge by Mitsotakis’s performance in his secret diplomacy with Erdoğan, we should expect the same disastrous results with regard to the sculptures of the Parthenon which were stolen by Elgin and are still owned by the thieves of the British museum.” Ouch.

No one can say that the Greeks don’t love a good drama. But this particular drama has consequences well beyond the Aegean.

There is a larger question here about what museums are for. If the purpose is to assemble as many of humanity’s greatest objects as possible under one roof, the British Museum has an impressive case to make. If the purpose is to preserve and interpret cultural heritage in the places and contexts that give it meaning, the case for returning the Parthenon marbles to Athens is considerably harder to dismiss.

And then there is Rick Steves.

The problem with latter-day Pollyannas like Steves is not that they enjoy traveling. It is that they have made a career out of turning the messy history of Europe into a reassuringly pleasant itinerary: Here is a cathedral, there is a museum, here is a charming square, and there is the priceless cultural inheritance of another civilization neatly arranged behind glass. Oh and yeah, another cathedral. There’s Jesus. There’s Mary. Are you atheist, Jewish, Muslim? Because I said there’s Jesus. There’s Mary. Can’t you hear me?

No awkward questions. No pilfered prey. No inconvenient arguments about who took what from whom.

Just smile, admire the marble and move along.

After all, the last thing a professional purveyor of mass tourism needs is to suggest that some of the things tourists are admiring might have a compromised history.

That kind of candor might put a dent in the guidebook sales.

And heaven forbid the creepily church-obsessed Rick Steves should have to stop bopping around the Thames long enough to take notice of something that’s slightly off-script called — what’s that word again? — reality.

Plan Your Own Greek Odyssey Now

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It should not come as a surprise that Rick Steves — who we adore — has come unto Symi, a fiercely barren island whose storied harbor, lined with pastel-colored neoclassical mansions stacked high behind one another, makes for some serious eye candy. A little island with some very big history only an hour or so by ferry from Rhodes easily falls prey to the jaws of overtourism, which includes things like drone tours and Rick Steves, and tends to exclude imagination.

So let’s leave the aerial skullduggery aside for a moment, then, and present a few unvarnished views of seldom overlooked yet oft-misunderstood Symi…

VISION #1

It’s the last taxi boat back to Gialos, the colorful port of Symi, from the Instagram-famous (and also, famous) “closed” beach of Agios Georgios Dysalonas — closed, because unless you get there by boat, you’re not getting there at all. It’s a pebbly beach with aquamarine water framed by soaring cliff faces. Lots of day boats and yachts park themselves just offshore, muddling the scene somewhat, but it’s still spectacular. The entire eastern shore is rocky and rugged.

From the water, glancing up at the high cliffs, you might see the outline of a goat in the bright late summer sun — wait a second, make that two goats — their shaggy goats’ coats and elegant horns appearing only in silhouette high, high above. For a passing moment, their black and white shadow figures are in perfect harmony with the raw nature before you; even the the cliff faces seem to bow to you in a “slow-down, mate!” sepia-toned dream. No camera could capture this sight.

VISION #2

There’s something unique about the small beach of Agios Nikolaos. Yes, the water is crystal-clear as at most Symi beaches, but it’s not that. It’s the steep underwater drop-off. Swim just a few yards off shore and you’ll notice the sea floor plunges away precipitously — despite the fact that this is hardly an obscure beach (they’ll try to make you pay to sit in the lounge chairs, but you didn’t come all this way to pretend you’re at a Las Vegas hotel pool, did you?), it is not for shallow water fans.

That said, because the beach is cove-style, the waters are calm. This means that, when the sunlight hits directly overhead, it has the effect of throwing a spotlight beam right through the water, illuminating it in the manner of one of those blue grotto Capri things, but from below. So when a school of little fishes dart past you, as they do, they appear as so many flashes of electric blue sea light — and this is a mere three or four feet beneath the surface. Then there are the big yellow fish, and the flying fish…

VISION #3

Confession: I don’t much care for loukoumades — which is really no big deal; after all, you can live in Israel and not care much for religion, or in America and not care much for apple pie or Taylor Swift. Anyway, I do have faith in the power of the fornos, or Greek bakery, in general terms and in Symi that faith is rewarded specifically in the form of the akoumi, a kind of twist on loukoumades.

The akoumi is an elongated piece of fried dough, irregularly shaped, and trades crispiness for a softer texture — how fittingly Symian! For this is one island that is remarkably not rough around the edges. Anyway, the soft crust has got hints of orange zest and ouzo baked into it and that adds up to a sort of tangy but not overly sweet deliciousness. I tried my first one sort of by mistake at Φούρνος Νικολέττου, by the port. But it was a revelation, and you should have seen the look on the baker’s face when I said I wanted to buy all the akoumis she had left. Which, of course, I did. Wouldn’t you?

©2026 Anthony Grant/Greek Column.

👉 Your hotel in Symi: The Old Markets

Plan Your Own Greek Odyssey Now

Athens may be the cradle of democracy but it’s also the domain of some of the most compelling street art you’ll find in the world right now. Years of economic distress sent creative energy through the roof, literally, in neighborhoods like Psirri and Exarcheia, both with strong bohemian streaks (in Exarcheia, bordering on anarchist). So when a hotel however modest opens with a dramatic piece of art by a leading artist spanning six stories of an exposed facade, locals take note. Or rather, they look up.

Even more so because the hotel in question, called the Filon, is not glamorous and not in the center of town but rather on the fringes of the famously scruffy Piraeus port—where you catch the ferries for Greek islands like Mykonos and Santorini. More precisely, the property anchors a prominent corner in the heart of Trouva, a neighborhood that gained notoriety in the post-World War II years as a place where American sailors went on shore leave to grab a beer and whatever else. Those days are long gone but an mistakably salty air still blows through, and anyone with a fondness for New York when it was a bit more like this will feel right at home.

Greek artist INO hails from Piraeus and is celebrated for his oversized works of street art that adorn some of the larger “blank” wall spaces in central Athens. Often they are done in grayscale with splashes of blue, and his painting here is no exception. Many works touch on socio-economic themes, though the woman portrayed in the mural on the Filon simply looks like she’s enjoying the sea breeze. You will, too.

How did this particular piece of artwork happen? I asked hotel manager Yiannis Sakkos, who explained that INO lives just a few blocks away from the property. “He wanted to do something a long time ago but the hotel was closed…,” Sakkos says. “When we started repainting from the outside he noticed the scaffolding and told me that he’d like to do something here. So I said, do whatever you like.” He did.

The hotel has just 35 rooms and is housed in a completely renovated building. It is a happy exception to the rule that says port hotels have to be dreary. Au contraire here. Repeat: I'm not talking about luxury but you don't really need a luxury hotel in Piraeus. What you want and may well need is a place to stay for a night or two before (or after) your island adventure. And you probably want a hotel that is clean, light and new. This is that place.

