Amorgos

ΑThe last island before the Dodecanese

Amorgos is the easternmost of the Cyclades, thirty-three kilometres long and rarely more than six wide, with a spine of mountain running the whole way and a south-east coast that is essentially one long cliff. There are two ports at opposite ends — Katapola in the middle, Aegiali in the north — and nothing resembling a resort between them. Fewer than two thousand people live here.

Everybody comes for one building. Hozoviotissa Monastery is built into a vertical rock face three hundred metres above the sea, white, eight storeys tall and barely wider than a corridor, founded early in the second millennium to protect an icon dated to 812. You park on the road above and climb a few hundred steps. There is a dress code and the hours are short; monks give arriving visitors a glass of psimeni raki and a piece of loukoumi.

ΒChora, and the walk down to Agia Anna

Chora sits in a saddle inland at around 300 metres, invisible from the sea, which is how it survived the pirate centuries: whitewashed lanes, a hilltop Venetian castle rock, more than forty churches and absolutely no traffic. From there a path drops past the monastery to Agia Anna, the small white chapel over a rocky cove that is the island's other photograph. Parts of Luc Besson's *The Big Blue* were filmed on Amorgos in 1988, and the island has cheerfully traded on it ever since — the hotel and café names give it away.

ΓWalking and the wreck

The old donkey paths here are among the best-kept in the Cyclades, and the long route between Aegiali and Chora, over the shoulder of the mountain by Tholaria and Langada, is the one to do. Both villages are stacked, stone-built and far better preserved than their size suggests.

At the far south-western tip, off the bay at Kalotaritissa, the rusting hull of a cargo ship lies half out of the water — the wreck of the Olympia, the island's third postcard. A small boat crosses from the beach to the islet of Gramvousa in season.

ΔBeaches

They are small, pebbly and hard-won, which is the honest summary. Agia Anna and Kambi are rock platforms rather than sand. Maltezi and Finikies, reached on foot or by boat from Katapola, are the nicest swims in the south; Levrossos and Psili Ammos serve Aegiali. Mouros on the south-west coast is the most dramatic. If a soft sandy bay is the point of your holiday, Naxos is two hours away.

ΕGetting there and when to go

No airport. Ferries from Piraeus take anywhere from five hours on a fast boat to nine or ten on a conventional one, usually via Naxos and the small eastern Cyclades; there are also links to Santorini and Koufonisia — see ferries and island-hopping. Buses connect the ports, Chora and the monastery, but a car or scooter makes the island much larger. May, June, September and early October are ideal for the paths. In August the Greek crowd arrives and the handful of rooms sell out months ahead.