21 Photos: Greece’s light, life and quiet beauty

Writer, editor and brand consultant Kate Lough traded London for Athens after years of flying visits left her enchanted by the city’s pace, people and golden light. Now based in the Greek capital, she captures its shifting moods and timeless details through her lens.

I often tell people I moved to Athens for the light. For centuries, painters, writers and poets have been drawn to Greece by the same shimmering luminescence – the one that bathes its ancient monuments, glints across its modern skyline and ricochets off the Aegean.

It is a place where people find beauty in the everyday, the ordinary and the simple. It also inspires me to pick up my camera every day, hoping to capture in images how it makes me feel. Despite having lived in London or nearby for 37 of my 38 years, it is Greece where I feel at home. The greatest joy of living here has been unearthing its lesser-known corners, and witnessing how the country changes with each season.

Last spring, I spent three months from the end of March getting to know Athens, living in the shadow of Lycabettus Hill. Each day, either before I sat down to write or just before sunset, I would climb up one of its slippery paths to get some literal and metaphorical perspective. The view over the city – framing the Acropolis – towards Piraeus and the sea is unbeatable.

Every Thursday, the laiki – a proper produce market – pops up in my neighbourhood. As well as the best place to buy in-season fruit and veg, it offers up perfect vignettes of Athenian life that are always a joy to photograph. At the moment, the tables are laden with pears and giant tomatoes, swollen aubergines and shiny pomegranates.

Arcadia has become one of my favourite regions on the Greek mainland. Drawn by the opening of the design-focused MANNA hotel, I have returned in various seasons to decompress in its fir tree-carpeted mountainside and altitudinous tavernas – where lamb chops grill on outdoor fires – and to go on lung-expanding hikes.

On a cloudy Saturday last November, I went to Varvakios, Athens’s central fish market, with my friend to find ingredients for a psarosoupa we would make that evening. As we completed laps around the hall to find the best crab and scorpion fish, a man caught my eye.

The main harbour of Kastellorizo, a diminutive island closer to Turkey than Greece, is something to behold. Make sure to arrive by boat, heading out onto the deck as your ferry noses past Italianate neoclassical mansions painted in colours good enough to eat. Golden hour is the time to get out your camera and capture its magnificence.

Sifnos in the central Cyclades is fast becoming known among travellers for its excellent food and ceramics traditions, both of which stretch back hundreds of years. It is also home to a vast number of churches, which double up as epic swimming spots. My favourite is beneath Poulati, which is pictured here.

Although it will close at the end of this season for three years for refurbishment, seeing any performance at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus – whether AIR or Max Richter, like I did this summer – is spellbinding. Sitting on ancient stone with the Parthenon looming above you is hard to match.

This April, I experienced my first Greek Easter, or Pasqa. I joined friends in the deep south of Corfu. Away from the ravages of mass tourism, this part of the island was in full spring bloom. Each morning I wove my way up through the olive groves for a moment of solitude. This lonely chair was like a poem.

In springtime, around early April, you can visit the Acropolis Museum just before closing time to experience the most magnificent pre-sunset light show – in addition, of course, to the ancient relics. I could have stayed for hours during this visit.

I took this misty photo of Lake Doxa on Christmas Eve last year. A spontaneous trip planned the day before, it took just under three hours to reach the turquoise lake. It had just snowed and I felt like I was in Switzerland. I love the mirror effect created by this photograph.

In the warmer, drier months, my favourite restaurant, Taverna ton Filon, opens its summer courtyard and there is no prettier place to eat in Athens (or Greek wine as good value). Make sure to order its much-loved potatoes and chocolate mousse.

The Alekos Fassianos Museum is one of my favourite museums to visit in Athens. If I feel like I need a jolt of colour or inspiration, I walk over to what was once the neoclassical former home of Fassianos, the artist dubbed the “Picasso of Greece”. 

Ermoupolis, the capital city of Syros, is one of the grandest architectural spectacles in Greece. In its Vaporia neighbourhood, sherbert-coloured neoclassical mansions tumble down to the water alongside the blue-domed Church of Agios Nikolaos. This swimming platform on Asteria beach is the hub for local life each morning. 

I remember this evening so vividly. It was September and the sunset was silver, highlighted with hot pink. I was at a friend’s house in Serifos that tips over the edge of the water, and this was taken just before the sun disappeared over the horizon. It was one of the trips that pushed me to find a way to live in Greece.

The Greek taverna has no counterpart. Nowhere else does simplicity and good, honest food exist in such harmony. I prefer imperfect pictures of the table once most of the food has been eaten. The appetite, the joy and the colours are palpable.

When I sent this image to my family they asked where I was. It reminded me how skewed the perspective of this country is, how reduced it can be to a few islands and summer skies. This trip to Mount Parnassos, blanketed in snow during a March bank holiday, was a Greek winter wonderland I was not expecting to find.

This spectacular terrace belongs to Kimolos Blues. I stayed for three days solo, reading, working and swimming off the rocks beneath it. It must be one of the most remarkable right-on-the-water houses on the Greek islands. Each day I woke up with the sun, and this was the best time to photograph it.

This is Dimitris, the groom at MANNA – meaning he greets guests at the door. Wearing a felt Peloponnese cape and with sparkling blue eyes, his warmth sets the tone for the hotel. This image is a constant reminder to me to talk to people and hear their stories – especially in Greece.

My neighbourhood is a canine catwalk. I like to photograph dogs as they always make me smile, even on my worst days. This beauty was shopping at the weekly laiki.

The outdoor summer culture is one of the things I love the most about living in Athens. This summer I visited the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus for the first time and I was blown away. On a warm July evening, 15,000 people sitting on ancient stone, all captivated by the same performance.

A lunar-esque landscape in Milos, Sarakiniko is a victim of overtourism. I took this image to remind myself to go a little bit further to seek an alternative. If you walk for just 10 more minutes, you will experience the same landscape, the same rock jumping opportunities – but no crowds.