Chora, Kionia & the south

The ferry docks, and straight ahead a wide marble-paved street climbs 800 metres to the Church of Panagia Evangelistria. On 15 August, the Dormition of the Virgin, pilgrims cover that street on their hands and knees; the rest of the year it is simply the handsomest approach to any church in the Cyclades. Almost every bed on Tinos is in the few streets either side of it, or along the shore at Kionia and Agios Fokas.

The south coast is the easy side for swimming: Agios Sostis, Agios Ioannis Porto and Kionia are sandy, shallow and reachable by bus, with the Sanctuary of Poseidon at the Kionia end. The north coast inside this box is the beautiful side — Kolymbithra is the island's best-known bay and Livada its wildest — but it faces the meltemi head-on. From mid-May to mid-September that north wind can turn a swim into an argument. Ask which side is sheltered before you drive; islanders do.

Inland, Volax sits in a field of granite boulders the size of houses, Tarabados has the pierced-stone dovecotes the island counts about a thousand of, and above them all Exomvourgo is the jagged rock the Venetians fortified and held until 1715 — under an hour up, and a view over half the Cyclades.