Tinos

Tinos is best known to Greeks as a place of pilgrimage — the spiritual heart of the Orthodox world in the Aegean — yet it rewards visitors with far more than its famous church. This is a large, mountainous island of some fifty villages, terraced hillsides, elaborate dovecotes and a deep tradition of marble craft, still comparatively untouched by mass tourism.

The island's focus is the Church of Panagia Evangelistria in Tinos town, built over a miraculous icon of the Virgin discovered in 1823. It draws pilgrims all year, and above all on 15 August, the feast of the Dormition, when many crawl the final stretch to the shrine on their knees. The gleaming marble church stands at the top of a broad avenue leading up from the port.

Inland, Tinos is a landscape of marble. The village of Pyrgos, home to a long line of sculptors, has a school of fine arts and workshops where the craft is still practised; even its bus stop and café tables are carved from local stone. Nearby Volax sits in a surreal bowl of giant round granite boulders, while whitewashed villages such as Isternia and Kardiani tumble down the slopes. Scattered across the terraces are the island's ornate dovecotes, decorated stone towers left by the Venetians.

The coast is quieter than the interior is rich. Sandy beaches such as Agios Sostis, Kolimbithra and Agios Romanos draw a low-key crowd, and windsurfers make the most of the meltemi. Tinos also has a growing reputation for food, with several notable tavernas and local cheeses.

Tinos has no airport; ferries run from Rafina in as little as two hours and from Piraeus, usually via Mykonos or Andros. It is easily combined with either. Spring and early autumn are ideal, though the town is busiest around the August pilgrimage; give the island three or four days to reach its villages.