Is Kastellorizo Worth Visiting?

Kastellorizo sits closer to the Turkish coast than to any other Greek island, just two kilometers offshore, and that isolation has kept it looking almost exactly as it did decades ago.

Kastellorizo, officially Megisti, is Greece's easternmost inhabited island, and its harbor town wraps around a U-shaped bay lined with pastel mansions rebuilt by families who emigrated to Australia and return each summer. Layers of history sit close together here: a Lycian rock-cut tomb carved into the cliffs above the water, the only one of its kind found outside modern Turkey, stands near a castle built by the Knights of St. John, and an Ottoman mosque now functions as a museum.

The island's main draw is the Blue Cave on the southeast coast, one of the largest sea grottos in Greece and, by some measures, physically larger than its famous counterpart on Capri. The entrance sits barely a meter above the waterline, so boats slip in with passengers lying flat, and inside, sunlight reflecting off the seabed turns the water and cave walls a deep electric blue. Mediterranean monk seals, among the world's most endangered marine mammals, occasionally rest inside the sheltered chamber, and boat trips from the harbor run in the early morning, when the light is strongest.

A monastery above town, built in 1759 on the foundations of an early Christian basilica, holds an underground crypt with an 18th century fresco, reached by climbing 401 stone steps or a driveable road. Boat trips also run to the uninhabited islet of Ro, where a woman named Despina Achladioti raised the Greek flag every morning for forty years during a period of occupation. A short ferry crosses to the Turkish town of Kaş for anyone wanting to pair the island with a day across the water.