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Kate Lough shares a glimpse of her long-standing love affair with the Greek island of Serifos, an untamed beauty in the Cyclades where, in particular corners, island life still follows simple rhythms that are interrupted only to swim, read, eat and sleep.
BY KATE LOUGH | CABANA TRAVEL | 13 JUNE 2025
The light here is beautiful in every season, but in early September it is otherworldly. Across the bay, the hillside stands blemished by its mining past and the ravages of time, glowing with an amber fire. The throne of Cyclops towers above, the rock beneath maturing into blood-red as the sun dips further. Primal and elemental, there is nothing to do but watch the landscape’s evening theatre.
The bay in focus is Megalo Livadi, the island is Serifos. I have been coming here for close to a decade now. Each year, this Cycladic island reveals itself to me with greater force and our bond tightens. Mountainous and dry, Serifos is very particular.
It has few trees apart from the tamarisks that offer shade on its many beaches. Its handsome Chora trickles dramatically down the hill above the harbour, with a main square that jolts into life for a few fleeting months every summer.
Beyond this, there are no villages or shops to speak of. As you follow the road around the southern perimeter of the island, ruins of workers’ cottages murmur of its past and old mining equipment rusts into the ground, abandoned. Curving towards Megalo Livadi, which once thronged with life and activity during its heyday, signs of habitation dwindle. This is a Greece lost in time.
Serifos is not for everyone. And Megalo Livadi in particular. Not everyone would be charmed by having to drive the 30 minutes back to Livadi, the port, for a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. Not everyone would find a peculiar beauty in these hollowed out landscapes. There are no fancy tavernas. Many of the best places to swim can only be reached by boat or are the reward of a short hike. You might drive over the island’s interior and see nothing or no-one, except old shepherd’s huts and sweeping views across the Aegean.
Over the years, I have come to Serifos with boyfriends, lovers, friends and myself. I have explored all its four corners. Finding vineyards and monasteries, ceramics studios and kafenions, wide sandy beaches and tiny pebbled coves. I have seen the island carpeted in wild flowers in spring and toasted by the midday sun in high summer.
Sometimes I have stayed put for days in a row, never getting into a car. When the furthest I venture is to one of the bay’s two tavernas for a simple lunch by the water. I swim. I read. I sleep. I eat. I think.
It is Megalo Livadi that I come back for, year after year. For this particular bay, this particular house and the particular people that live here. A house that teeters over the water’s edge and a family who treat me like one of their own. Long may it continue.
Kate Lough is a travel writer based in Athens | @kateloughstudio
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