On David Bowie's Secret Mission to Ios
The late legendary singer made a stealthy visit to the Greek "party" island
Picture it: the world, 1980-something. There’s no Instagram, no Internet, no nothing, just a dark, primitive age of actual storytelling and real music. Oh, and Greek islands with real, as opposed to manufactured or otherwise ascribed glamour. There was something called distance, and you had to cross an awful lot of it, with many more stops along the way, to get to where you were going. Not the golden age of travel, but definitely an era of traveling in style that has now vanished.
Back to the music for a moment. David Bowie, it is well-known, visited Patmos in the summers of 1985 and 1986, staying according to multiple reports at the home that Prince Aga Khan IV had on the island. At that point in his career, après the “Let’s Dance” success that propelled Bowie from mere celebrity to superstardom, it is rumored that he spent some of those days unwinding on the Greek island famous as the site of the Cave of the Apocalypse, and which this past summer endured a major sewage crisis.
But a few summers later, it seems — possibly in 1988 — Bowie made his way west across the Aegean and found his way to Ios, which at the time had an even stronger reputation as a party island than it does today.
So why Ios, of all places? Hmm…
Some say Homer was born on this heap of rocks in the southern reaches of the Aegean Sea, others say it’s where the bard of bards checked out. There’s definitely a unique creative energy that runs though the place. Now, Ios has more cultural wind in its sails than a bust of the legendary poet in its small port and a mention of his apocryphal island tomb on its Wikipedia page.
That’s because last year, to surprisingly limited fanfare internationally, the Gaitis-Simossi Museum opened on a hilltop overlooking the chora, or main town of the island. It showcases the life works of a renowned Greek painter, Yannis Gaitis — who spent the last decade of his life in Ios — and his partner, the sculptor Gabriella Simossi.
It was in the mid-1960s that Mr. Gaitis, according to Greece’s National Gallery, started making his “well-known figure of a little man, which he originally repeated around a central representation and later made into a schematic and standardized figure, constituting a symbol and ironic means of social criticism.”
The president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, was on hand to inaugurate the museum, which was several years in the making. The artists’ architect daughter, Loretta Gaitis, fitted recreated, oversized elements of the little man’s signature bowler hat and profile into the exterior structure of the museum pavilions. One houses Mr. Gaitis’s works while the other, a high-ceilinged warehouse-style building with colossal interior vaulted arches, is where Ms. Simossi’s monumental sculptures are displayed.
The dominant color of the museum complex is bright Cycladic white, which speaks to the character of the islands in these parts: elemental, uncomplicated, and cleansed by an unrelenting sun.
The sun, after all — along with gorgeous beaches — is what seems to attract half of the under-25 population of Australia to this place in any given summer. This summer, as a recent visit seemed to indicate, was no exception.
While Mykonos has a mystique of its own, Ios has a groove that can hit like a crafty island cocktail. Even its name carries with it the deceptively simple charged exoticism of a Bali or Ibiza, and is said to stem from an ancient Greek word for flowers — possibly violets.
Ios is wild in aspect; hilly, rugged, and despite the creeping inroads of tourism often still startlingly empty. There are cliffs that plunge precipitously to seas that look like catchments of melted blue glass, lonely blue and white churches, olive trees blown sideways by the Etesian winds and yes — I saw them — patches of violets.
The best way to explore the chiseled coast is by boat — a yacht would be ideal, but an aquatic excursion need not be expensive.
At the little port of Ios the main attraction is the absence of any “Instragrammable” attraction, something I imagine David Bowie would have loved. There is a smattering of seaside cafés, the broad Gialos Beach, and a few small hotels.
Driving in Ios is an adventure in switchbacks and sweeping views. I can think of nowhere else in the world where a road can make you feel as if you are literally flying over the sky, especially on the south side when the ethereal contours of the Santorini across the horizon seemingly float underneath you.
More than once, I had to stop the car to process this, but the truth is I still haven’t, not properly anyway.
There are more beaches in Ios than I will have time for. Koumbara, a beach closer to the port, is also near the Erego Beach Club, a place flamboyant and monumental in scale. The owner also has a couple of hotels on the island, if your tastes lean to the theatrical. I thought smaller places like Liostasi and a newer spot called Bliss are more in keeping with the laidback island vibe. Haven’t the foggiest where Bowie would have stayed back in the day, but Greek Column can promise that Bliss rocks a sort of slick but hushed hideway luxe bolthole kind of vibe (with excellent Greek breakfasts).
Anyway, another famous beach is Manganari, actually a series of three beaches with Caribbean-caliber golden sand and aquamarine water. Scenes from the 1988 French movie “Le Grand Bleu” (for us, The Big Blue) were filmed here, and French tourists still come (as well as to Amorgos) on account of that.
Illusory as it is, in places like Manganari, Ios can feel as remote as a miniature lost continent, and though it is small, the scale of things can surprise you. Where am I, really?
This is a question that I will be asking myself repeatedly over the course of the three days I will spend rambling around the island…
At one point I had to wait for a trip of goats to cross the road. The driver behind me was in a hurry, but I put my hand out the window to signal we would both have to wait. Anyway, why rush? Those wily creatures are, after all, responsible for some fine local cheeses.
Generally Ios is not a foodie island — think Naxos or Tinos for that — but one could do worse. At Mosenta Traditional Products, by the port, I bought a slice of watermelon cake fresh from the oven. You read correctly, watermelon cake. On the road to the fine beach at Agia Theodoti, I passed by a traditional taverna called Bilaeti, and stopped in for the signature garden salad and a rectangle of baked feta cheese roasted with black sesame and honey. It was pretty darn good.
The absence of touristic iconography lends an authenticity to Ios that can be as disarming as it is revivifying. Look, there’s a cove with star-power turquoise water and not a beach bar in sight. Over there, a donkey with a picturesque row of disused windmills behind and no one around to take a picture — for now, that is.
