You think you're landing in Greece and instead set foot in an Italian town from the 1930s. Lakki, the main harbour of the island of Leros in the Dodecanese, was built from 1933 to 1938 by Italy, which then occupied the archipelago and wanted to house the families of its navy there. Architects Rodolfo Petracco and Armando Bernabiti designed a model town, Portolago, in the Rationalist style: wide avenues planted with eucalyptus, white volumes with clean curves, theatrical vistas opening onto the sea. The ensemble, which has remained virtually intact, has no equivalent anywhere outside Italy. The most unusual port call in the Aegean begins here, at the foot of the gangway.

An Open-Air Architecture Museum

You need to walk through Lakki slowly, eyes upward. The geometric cinema-theatre, the old market with its circular atrium and clock tower, the former customs house, the primary school and the imposing naval administration building make up a modernist film set on the edge of one of the largest natural harbours in the Mediterranean. The Catholic church of St. Francis, which became Orthodox under the name Agios Nikolaos, sums up on its own the shift from one sovereignty to another. Fans of 20th-century architecture sometimes travel far to photograph these façades, between which Greek life has reclaimed its place, café patios and scooters included; cruise passengers have them just steps from the ship.

War Beneath the Mountain

Leros also carries the memory of a fierce battle. In 1943, after the Italian armistice, the island became the prize in a clash between British and German forces, a little-known episode of the war in the Aegean that inspired the novel behind the film The Guns of Navarone. A tunnel carved into the rock now houses a museum devoted to this Battle of Leros: helmets, documents, photographs and testimonies are displayed in a dark, cool gallery, in the very place where people sheltered from the bombing. The visit, understated and gripping, lasts less than an hour and sheds new light on the peaceful surrounding hills, where military remains still survive.

Platanos, Agia Marina and the Castle of Panagia

A short taxi ride, about ten minutes through the hills, brings you to where the capital, Platanos, tiers its houses like an amphitheatre down to the small landing of Agia Marina. Island architecture blends with Italian elegance, and the lanes climb toward the summit where the Castle of Panagia keeps watch. From its ramparts, the panorama takes in bays, headlands and windmills, one of those Dodecanese landscapes that make you forget the time and fill up your memory cards. Below, the village of Panteli lines up its neoclassical houses around a fishing cove: tavernas with their feet in the water, caiques at anchor, cats napping in the shade of spread-out nets.

An Island That Takes Life Easy

Leros doesn't rush its visitors. You swim in crystal-clear coves a few minutes from the quays, lunch on grilled fish and salad with local cheese in Panteli while watching the boats come back one by one, and watch the ferries manoeuvre in the harbour with the slowness of a long-rehearsed ballet. The island lives year-round, with its schools, fishers and artisans, which gives it a human depth that overly seasonal destinations have sometimes lost along the way.

As the ship pulls away, the white façades of Lakki parade by one last time, lined up as on the first day. This port call leaves a strange and precious feeling: that of having crossed an architectural utopia lost in the Aegean, between pines, war and light. Travellers who love complicated stories will find here one of the most fascinating in the entire Mediterranean, served with fresh fish.