Plan Your Own Greek Odyssey Now

How do you shoot a travel video in Alexandria without mentioning Cavafy?

How do you visit Paris without paying homage to the luxuries of Avenue Montaigne or slipping through the secret back doors of the Marais?

How do you do?

My name is Anthony Grant, and here’s my confession: I’d rather sit through even the most unbearable Rick Steves travelogue than endure four minutes of the train-wreck mumblefest that is Christopher Nolan’s cinematic obliteration of The Odyssey.

But still, Lady Steves—yes, I know he’s a proud father of two, but that lisp is so serving Lyle—just grates.

That’s not the beef, though. From Paris to Prague, has this guy ever met a church he didn’t do his level best to turn into a video catechism? It’s time to call out the insufferable Christian-obsessed bias that is blasted down our throats thanks to Steves’ unchecked domination of the generic travel video space and newspaper column space (we know, newspapers…but still.)

For decades, public television’s JCPenny-clad version of Mr. Rogers has sold American tourists a pristine, sanitized and serially blurred vision of the Old World, promising to guide us through “Europe Through the Back Door”—a slogan that, frankly, could use a little WD-40.

Anyway, nobody warned us that Rick’s back door leads straight into mandatory Sunday school. We don’t need that education, boys and girls.

It doesn’t matter whether he’s stepping into a metropolis of ancient trade, secular philosophy, or modern counterculture. Within six minutes, Steves will invariably find an overdone cathedral or weatherbeaten church, drag you toward the altar, and deliver a thinly-veiled (see what we did there?) lispy-breathless, dew-eyed homily on Jesus that nobody asked for.

Invariably when he does this, the shot is flooded with artificial churchy background music, as if to groom you into sharing Rick’s apparent and bizarrely inappropriate pseudo-epiphanies.

For non-Christian travelers, watching his filmography isn’t a gateway to European culture. It’s an endless, non-consensual pilgrimage.

At some point, the cloying, scripted commentary veers into the frankly creepy.

Maybe Rick didn’t get the memo that the French keep religion out of public affairs even more aggressively than we do—that laïcité, along with a few other minor inconveniences like starvation and no peasant discounts at Versailles, helped set the stage for the bloodiest of revolts: the French Revolution.

How can we put this politely? Europe has hundreds of pretty churches and carbon-copy cathedrals, mostly relics from ages even less enlightened than our own. They might be relevant to some “progressive” Christians like Rick Steves. But as God is my witness, they are robustly irrelevant to metro-loads of Londoners, Parisians, Germans and whatever-ans. They got modern lives to lead, Rick. Doesn’t mean we should bomb them — Berlin isn’t Tehran, after all! — but come on.

Less politely: Maybe Steves didn’t get the SMS from the producer he fired that Kim Kardashian, Taylor Swift, and millions of their fans don’t go to Paris to worship, or even particularly to admire Notre-Dame.

Rick maymay go to praypray.

Kim and Taytay go to shopshop and, though they came “for the culture” like every Barnard art major does, actually they came to make fuckfuck.

That’s what Paris represents to millions of Americans, whether they’re into the whole Jesus ‘n Mary thing or not. And Rick’s deceptively feline insertion of references to Christ into virtually every segment he produces begins to feel like its own kind of cop-out. Or sacrilege. Or worse. Mark Twain would retch.

Because of you’re traveling to venerate a religious figure, which in Steve’s case appears to have transmuted into doing PR for the Catholic church (the worst kind) you’re not a traveler.

You’re a pilgrim.

That’s anathema to travel journalism. It is the current blasphemy.

If you’ve got to have faith, you either better be George Michael or keep it to yourself. You can skip the overrated Pietà and feel fucking great about it.

This is not to say that Steves is lazy. Or that his current “partner” being a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America could pull him in a certain direction that is, shall we say, less than ecumenical.

Filming anything does take patience and work. Even Leni Riefenstahl had to roll up her sleeves now and then.

The construct is the problem. Rick Steves’ video USP is just a flimsy one.

You don’t trundle to four European microstates just so you can cross them off your “bucket list.” (Are we still doing those?) You don’t go to Frankfurt, period. And you don’t go to Paris and the Marais merely to talk about the “Jewish quarter,” which Rick can reduce to a couple of restaurants nobody has eaten at since, like, 1990 (trust us on this. Your imaginary Jewish nana cooks better.) To obfuscate the neighborhood’s rich pre-Revolutionary history—and then dodge its more recent gay history—is worse than reductive. It’s a fundamental misreading of Paris and what the city represents.

Rick’s recipe for rose-tinted kumbaya travel videologue never varies:

1. Read a few historical facts that could be skimmed from Wikipedia from a teleprompter, complain jovially about overtourism, then, by focusing on the most clichéd sights and regurgitating the most basic tourist tropes (order the local beer!), promote overtourism.

2. Introduce every tour guide as a “friend and guide”—a nice little ruse for promoting his own guidebooks.

3. Segue inartfully from any mention of art in a church to an Instagram-worthy (?) mini sermon on the mount of your own holier-than-thou fixation with Jesus.

4. Praise every local market as “lively” in that unmistakable way that suggests stupid Americans could never appreciate it unless they trace Rick’s exact footsteps and learn like he does how to pretend to enjoy some gross edible item while wanting quite desperately to spit it out.

5. Pretend every inane, outmoded tourist folk dance is an example of cultural authenticity that you pop-obsessed Americans can barely handle.

Mon dieu!

Not every trip to Rome also involves the Vatican. Ever heard of the Hassler?

Not every European square is so “full of life” that it gives you an excuse to gloss over the high cost of living, corrupt politicians and bad weather the locals have to contend with for the 20 hours of the day when they aren’t forming the background of the sanitized Euro fantasy you’re peddling.

Allons-y. Not every stinky French cheese has to be tasted!

Wine tastings? Many, many thousands will happily take a pass on that glass.

And Rick Steves, we are mightily glad that you aren’t Peter Greenberg.

But the sins of your banality must stop!

Can the Bible references. The Crusades are over. And by the way, Jerusalem is boring AF. But don’t you dare go looking for a church in Tel Aviv, or we will Jew you to the moon.

Pick up a book of Cavafy for a change and pair it with a cheap bottle of ouzo.

Mess up your lines. Slur your speech.

And baby, go to town.

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Plan Your Own Greek Odyssey Now

Being married to original nepo baby Angelina Jolie—and then divorcing her—could probably drive even Pope Leo to drink. So Brad, we forgive you. You got “back on the wagon,” as you told Esquire, and America is having a conniption because America.

But I suspect Brad Pitt was not so much getting moderately intoxicated by alcohol in Greece as getting punch drunk on the beauty of Hydra itself.

