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HIOS , the harbour and main town, will come as a shock after modest island capitals elsewhere; it's a bustling, concrete-laced commercial centre, with little predating the 1881 quake. Yet in many ways it is the most satisfactory of the east Aegean ports; time spent exploring is rewarded with a large and fascinating marketplace, several museums and some good, authentic tavernas. Although it's a sprawling town of about 30,000, most things of interest to visitors lie within a hundred or so metres of the water, fringed by Leoforos Egeou. South and east of the main platia, officially Plastira but known universally as Vounakiou, extends the marvellously lively tradesmen's bazaar , where you can find everything from parrots to cast-iron woodstoves. Opposite the Vounakiou taxi rank , the grandiosely titled " Byzantine Museum ", occupying the old Mecidiye Mosque (Tues-Sun 10am-1pm; free), is little more than an archeological warehouse, with Turkish, Jewish and Armenian marble gravestones in the courtyard testifying to the island's varied population in past centuries. Until the 1881 earthquake, the Byzantine-Genoese Kastro was completely intact; thereafter developers razed the seaward walls, filled in much of the moat to the south and made a fortune selling off the real estate thus created around present-day Platia Vounakiou. Today the most satisfying entry to the citadel is via Porta Maggiora behind the town hall. The top floor of a medieval mansion just inside is home to the Justiniani Museum (Tues-Sun 9am-3pm, in summer may open daily 9am-7pm; ?1.50, Sun ?0.90), with a satisfying (and periodically changing) collection of unusual icons and mosaics rescued from local churches. The small dungeon adjacent briefly held 75 Hiot hostages before their execution by the Ottomans in 1822. The old residential quarter inside the surviving castle walls, formerly the Muslim and Jewish neighbourhoods, is well worth a wander; among the wood and plaster houses you'll find assorted Ottoman monuments in various states of decay: a Muslim cemetery, a small minaretless mosque, a ruined hamam (Turkish bath) and several inscribed fountains. Further afield, three other museums beckon. The Maritime Museum at Stefanou Tsouri 20 (Mon-Sat 10am-1pm; free) consists principally of model ships and oil paintings of various craft, Greek and foreign, all rather overshadowed by the mansion containing them. In the foyer are enshrined the knife and glass-globe grenade of Admiral Kanaris, who partly avenged the 1822 massacre by ramming and sinking the Ottoman fleet's flagship. In the centre of town, the Argenti Folklore Museum (Mon-Thurs 8am-2pm, Fri 8am-2pm & 5-7.30pm, Sat 8am-12.30pm; ?1.50), on the top floor of the Korai Library at Korai 2, features ponderous genealogical portraits of the endowing family, an adjoining wing of costumes and rural impedimenta, plus multiple replicas of Delacroix's Massacre at Hios , a painting which did much to arouse sympathy for the cause of Greek independence. The Archeological Museum on Mihalon (June-Sept daily 8am-7pm; Oct-May Tues-Sun 8am-2.30pm; ?1.50) finally reopened in late 1999 after an eight-year overhaul. The wide-ranging and well-lit collection, arranged both thematically and chronologically from Neolithic to Roman times, demands at least an hour or so of one's attention. Highlights include limestone column bases from the Apollo temple at Fana in the shape of lion's claws; numerous statuettes and reliefs of Cybele (the Asiatic goddess was especially honoured here); Archaic faience miniatures from Emborio in the shape of a cat, a hawk and a flautist; terracottas from various eras of a dwarf riding a boar; and figurines (some with articulated limbs) of hierodouloi or sacred prostitutes, presumably from an Aphrodite shrine. Most famous of all is an inscribed edict of Alexander the Great from 322 BC, commanding local political changes and setting out relations between himself and the Hiots.
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