Sifnos was sure a welcome change after the throngs of tourists on Mykonos. Arriving into its harbour town of Kamares is the classic Greek island experience; beautiful blue water, a couple of fishing boats bobbing at anchor, a beach at the end of the bay, and mountains rising all around topped by churches or monasteries.
We didn’t have much planned for our stay on Sifnos. Although the island does have some small archaeological sites, a museum, and many, many churches worth a visit (see Greeka), we needed a break from touring UNESCO World Heritage sites, So we spent our time walking through villages and dining at the fine restaurants that line the harbour town.
We stayed in the tiny port of Kamares. With only ~300 permanent residents it didn’t take long to stroll the main street and then round the bay to climb up to a small chapel. Having just a single bench that could possibly fit 3 people it seemed like you’d have to make reservations for Sunday services! On our second full day, we took the local bus to Artemonas (pop. ~700) which sits just above the capital city village of Apollonia (pop. ~900). As we walked back down the hillside between the two villages there were some great views of farms running down to the ocean, and blue domed churches everywhere.
Although there were a lot of churches on Sifnos, there were even more cats! We read one woman’s travel blog saying that she thought that there were more cats than people in Greece. According to Google AI, that’s not the case; there are “only” 3 million stray cats, but over 10 million people. But there are islands where cats are in the majority, and with a permanent population of less than 3,000 Sifnos might be one. In actual fact though, it would wrong to call the cats of Greece stray cats. While not exactly pets, the feline friends are more like community cats and are fed and watered by the locals (and of course by soft-hearted tourists slipping them table scraps at dinner time!).
Despite the very relaxed pace of our visit to this small island, time seed to fly by and we boarded another ferry for Milos.
Images of Sifnos
See our pictures of Sifnos on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720333665171
See links to all of our posts for this trip on 2026-2 – Greece and Albania.