Pitt was on the island last winter, you might recall, filming Edward Berger’s The Riders, an adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel in which a father and his young daughter travel across Europe searching for the girl’s mysteriously vanished mother. Hydra is among the film’s shooting locations.

I can see why the place would get to him

.

I’ve long been ambivalent about Hydra. Not because it isn’t pretty—it is. Not because it’s boring—it isn’t. But there are no particularly good beaches, and the swimming spots tend to get crowded precisely when you want them most. Apart from the port, which is ravishing, the island can feel oddly resistant to the eye. It is beautiful, certainly, but sometimes beautiful in a rather self-conscious way.

And then there’s the atmosphere.

Hydra has an almost unhealthy fixation on “the arts,” an impressive number of references to Leonard Cohen, and the faintly snobbish air of a place that knows exactly how it wants to be perceived. You feel this most strongly around the harbor, where everything seems to have been arranged by someone with very strong opinions about weathered wood.

Hydra inescapably trades on its past, and clownish Jeff Koons bopping about—usually on somebody else’s yacht—does not exactly offset that.

Much of the island’s history is storied and significant. Pop into the excellent Museum of History and Archives if you doubt it. But the aesthetic presentation of that history can sometimes feel a little too just-so. Even the Piraeus Bank logo appears to have been washed in slate grey to match the main town’s wan palette.

It can strike you as slightly ham-fisted, visually speaking, in that grating we-are-just-so-darn-perfect Nantucket-y way.

Islands, it is well known if not widely acknowledged, should come with a little mayhem.

You won’t find much of it here—not even a sliver of Mykonos or Ibiza.

Then there’s the location. Islands close to Athens are fresh goods spoiled: being this close to the capital means that, sooner or later, mass tourism gets its hands on you.

“It’s unbearable here in summer,” a local Hydriot told me over coffee. “I grew up here. You can’t imagine how different it was back then.”

Actually, I can imagine it, because I remember an era before everyone was chained to an algorithm, hunting for content on Instagram and TikTok. But the good old days aren’t coming back, and the trick, as ever, is managing what we’ve got.

Which is why I’ve come around to a different way of doing Hydra.

Don’t stay. Do it like a boss as a day trip.

Hydra in a day

The easiest way is to book a business-class seat with Alpha Lines aboard the SpeedCat I from Piraeus. The crossing to Hydra takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, and the vessel has an Alpha Club Business Area, a quieter section above the main economy seating, as well as an open sun deck.

The current summer timetable gives you a civilized amount of time on the island: a 9:45 a.m. departure from Piraeus gets you to Hydra at 11:00, while the 5:00 p.m. return gets you back to Piraeus at 6:15.

That is plenty.

Arrive, stroll the harbor, wander up and down the stairs, look at the donkeys, buy something you don’t need, have lunch at Oraia, coffee at Isalos, and spend several hours pretending you are the sort of person who has always understood why Leonard Cohen found this place irresistible.

Then leave.

That last part is important.

Hydra is one of those destinations that benefits from an exit strategy.

The island is compact enough that you can absorb the essential Hydra experience in a few hours: the port, the handsome stone houses, the winding lanes, the churches, the donkeys, the yachts, the galleries, the expensive restaurants, the people dressed as if they have just wandered out of an art-world dinner in Chelsea.

And then you get back on the boat.

There are practical advantages to this arrangement, too. Hydra has no cars, which sounds idyllic until you realize that there are also a lot of stairs. There are donkeys, naturally, and plenty of luggage that has to be moved around by somebody or something. For some people this is charming. For others it is fine for a Kodak moment and less fine when you are carrying a suitcase.

The absence of cars is part of Hydra’s peculiar magic, but it also contributes to the island’s sense of being preserved in amber. Nothing much seems to have been allowed to happen here without first being approved by history.

This is perhaps why the place has become such a magnet for artists, writers, collectors, celebrities and people who describe themselves as artists, writers, collectors and celebrities.

And yes, there is Leonard Cohen.

There is always Leonard Cohen.

You can practically hear Suzanne drifting over the harbor if you stand still long enough.

The Brad Pitt problem

We suspect, though, that Brad got hooked by what Hydra lacks.

Before he bought mousey Grindr (what’s that, Pete Buttigieg?) founder Joel Simkhai’s house in the Hollywood Hills, wasn’t Pitt holed up somewhere near Carmel? We knew that wasn’t going to last.

Hollywood stars are constitutionally incapable of leaving beautiful places alone.

Still, I understand the attraction.

Hydra has an extraordinary ability to make ordinary things look cinematic. A fisherman standing beside a caique looks like a fisherman standing beside a caique in a movie. A donkey climbing a staircase looks like a donkey climbing a staircase in a movie. A woman carrying groceries home looks like she is carrying groceries home in a movie directed by someone who has won an Oscar.

Which, in Pitt’s case, is rather convenient.

The Riders is precisely the sort of film for which Hydra makes sense. The island’s beauty isn’t glossy in the Mykonos sense. It is quieter, older, more severe. It has stone and shadow and blue water and a port that looks almost suspiciously perfect when the light hits it.

Perhaps that was enough to intoxicate him.

I’ll concede that it nearly intoxicates me.

But only nearly.

Why I still wouldn’t sleep there

I can’t quite recommend an overnight in Hydra—not when you can experience the town in a few hours and then retreat to Athens before the island’s particular brand of preciousness begins to wear on you.

For beaches and broader exploration, other Saronic islands, including Aegina and Poros, have more to offer. Maybe even Methana.

Hydra also has a reputation as a paramours’ getaway, rather like Niagara Falls with better architecture. Americans may arrive hoping to dress up their Instagram accounts; Greek couples, I observed, sometimes arrive for weekends away from Athens in order to, shall we say, dress down.

The ripple effect is predictable: restaurant prices can be inflated, and genuinely good accommodation can be scarce at busy times.

So take the hint from the island itself.

Come for the beauty. Stay for lunch. Admire the port. Visit the museum. Find a shady café. Watch the yachts come and go. Allow yourself one Leonard Cohen reference, but no more.

Then get the hell out.

Hydra is best when you know you’re leaving.

And perhaps that is what Brad Pitt understood before the rest of us.

He didn’t fall in love with Hydra because he wanted to stay there. He fell in love with it because, for a few hours, there was just nowhere else to be.

In sum, Hydra: Go for the day & do it the smart way by spending a little more.

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It’s almost 2027, and we are still ranking things? Well, we are not, but at the fallen houses of Condé Nast (Chloé Malle, Vogue editor, really?) and Travel & Leisure (now owned by this guy), reductive listicles are apparently still in fashion.

So, here’s how this plays out. Editor sends out an email to staffers: “We need some Monday morning clickbait. Get busy.” Islands, especially Greek ones, are perfect candidates because unlike thoughts and ideas they are easy to count.

