Olympos

Olympos sits at 310 metres on a narrow, steep ridge below Mount Profitis Ilias, and where it sits explains everything about it.

The village is invisible from the north and the southwest, but it looks straight out west over the sea — so that its people could watch for pirate ships and shut themselves into the castle above, whose remains are still there.

That position kept the village cut off for centuries, and the isolation acted as a shield. Women still wear the traditional dress, the kavai, as everyday clothing. The local speech preserves Doric forms found almost nowhere else. Each house had its own bread oven and its own windmill, and some of the flour mills still work.

Olympos is a protected traditional settlement. It is often described as a living museum, which is accurate in one sense and misleading in another — people live here, and what visitors see is not a display.

The ancient island

Karpathos had three ancient cities. The clearest remains are at Vroukounta, in the north, on a long rocky promontory, with the rock-cut church of Agios Ioannis at the end of it.

At Agios Nikolaos in the south stands Panagia Eftabatousa, an early Christian basilica of the fifth century.

The Archaeological Museum in Pigadia holds the finds — from the prehistoric settlement under the town, from the three ancient cities, and from the early Christian basilicas — along with reconstructions of a Mycenaean tomb and part of a basilica.

Pigadia is the port and the main town, built around a bay in the southeast.

Menetes, Othos, Volada and Aperi are the mountain villages above it, stacked on slopes with painted houses and neoclassical touches brought back by people who emigrated to America.

Arkasa and Lefkos are on the west coast, both small and both with beaches.

Olympos and Diafani are the north. Diafani is the port that serves Olympos, and until a road was cut it was how the village reached the rest of the island.

The interior is mountain, and the highest point is Kali Limni. Old stone paths connect the villages and run down to bays with no road, and walking them is the way to see the north.

Saria, off the northern tip, is separated from Karpathos by a channel about a hundred metres wide. It is uninhabited, and the ruins of a settlement and the chapel of Agios Zacharias stand on it. Boats run there from Diafani in summer.

The island has an unusually large amount of rock, which is why climbing has developed here.

Karpathos has both sand and pebble, and the good beaches are spread the length of the island.

Apella, on the east coast, is the one that appears on lists of the best beaches in Greece: pale sand and pebble in a deep bay below pine-covered slopes, reached down a long winding road.

Kyra Panagia, in the same series of bays, has a small white church above it and clear turquoise water, and the cliffs behind it are used for climbing.

Achata and Agios Nikolaos are the others on that coast, each at the end of its own descent.

Lefkos, on the west, is a group of sandy coves with rooms and tavernas behind them. Ammoopi, near Pigadia, is the sheltered family choice.

Diakoftis, in the far south, has white sand and shallow water so clear it looks artificial.

Wind

The south of the island, around Afiartis, is one of the most reliable windsurfing places in the world. The wind blows through the summer with a steadiness that the shape of the coast concentrates, and the world speed windsurfing championship has been held here since 2006.

There are organised clubs with equipment and lessons. Beyond Afiartis, the beaches of Vatha, Pounta, Valias, Makrys Gialos and Agrilaopotamos are the others used by surfers.

Rock and water

Climbing is well developed, with routes spread across a large number of sectors. Kyra Panagia is the best known: some of its lines run down cliffs that end at the sea, so you can finish a climb and swim.

Diving and snorkelling work on the reefs and underwater caves around the coast.

Karpathos has its own cooking, kept by the same isolation that kept the dress and the dialect.

Makarounes are the dish: hand-rolled pasta served with fried onion and sitaka, a soft sour cheese made from the skin that forms on boiled milk. It is on every menu on the island and nowhere else in Greece in quite this form.

Beyond it, goat and lamb from the mountains, wild greens, honey, and fish along the coast. The bread from the village ovens in the north is a thing in itself.