North Aegean

Chios is the ancestral home of many modern Greek shipping dynasties and the world's only commercial producer of mastic gum

The North Aegean region comprises of the islands of the north-eastern Aegean Sea, such as Chios, Lesvos, Ikaria, Samos, Lemnos, Fournoi Korseon, Oinousses, Agios Efstratios and Psara. The only exception is the island of Samothrace which belongs to the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. These islands are very different compared to the Cyclades or the Dodecanese. They retain their own distinctive and charming qualities. Chios combines fortress-like medieval villages with being the ancestral home of many modern Greek shipping dynasties and the world's only commercial producer of mastic gum. Lesvos is Greece's third-largest island with green mountains and dense olive groves, sandy beaches and idyllic coastal towns such as Plomari and Molyvos. Lesvos is renowned for the manufacture of ouzo, the Greek national spirit, and for being the birthplace of the legendary archaic lyrical poet Sappho, who through her work became a symbol of love between women. Ikaria, perhaps one of the most weird and wonderful Greek islands, is a land of forests, springs and secret beaches, known for its idiosyncratic local lifestyle.