Someone finds “a photo book and memory curation app” — how terrifying is that — called Popsa which has “analyzed anonymous location data of photos uploaded to its platform” — no commercial interest there, of course — to come up with a top 10 for — cringe alert! — “any snapper's bucket list”.

In other words, some bored intern or thirsty PR agency repackaged routine app surveillance as a 'study,' and an editor who should know better copied and pasted it straight into the CMS, with cringe headline to accompany.

Babies, if it’s data-driven, it isn’t journalism. We’d suggest the little Fiona or Gemma or whoever stand-in for an actual human who generated this kind of slop either go back to school or get a job in real estate.

Oh and also, what about the myriad islands that weren’t uploaded to “Popsa”s platform because, um, no one’s actually heard of Popsa?

It’s not that the ten islands mentioned aren’t photogenic. Of course they are. But so is Salamina. Rankings are so déclassé and irrelevant that it’s — well, just what you’d expect from today’s totally degraded legacy media brands.

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Chora, the only town of note on lonely (except in August) Ios, is up a steep hill but as I start to wheel my suitcase up the slope I am already out of breath and I am also interrupted by the sight of a tall Greek gentleman in a white doorway calmly puffing on a cigarette (remember those?) and he has a small dog. The dog is Rascal and his owner is Vangelis, proprietor of Kritikakis Village Hotel, and in that instant I decide that his hillside domain will be my Ios island home. The man has just saved me from getting a hernia, after all.

I have no reason to doubt there is one church for every day of the year on this island that is a mere 11 miles long and six miles wide. In fact by driving you could almost be forgiven for thinking there are enough for two years because they are as ubiquitous as they are unobtrusive: for every sweeping mountain and sea view, there’s a perfect little white-domed church seemingly custom-made to bless it.

Motoring and Beaching

Driving in Ios, if you like to drive, is a heavenly enterprise. Fifteen minutes out of Chora I half-expect to see a road sign screaming “We have the world’s best roads!” because the exhilarating switchbacks and sweeping views and scarcity of other drivers (this was in mid-September) make for a holy trinity of sorts. There is nowhere else in the world where a road can make you feel as if you are literally flying over the island of Santorini. Oia, Santorini’s cinematic star village, is just a few miles due south of the southernmost point on Ios and the soft purplish views across the Aegean to the high backside of the volcanic celebrity are not simply spectacular. They are transfiguring.

And to think that all I really want is to find a nice beach!

In Ios there are plenty of them. I will eventually find my bliss in Manganari, actually a series of three beaches with flawless golden sand and fantastically glass-clear aquamarine water, but it’s the getting there that amazes. Generally speaking, the more goats blocking your way the more authentic the island and in that regard too Ios doesn’t disappoint: en route I’m intermittently stymied by goats, donkeys and bulls too.

The land itself is not terribly beautiful but there is a dramatic rocky aspect to it, as if two ancient titans were playing volleyball with a giant boulder that didn’t quite clear the celestial net, crumbling instead into a billion pieces that rolled all the way down to the shore at Manganari and other Ios coasts.

In places I have the feeling I am tearing through the Arizona desert but then just as improbably, and suddenly, the road climbs to such heights that vistas of distant islands (hey, is that Amorgos over there?) come into view and beaches below materialize like secret coves that you’re floating over by helicopter. Right before the road descends to Manganari there is—surprise!—a little white church on the left and I stop the car. Far below the curving beach of Tris Klisies beckons and the only way to get there is by foot or by boat, so I take a 15-minute hike through the aromatic brush to this secret bastion of blue.

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There are more beaches in Ios than I will have time for, and I sadly miss Kalamos, but not the graceful Byzantine monastery perched way above it. About the only people you’ll find in this part of the island are monks and pasty German tourists looking for a nudist beach (which Tris Klisies sort of is).

Other non-sights intrigue: a crumbling hilltop fortress there, a Neolithic settlement there, another stunner of a secret beach. Every so often and usually up the hill from a church I spot what appears to be a smattering of tiny blue coffins but I come to realize—thanks to, credit where due, Vangelis’s Ios-splaining it to me—the boxes are there to collect honey.

Did you know, by the way, that Ios has a lock on Greek literary heritage bar none? It’s the home of Homer’s Tomb, set with quiet fanfare on a rocky promontory on the northern tip of the island. Whether the poet’s links to Ios are authentic or mostly apocryphal the tomb is definitely there—just follow the well-marked path—and it is as fabulously lonely a spot as you’ll find in this part of the Aegean.

But for me Ios is going to be all about churches and beaches and the self-directed rollercoaster ride that is driving between them all. Throw in some violets. The absence of touristic iconography is an all-season kind of force, bringing unanticipated details into sometimes befuddling relief. Case in point: On the way to Homer’s tomb I catch sight of what appears to be a larger-than-life sculpture of a male nude, or half of one anyway, bending over by the roadside, posterior unapologetically brandished to anyone who happens to coast by.

No one and nothing else is around. I hit the brakes and get out of the car to inspect the artwork, looking for a plaque of some kind—the Tomb of the Unknown Homosexual, perhaps? But there is no clue at all. I ask around later, but people just shrug.

Back in the vehicle, ignition and radio on, through the static I hear what sounds like an ethereal Greek Orthodox chant intercut with synthesizers and rap. Does one of those monasteries on high house a secret club with a progressive neo-Byzantine DJ spinning in the cellar, or is just Radio Mykonos? Who knows? Mystery follows little mystery, wrapped in rock and some seriously heart-stopping ribbons of blue, and slowly I come to understand what this island of 365 churches really is: a gift.

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Floating roughly nine miles off the southern coast of Crete in the Libyan Sea lies Chryssi Island, a place where the Mediterranean feels remarkably like a secluded Caribbean paradise. Known locally as Gaidouronisi, or “donkey island,” this uninhabited haven is celebrated for its pale, golden sand formed from millions of microscopic crushed seashells. The sea here transitions seamlessly from a sparkling, translucent mint green to deep cobalt blue, with ancient, twisted cedar and juniper trees framing the coastline.

While its natural beauty has drawn visitors for decades, experiencing this sun-drenched sanctuary today comes with a unique twist. Heavy foot traffic previously threatened the island’s delicate dune ecosystem and its centuries-old forest, prompting authorities to enact strict environmental protection regulations to allow the ecosystem to regenerate. Commercial ferries and excursion boats are no longer permitted to dock at the island or anchor along the shore.

Instead, daily excursion boats departing from Ierapetra anchor in the open, crystalline waters a short distance off the coast. If you want to set foot on the warm sand, you have to jump off the boat deck and swim for it. Gliding through the warm, clear water toward the glowing shoreline feels like an adventure in itself, making the arrival on land all the more rewarding.

