7 Best Sights in The Northern Aegean Islands, Greece

Perched high on a granite outcrop in the mountainous interior is an eerie testament to the violent history of the island. Anavatos (the name means "unassailable") was built in medieval times and flourished as a community until the massacres of 1822. The Ottomans attacked and fierce street-by-street fighting ensued until the Greeks were overwhelmed. Rather than be enslaved by the invading forces, the women and children of the village threw themselves over the steep cliffs to their death. Further devastated in the earthquake of 1881, the village lies abandoned, but the views remain breathtaking in this ghostly, poignant monument.

Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos ("the Dueler") ordered the Nea Moni monastery built where three monks found an icon of the Virgin Mary in a myrtle bush. The octagonal katholikon (medieval church) is the only surviving example of 11th-century court art—none survives even in Constantinople. The monastery has been renovated a number of times: the dome was completely rebuilt following an earthquake in 1881, and a great deal of effort has gone into the restoration and preservation of the mosaics over the years. The distinctive three-part vaulted sanctuary has a double narthex, with no buttresses supporting the dome. This design, a single square space covered by a dome, is rarely seen in Greece. Blazing with color, the church's interior gleams with marble slabs and mosaics of Christ's life, austere yet sumptuous, with azure blue, ruby red, velvet green, and skillful applications of gold. The saints' expressiveness comes from their vigorous poses and severe gazes, with heavy shadows under the eyes. On the iconostasis hangs the icon—a small Virgin and Child facing left. Also inside the grounds are an ancient refectory, a vaulted cistern, a chapel filled with victims' bones from the massacre at Chios, and a large clock still keeping Byzantine time, with the sunrise reckoned as 12 o'clock.

The fresco-embellished 12th-century church Agioi Apostoloi is a very small replica of the katholikon, or major church, at the Nea Moni Monastery. Cretan artist Antonios Domestichos created the 17th-century frescoes that completely cover the interior, and they have a distinct folk-art leaning.

The Kambos district is famed as one of the most fertile orchard regions of Greece—orange and lemon groves set behind stone walls are almost given the status of museums and landmarks. It is only fitting that the owners of the Perleas Mansion hotel have opened this especially fragrant estate to showcase the history of citrus products on the island and entice visitors with a shop and delightful café selling citrus-inspired sweets. The estate buildings are handsome, centered on a farm where English-language placards explain the layout and workings of a historic citrus estate, and sturdy stone barns and houses are set with putty-green window shutters. The bucolic grounds are replete with a folkloric-painted watermill, grazing animals, and a picturesque arbor.

The second floor above the impressive Korais Library, Greece's third largest, houses artifacts celebrating life on Chios. Meticulously designed costumes, embroideries, pastoral wood carvings, furniture from a village home, and rare books and prints are the legacy of Philip Argenti (1891–1974); a Renaissance man who studied at Oxford, he was a diplomat and scholar, and for many years chronicled island history from his estate in the Kambos District.

Enter this spacious cave and descend 95 steps to the tiny church of Panagia Spiliani (Virgin of the Grotto). Half church, half cavern, this most unique landmark is also called Kaliarmenissa ("for good travels"), as it houses an antique icon of the Virgin Mary that, according to legend, was stolen from Samos and carried to a far-off land. Miraculously, it fell from the boat during the journey and broke into pieces, all of which washed ashore back on Samos. A pool in the grotto, once the sanctuary of a Roman cult, is considered to contain miracle-working water, and some have posited that it was here that Pythagoras taught and held discourse with his peers.

In the Tampakika district, a former industrial area, are four restored windmills on a stone jetty. Two stories and 10 meters (33 feet) high, they are a relic of the tanneries that used to proliferate here, some of which lie abandoned nearby. A good ouzeri next door overlooks the sea, and it is a fine place to order a few meze plates and to take in the reminders of a former age with a glass of the aniseed liquor.