Sifnos

Sifnos sits in the western Cyclades, roughly midway between Serifos and Milos, a compact island of gentle terraced slopes, dovecotes and more than 200 churches and chapels. Ferries dock at the port of Kamares on the north-west coast, from where a short road climbs inland to the linked hill villages that form the island's living heart. There is no airport, so almost everyone arrives by sea from Piraeus, a crossing of roughly two and a half to five and a half hours depending on the vessel.

The capital, Apollonia, spreads across three hills in a tangle of stepped lanes, and merges almost seamlessly with the neighbouring villages of Ano Petali and Artemonas, the island's most elegant settlement of neoclassical houses and pastry shops. To the east, the old fortified village of Kastro clings to a rocky spur above the sea, its outer houses forming a continuous defensive wall, with Roman and Venetian traces still legible in its lanes. Below it stands the much-photographed church of Chrysopigi, on a rocky islet reached by a small footbridge.

Sifnos is celebrated across Greece for its food. The island was the home of Nikolaos Tselementes, whose early twentieth-century cookbook shaped modern Greek cooking, and its slow-baked chickpea stew, revithada, is traditionally cooked overnight in a wood-fired oven in a local clay pot. That pottery is itself an ancient craft here, and working ceramic studios still line the roads near Kamares and Vathy.

Walkers come for the waymarked trail network, some 100 kilometres of restored paths linking monasteries, beaches and villages across the interior. The sandy bay of Vathy, the beach at Platys Gialos and the sheltered cove of Chrysopigi reward the effort. Spring and early autumn are ideal, when the light is soft and the tavernas unhurried. Sifnos rewards travellers who slow down, walk a little and eat well.