Once you reach the beach, the raw, undeveloped state of the island becomes immediate. With all commercial beach bars, sunbeds, and interior walking trails strictly off-limits, visitors are required to stay along the water’s edge and leave no trace behind. Anything brought to shore, from towels to cameras sealed in waterproof dry bags, must swim back out with you.

Though reaching the shore requires a little extra effort and a refreshing swim, the reward is an untouched, peaceful coastal paradise that feels wild and genuinely preserved.

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Forget Christopher Nolan already. When Homer mapped out the ultimate voyage home, he sent Odysseus on an epic, decade-long slog across the Ionian Sea in search of Ithaca. But if the ancient hero had known about Porto Zante Villas & Spa, hidden away on the green, secret-cove-studded northern coast of Zakynthos—the large Greek island paradise the Venetians dubbed "the flower of the Levant"—he would have dropped anchor, dismissed his crew, and called off the journey entirely.

Forget too dusty palace grounds and mythological trials; Porto Zante offers a modern divine retreat built around a single, uncompromising rule of privacy of the highest order. Founded by father and son duo Giorgos and Yiannis Sotirakos, the resort caps its total guest list at just 45 to 50 people. Yet, it delivers the sprawling infrastructure of a grand retreat, boasting two gourmet restaurants, two bars, a Kids’ Club, a gym, a yoga retreat, and a fleet of private speedboats. Perched eight to ten meters above the shoreline, each of the nine private villas sits directly on the beachfront, granting guests unobstructed sea views while keeping them completely invisible to anyone swimming below.

According to Hello! Magazine, singer Kylie Minogue stayed here in recent years during a fashion shoot. Life on this sanctuary operates without standard resort timetables or rigid pre-orders. If you desire homemade pancakes and freshly squeezed orange juice on your private stone terrace at three in the afternoon, the answer is simply yes. Should you dream up a private, candlelit beach barbecue featuring 23 freshly caught lobsters paired with 23 bottles of vintage champagne, the staff will effortlessly make it happen.

With private yachts standing ready to whisk guests away to Navagio Beach, the sea turtle sanctuaries of Marathonisi island, or neighboring Kefalonia, visitors stay an average of ten nights just to soak it all in. Odysseus spent ten grueling years trying to reach his homeland, but true luxury is finding a haven you never want to leave. Porto Zante isn’t merely a place to stay; it is the ultimate Ionian sea bliss that makes every other destination feel like a detour.

And if Odysseus had arrived at Porto Zante, he might have looked out across that sparkling Ionian water, ordered breakfast at three in the afternoon, and decided that Penelope could wait just a little longer. Visit portozante.com.

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There is a point at which chef becomes so ubiquitous, so endlessly profiled, and so thoroughly enshrined in the culinary media machine that they forget what actual, grounded originality tastes like. Enter Yotam Ottolenghi. The Israel-born chef has long been a darling of The New York Times, an institution seemingly hellbent on attributing the entire evolution of modern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dining to a single man—conveniently ignoring the fact that pretty much every restaurant and casual spot in Tel Aviv has been serving that exact style of vibrant, New Israeli cuisine for decades.

While the global food press continues to worship at the altar of over-exposed cookbook empires, true culinary brilliance is quietly happening far from the glare of press releases. Specifically, on the sun-drenched Greek island of Serifos, at Seriani Restobar.

It is here, framed by the Aegean breeze, that you will encounter a dish so effortlessly inventive it makes multi-step, fifteen-ingredient cookbook recipes look exhausted by comparison: a brilliant spin on traditional spanakopita, reimagined entirely as a salad.

Instead of letting heavy, oil-soaked layers of baked pastry bury the delicate greens, this dish distills everything iconic about spanakopita into something crisp, bright, and wildly alive. It takes the soulful core of the classic pie—shattered shards of delicate, golden phyllo, snappy fresh greens, pungent herbs, and rich, briny feta—and tosses them together in perfect balance. Every bite delivers a thrilling contrast of warm, salty crunch against a sharp, citrus-laced kick that cuts cleanly through the creaminess.

It is green, crispy-tangy, and thoroughly delicious. We won’t say more—some dishes demand to be eaten under the Greek sun rather than dissected on a page. But one thing is certain: you won’t find this level of effortless, unpretentious genius inside a deskbound Manhattan food column.

You’ll find it, however, in Serifos.

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It was the kind of week where I’d wake up screaming, then realize I hadn’t even fallen asleep yet. But all my existential dread dissolved the minute I secured a travel column. Sure, the only insider tradecraft I actually knew was that some luxury PR agency had rebranded an overpriced yurt as an “eco-sanctuary,” but the minute my assignment was announced, the world of travel writing turned delightfully obsequious.

PR girls volunteered to be my surrogate mothers. Surrogate mothers volunteered to pitch me press trips to Dubai. Brian Kelly—the Elsa Maxwell of the credit-card-points hustle—had once given me bullfrog eyes when he found me in the swishest of Heathrow’s lounges without having to beg for, um, entry as some say he does, but now he was suddenly begging to co-host my launch party.

Everyone was being so sycophantic, with only Pico Iyer cautioning, “That’s a difficult column to do with a conscience. Good luck.” We all know what “good luck” means in media circles.

Breathlessly, I ran home and scurried through my carry-on luggage in search of a conscience—any conscience. All that turned up was a 120% Lino linen shirt I’d stolen from a press trip in Lake Como, so I wore it to lunch with venerable Rick Steves at the Hotel Costes, still the best place in town to watch people pretend they enjoy $40 sparkling water.

Steves, onetime authority on budget rail passes, now spent the afternoon explaining how he pitches sponsored luggage lines to retirees.

We were seated next to Muriel Zagha, wearing an absurdly oversized vintage bomber jacket as she aggressively negotiated a gifted press stay with a luxury boutique group.

“Pardon my derrière,” she cackled, pivoting to show her best side to a passing photographer.

In barreled Paul Theroux himself, introducing absolute nobodies to “my good friend Muriel.” You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Samantha Brown shake hands with Muriel Zagha while both pretend to care about local culture.

I knew what they were doing because I was doing it too. The only difference was that I still called mine “access.”

Same 120% Lino linen shirt, same jet-lagged face (deeper creases) at the launch dinner for Nomad Ness, the only digital nomad currently pitching an e-book on passive income while living off a trust fund.

Damon Dominique, the only former YouTube star who still insists on filming himself eating croissants in slow motion, said, “You look bloated! It’s the elevation. I look bloated. Tell me it’s aesthetic. My next vlog is about global wanderlust. God, I’m making it sound like a digestion issue.”

The buffet, inevitable, was a lukewarm spread of “farm-to-table” foam.

“I love microgreens,” I said. “They make me feel so authentic.”

