3 Best Sights in The Cyclades, Greece

The charming Aegean Maritime Museum contains a collection of model ships, navigational instruments, old maps, prints, coins, and nautical memorabilia. The backyard garden displays some old anchors and ship wheels and a reconstructed 1890 lighthouse, once lit by oil.

Before setting out on the mandatory boat excursion to the isle of Delos, check out the Archaeological Museum, which affords insight into the intriguing history of its ancient shrines. The museum houses Delian funerary sculptures, many with scenes of mourning. Most were moved to Rineia when the Athenians cleansed Delos in the 6th century, during the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, and, under instruction from the Delphic Oracle, the entire island was purged of all dead bodies. The most significant work from Mykonos is a 7th-century BC pithos (storage jar), showing the Greeks in the Trojan horse and the sacking of the city.

This is the treasure house that displays frescoes and other artifacts from the famed excavations at Akrotiri. Many of the finds have been sent off to the Archaeological Museum in Athens, but the most charming fresco remains here: a colorful depiction of women in dresses, gathering saffron from the stamens of crocuses. Also in this small collection are fresco fragments with the famous painted swallows (the island's favorite design motif) that still flock to Santorini to roost on the cliffs. The fossilized olive leaves from 60,000 BC prove the olive to be indigenous.