It was a vacuous Instagram caption from 2019, but no one seemed to notice. Then I looked down and spotted a huge glob of truffled emulsion on my lap.

“Don’t say we don’t curate your experience,” whispered a PR coordinator, stuffing branded tote bags and artisanal bath salts into my tote.

I wanted to object, but I was already wondering whether the tote came in black. (Spoiler alert: if it came from the House of NYNN, it does!)

Bristling with useless freebies and aching with psychosomatically induced jet lag, I landed at the opening party for the new Fouquet’s Hotel in Mykonos.

On a bad night, a Greek luxury resort lives down to its reality: an overpriced playground built on cheap plaster. But on a good night, it can make you believe in the magic of a comped infinity pool again.

This was a bad night, but every hack with a press pass had heard the only two words that matter in travel journalism:

“Free stay.”

So they went.

All of them.

Taylor Lorenz and Derek Blasberg were charming hosts amid a sea of half-naked fitness influencers and tech bros with veneers. And those were just the people paying out of pocket.

On meeting bucket-list enthusiast Christian LeBlanc, I didn’t dare mention the scathing things Bill Bryson had written about travel vloggers, or the condescending remarks Tim Ferriss had made about location-independent lifestyle gurus. I only asked why he was recording himself doing an unboxing video of a complimentary bathrobe in the lobby.

Did he have no self-respect?

“Yeah,” LeBlanc leered, unconvincingly. “It’s called media conversion rate.”

“Great answer,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Then I gave him a phony air-kiss and fled; the hotel’s dismal DJ was about to drop a deep-house remix of a viral TikTok song, and the complimentary bar was closing in five minutes.

I made it just in time.

And so were those recurring nightmares.

“Even my sponsored luggage tag has a hangover,” I said the next morning to no one in particular.

It was a line I lifted from a poorly written travel memoir.

But I didn’t feel like a globe-trotting jet-setter. I felt like an unpaid billboard for a hospitality group.

Fortunately, my continuing search for a conscience has already turned up a few more free nights. I blame it on the Prickly Pear Rakomelo from an unspecified (?) Greek island.

Anthony Grand (who previously filed for The New York Times as Anthony Grant) is a travel columnist currently accepting comped stays at all soulless global luxeholes, provided they have not been recently frequented by Justin Bieber, any of his fans, Condé Nast pop tarts, or the French.

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The following events are based on a true story…

There is a certain kind of Greek vacation fantasy that involves a cliff, a private cove, a startlingly blue sea and the vague sense that civilization has been politely asked to leave.

You can have that fantasy in Santorini, obviously. You can also have it in Crete. And if you’re looking at the two cliffside resorts around Agios Nikolaos that compete for the same basic fantasy, I have a suggestion based on a tip from a sassy friend:

Put your money on Istron Bay.

Not because Daios Cove isn’t gorgeous. It is. Daios Cove is the full luxury production: spectacularly situated in a secluded cove, with a private sandy beach, sea-water infinity pool, wellness facilities, multiple restaurants and bars, and suites and villas—some with their own private pools—that seem specifically designed to make you feel that ordinary hotel rooms are something that happens to other people.

It is, in other words, very nice.

It is also very expensive.

On August 7, for example, I found a sea-view room at Istron Bay Resort for about $161 a night. On that same night, the cheapest room I found at Daios Cove was $1,745.85—granted, it was a roomier Junior Suite.

Fine. Luxury is luxury.

But even looking ahead to August 14, the cheapest Daios Cove rate I found for a Deluxe Room Sea View was $1,035.26.

At that point, we’re no longer talking about whether Daios Cove is nicer. Of course it is. The question is whether it is six times nicer.

And that, my friends, is where the smart money gets interesting.

Because Istron Bay Resort is basically offering the same irresistible Cretan trick (or treat, depending on your word choice): a hotel tucked into a spectacular coastal setting with a secluded beach cove, sea views and a swimming pool, without requiring you to refinance the villa.

Istron Bay calls itself the “Refuge of Gods.” A little grandiose? Sure. But drive along this stretch of coast and look down at the water and you may find yourself willing to let it slide.

In fact, the view at Istron Bay was so ravishing that not too long ago, after I’d gotten that tip, it made me pull over when I was touring this part of Crete —at some risk of missing an important appointment in nearby Agios Nikolaos. That’s the thing about Istron Bay. The setting does a lot of the heavy lifting.

It basically has a private beach and it’s a winner. There is a big swimming pool. The views are ridiculous. And suddenly you start wondering what, exactly, you’re supposed to do with all the additional luxury you’re being asked to purchase at Daios Cove.

Don’t get me wrong: Daios has a serious luxury product. Its private-pool suites and villas look beautiful, and the resort has the kind of wellness operation where you can apparently spend your vacation pursuing wellness, whatever that actually is, with considerably more equipment than most people possess at home. There are multiple restaurants and bars, including Ocean, Pangea, Taverna and the Beach House.

If that is what you’re after, by all means. Daios Cove is not pretending to be anything other than a high-end resort, and it does that job extremely well.

But here’s my problem.

How many swimming pools do you really need?

You came to Greece to sit in a swimming pool?

You have the Mediterranean right there.

Do you really need your own private swimming pool overlooking the swimming pool overlooking the sea?

Are you a fat German tourist?

No. You are not.

When I toured this part of Crete, I was traveling more Rick Steves-lite than Eugene Levy-heavy. I wanted the beautiful cove, the astonishing water, the dramatic coastline, the good food, a comfortable place to sleep and the feeling that I had somehow stumbled onto a particularly excellent secret.

I didn’t need a private infinity pool to contemplate the infinity of my own wealth.

And that’s why Istron Bay makes such a compelling case.

The point isn’t that Istron Bay is better than Daios Cove. If you’re shopping strictly for luxury, Daios wins. It has the polished architecture, the elevated service, the private pools, the spa and the elaborate dining program.

The point is that the thing you actually came to Crete for—the secluded, cliffside, turquoise-water, “I cannot believe this is where I’m staying” experience—is already there at Istron Bay.

And if the difference between approximately $161 and $1,035—or, on another date, $1,745.85—is what it costs to upgrade from “beautiful Cretan hideaway” to “luxury resort where the bathtub probably has a personal assistant,” I know where I’d rather put the money.

On wine.

Or beer.

Or more wine, or a rental car without the wine or beer.

Or, perhaps most radically, another week in Crete.

The smart money isn’t necessarily looking for the fanciest hotel on the cliff.

It’s looking for the best view of the cliff—and the best excuse to stay there longer.

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It was the ultimate pop-culture industrial complex crossover: the billionaire pop deity meets the charismatic NFL champion. They reportedly tied the knot in front of a stadium-sized crowd at Madison Square Garden in a spectacle that felt equal parts fairytale and supreme branding exercise. But let’s be honest—when your relationship operates under the logistical constraints of a head-of-state diplomatic summit, the honeymoon phase faces immediate turbulence.

Word on the street is that friction is already brewing, and predictably, it’s over security protocols.

Taylor lives under a tight-as-a-drum, state-level security apparatus required for someone whose mere presence triggers seismic activity. Travis, meanwhile, is used to strolling through Kansas City with a few bodyguards, taking photos with fans, and generally existing as a high-energy human golden retriever. Navigating three concentric rings of armored SUV convoys, decoy jets, and non-disclosure-signing waitstaff just to grab a late-night slice can strain even the most photogenic romance.

Now, to be clear: any talk of an impending divorce is purely speculative. They might defy the odds, iron out their threat-assessment disagreements, and live happily ever after. But if this high-profile marriage—a union that always felt slightly doomed under the crushing weight of public scrutiny—does end up on the rocks, there is only one acceptable destination to process the fallout.

It isn’t the brooding cliffside dramatic tension of Sicily. It certainly isn’t Salamina.

It’s Mykonos.

When the uber-wealthy and hyper-famous need to erase a public heartbreak, they don’t go somewhere quiet to read poetry—they dock in the Cyclades. Mykonos is the global capital of luxurious distraction, the playground where everyone from Elon Musk to ultra-glamorous Egyptian soccer stars goes to let their hair down, drink $800 rosé, and immediately pivot to the next chapter.

For a post-nuptial reboot, the island offers an unbeatable infrastructure:

Discreet Offshore Anchoring: Private superyachts can drop anchor just beyond the bay, completely out of reach of shore-bound paparazzi.

The Tender-to-Table Pipeline: Swift (or Kelce, for that matter) can be ferried directly from deck to dock, whisked straight to an exclusive beachfront table at Scorpios or Nammos for the best—and undeniably most expensive—seafood in Greece, then vanish back onto the Aegean before the crowd even registers who just walked past.

Built-in Anonymity Through Excess: When everyone around you is an international oligarch, a reality star, or an heir to a shipping fortune, a single high-profile divorcee barely raises an eyebrow.

If the security team couldn’t save the marriage, at least Mykonos has the perimeter control down to a science. Here’s hoping they work it out—but if they don’t, we’ll see them at the beach club. Maybe even the one that Lindsay Lohan (remember her?) left behind.

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AMORGOS, Greece — Strange creatures who call themselves French flock to this elongated rock in the middle of the Aegean like flies to yesterday’s picnic pâté, but other than that the Greek island of Amorgos is a dulcet destination. Which is not to say sybaritic: for that kind of thing, better stick to Instragrammers’ nirvana, Santorini, or that tough place for the frugal, Mykonos. Both of those islands crackle with Greek island clichés more than rustic Amorgos, which is almost daunting in the severity of its landscape.

Not that upon my arrival, via a swift modern ferry from Athens, I could see all that much of it as Amorgos was cloaked in a cool mist. That is no anomaly here, even in August: traffic signs alert drivers to the risk of fog (intermittent) and goats (guaranteed). Only when the wisps of fog part can I see the peril of the roads I’m navigating. They trace, in one hairpin curve after another, the winding tops of steep, somewhat terrifying cliffs.

When the sun comes out, the sea shimmers with a blue of such brilliance no movie director could fully capture it. One did try, however, and with some success. In 1988, French director Luc Besson’s “Le Grand Bleu” hit the big screen. The overlong but lavishly rendered homage to the subculture of free-diving featured a prominent cast including Rosanna Arquette, Jean-Marc Barr, and Jean Reno. The real stars, though, were the seaside locations including notably Amorgos.

The film had an enduring impact on a generation of French moviegoers. They stay at little hotels like the Pension “The Big Blue,” because there are no big hotels here. One could be considered medium-sized. I chose my pied-à-terre, a crisp new family-owned place called Soil, because it didn’t have the words “big blue” in it and because of its prime location in the island’s chief port, little Katapola.

Port activity and a reliable power adapter are the two best friends the lone island traveler can have, and Katapola has no shortage of the former. If you have a couple grand to spare, it is worth chartering Captain Antonis’s yacht, the Maria Vek, for a day-long excursion around the coast and other smaller islands. If you don’t, for about five dollars you can hop aboard a boat that takes you to the beach at Maltezi, which is inaccessible by road.

The best beaches on Amorgos are the ones with either little sand or none at all. Paralia Agia Anna, or St. Anne’s Beach, which is really more of a clearing in some sea-smoothed boulders below a tiny white Greek Orthodox chapel that gives way to waters of electric blue. This was the backdrop for a scene in “Le Grand Bleu” and the tourists still come to soak it up. In the early morning hours it is uncrowded, even in the summer.

The same principle holds for the unofficial emblem of the island, the Chozoviotissa monastery. It is perched like a cornered dove on a rock face almost a thousand feet above Paralia Agia Anna. It was built in 1017 and renovated as recently (1088) by the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenons, this is a place where time stands so still it can be as unnerving as is the sweeping view across the Aegean.

As I clambered up the winding stone staircase the only living creatures I encountered were two sun-worshiping kittens.

Today only two monks man the monastery, Greece’s second oldest. A resident guide told me that managing the flow of tourists can be a challenge. In terms of its beauty, Chozoviotissa rivals the Mont Saint-Michel, but here the interplay of earth, sea, and sheer altitude is more profound.

Amorgos is the easternmost of the Cycladic islands and the Romans made it part of their province of Asia. At the parking lot far below the chapel where I was shown a silver icon of the Virgin Mary from the eighth century I turned on my car’s radio and in between blasts of static I heard Israeli army radio and on another station a Turkish DJ spinning the latest pop hits from Istanbul.

In the classical period Amorgos formed part of the Delian League, the grouping of Greek city-states led by Athens. Like most islands in these parts it changed hands as empires came and went, but despite long sojourns by the Venetians and Ottoman Turks the spirit remains Greek and earthy.

Speaking of spirits, the signature Greek flavor here is Amorgion Rakomelo, an aromatic drink made from raki, honey, and eight locally-grown herbs. After a stroll through the whitewashed lanes of Chora, the main inland village, I stopped at the local distillery, Amorgion, for a tasting. Of the numerous varieties my favorite was the Fragkosikomelo, a 20 proof libation infused with local prickly pear.

The apotheosis of what has come to be known as the “Greek summer” — long days at the beach followed by unhurried dinners at local tavernas that tend to start an hour or so after sunset and can easily stretch past midnight — has taken some licks in recent years. This is thanks to things like rising prices and limited accommodations. September does some repair work because while Athens is still teeming with tourists, the Greeks start making their way home.

As they do, they count their summertime swims — a tradition that no doubt started because Greece is a country with some 6,000 islands and islets. Only 223 are inhabited but still, it is a lot. Nobody comes to this one for selfies with superyachts. You come for the watermelon and Amorgos cheese salad with grape molasses dressing served in the open air at seaside cafes with names you will not remember, and dips in crystal clear waters the likes of which you won’t soon forget.

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We were the first to call it because we saw how Christopher Nolan and his cast of mediocres rolled through Greece during the filming of The Odyssey: we knew this twisted to paean to ancient Greece was gonna be a turkey.

By the pace of his itinerary and by the choice of locations, I could tell he was rushing things. I do not think, by contrast, that Homer was rushing things.

The sober, no-fun Financial Times seems to agree with us: as one of its esteemed columnists writes today, “The exposition in the early scenes of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is so inelegant that I still wonder — days later — if it is meant as a dry joke.” Ed. note: no, it’s actually incompetent filmmaking.

“The King of Sparta looks as though he mans the door at a South Beach nightclub.”

Glib? Good. There’s also:

“The moralizing at the end, when the film tries to deplore the violence that it has inadvertently glamorized for almost three hours, grates.”

There is a moment early in Christopher Nolan’s $250M sprawling nightmare, The Odyssey, when you realize the director hasn’t made an epic about human ingenuity or the longing for home. He has made an endless, grey, gazillion dollar doomscroll. Call it the Elonmuskification of the movies.

Sitting through this nearly three-hour slog feels less like witnessing one of Western literature’s foundational journeys and more like algorithmically refreshing a social media feed dedicated entirely to historical misery. It is an exhausting, joyless exercise in self-flagellation—a film that manages to turn the open, wine-dark sea into a claustrophobic, monochrome pit of modern existential dread.

Nolan’s fundamental error is a failure of spirit. Also, frankly, the screenplay stinks. Where Homer gave us metis—the cunning, cleverness, and boundless wit of a hero trying to outsmart monsters and gods—Nolan gives us yet another brooding, self-loathing protagonist in the mold of Oppenheimer. Matt Damon’s Odysseus doesn’t feel like a wily king or a legendary voyager; he acts like a middle manager collapsing under a mountain of corporate guilt.

The acting across the board feels curiously stilted, trapped inside a script that swaps mythic poetry for modern, hyper-analytical exposition. And repetition. Every line is delivered in a hushed, breathless mumble or barked over a wall of booming, brass-heavy score, making character interactions feel like a series of tense, dry depositions rather than a saga of mythic proportions. There’s some guy pounding on stick. Often. Loudly. Pointlessly.

Then comes Nolan’s baffling revisionism. The film’s depiction of classic events—from a bizarrely botched Trojan Horse sequence that looks like a tactical military blunder rather than an act of legendary cunning—is endlessly clunky. Worse is the film’s moral framework: Nolan seems obsessed with the cynical premise that everything the Greeks did under Odysseus’s leadership was an irredeemable moral crime.

Actually Chrissyboy, most of what the Greeks did was pretty great!

The assault on Troy isn’t framed with the tragic, solemn weight of ancient poetry; it is staged as an unmitigated moral failure, stripping the narrative of any nuance. In Nolan’s hands, the Greeks aren’t complex, flawed figures operating in a brutal, mythic world—they are simply bad men doing bad things, constantly pausing the narrative to pontificate on their own terrible choices and validate Nolan’s.

By forcing Homer’s epic through this hyper-cynical lens, Nolan utterly drains the narrative of its heart. Where is the unyielding spirit of adventure? Where is the sense of wonder, the terror and awe of the mythical, or the celebrated virtue of xenia (hospitality)? They are all systematically purged, replaced by a bleak, mechanistic march through set-pieces that feel designed to punish the viewer rather than transport them.

The grand scale of the world, the thrill of discovery, and the fierce, romantic impulse of travel—the very reasons this story survived three millennia—are just gone with the Aeolian wind.

What we are left with is a fundamentally hollow spectacle. Nolan has taken $250 million and the raw material of global mythology, only to flatten it into an oppressive, soul-crushing exercise in blockbuster doomism. It is a film that hates the very heroism it purports to depict, proving that while you can shoot on 70mm IMAX film, you cannot buy a soul with megabucks alone.

Or, for that matter, a very good movie.👎

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Last time we checked in on Team Swift, Taylor was gracing a random wedding in Laguna Niguel with her presence. But if you thought Tay was going to spend her summer sweating through an Orange County July like an un-badged civilian, you’re obviously no Swiftie.

A source whose parents naturally own a compound in Porto Heli tells us that Justin and Hailey Bieber have been bopping around the nearby island of Spetses. Word on the dock is that Taylor might sail in to drop a casual “yassou”—because why leave a celebrity friendship un-photographed?

Spetses (above) is basically the playground for people who find regular luxury vulgar. Garbo hid out here in the ‘60s, and these days, the aquamarine waters are choked with superyachts. The island takes pride in its car-free policy, meaning locals get around on foot or horse-drawn carriage. However, we all know Taylor isn’t hitching a ride on a horse and buggy unless it’s painted gold and comes with four armed bodyguards.

If she does deign to set foot on land, she could pop into the Poseidonion Grand Hotel—the 1914 Riviera-style landmark where Garbo presumably pouted in private. But let’s be real: Taylor isn’t checking into a guest register like a commoner. With or without Travis Kelce in tow, she’ll be lurking offshore on a massive yacht, maintaining a respectful distance from the shore and an even larger distance from middle-class flight paths.

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RETHYMNO, GREECE — Fast-moving wildfires tearing through southern Crete’s Agios Vasileios municipality triggered emergency sea rescues after trapped tourists and residents were forced onto local beaches.

Driven by intense wind gusts reaching up to 160 km/h, flames and thick smoke cut off main land routes, leaving beachgoers along Agios Pavlos, Triopetra, and nearby coastlines trapped.

In response to emergency 112 system alerts, the Hellenic Coast Guard—supported by naval ships, Frontex patrol craft, and local fishing vessels—launched emergency sea evacuations directly off the shoreline. Dozens of stranded visitors were plucked from the beaches and safely shuttled to the port of Kokkinos Pyrgos.

Authorities have declared a State of Civil Protection Emergency for the region as over 200 firefighters continue battling active fronts near Agia Paraskevi. While neighboring tourist hubs like Agia Galini have reopened, emergency officials strictly advise against non-essential travel to the Agios Pavlos coastal zone until flare-up risks diminish.

As it happens, Agios Pavlos (pictured up top) is one of the world’s most interesting beaches. Once the dust settles and the smoke clears — and once travel in this remote corner of south Crete gets the all-clear — we highly recommend checking it out. It’s a bit like a trip to the moon, if the moon had a patch of Mediterranean coastline.

While it’s possible to avoid the steep access route, that’s also part of the allure. Just be able-bodied, be hydrated, and — trust us on this — don’t go it alone.

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