Discovering Tinos

A Guide to the Island’s Most Beautiful Villages

Let me begin by saying that the thing which best illuminates the special character of Tinos is that its bus stops are carved from marble. Not commissioned-by-a-hotel-group marble. Just marble, carved by local hands, because on Tinos that is simply how things are done. I realise this sounds like an odd opening boast, but bear with me, once you’ve read the rest of this article you will understand how highly this is to be valued. Trust me.

Tinos sits an hour from Mykonos by ferry, in the dead centre of the Cyclades, and yet it might as well be a different country. Where Mykonos hums and oh, how it hums, Tinos has quietly got on with being itself: terraced hillsides, dovecotes carved like lace into stone, marble-paved lanes, and inland villages that have changed remarkably little in centuries. The day-trippers come for the famous church in Tinos Town, light a candle, and leave. This is their loss.

This guide is written for travellers who have seen quite enough whitewashed cubic villages with rope-barriered photo spots, and who would rather spend an afternoon in the company of a marble mason, a basket weaver, or a raki distiller than in a queue for a beach club. For guests staying in our Tinos villas, our concierge team arranges every detail of these days privately – drivers, lunches, introductions, so the rhythm is set entirely by you. What follows are the five villages I most often press upon our guests, chosen not for popularity but because they are, quite simply, the real thing.

1. Pyrgos – The Marble Village

This is the big one, and the one place on the island where you may encounter a coach. If you must buy a fridge magnet, buy it here, at least it will probably be made of marble.

Pyrgos, tucked into a green valley in the north, has been the centre of Greek marble craftsmanship for centuries. Its houses, fountains, churches and yes, bus stops are adorned with carved reliefs: sunbursts, cypresses, sailing ships, the occasional mythical creature. The Tinian masons fitted out half of neoclassical Athens in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the village has never quite stopped being a workshop. Walk its lanes in the morning and you can still hear the tap of chisels.

Pyrgos is also the birthplace of Yannoulis Chalepas, one of Greece’s most celebrated modern sculptors, whose house is now a small and rather moving museum, and the Museum of Marble Crafts nearby is one of the best-curated small museums in Greece. Do both, then collapse into a chair in the central square beneath the enormous plane tree and order a galaktoboureko the size of a paving slab. You’ve earned it.

2. Volax: A Village Among the Boulders.

Few landscapes in Greece are as strange as the plateau around Volax. The village sits in a wide bowl of land scattered with enormous round granite boulders, some the size of small houses. Geologists mutter about ancient volcanic activity; local legend insists on giants hurling stones at one another across the sea. I know which version I prefer.

The village itself is tiny, whitewashed houses, painted doorways, lanes that twist between gardens  and at some point the residents began painting poetry on their doors, which gives the whole place a literary, faintly surreal atmosphere. It is also one of the last places in Greece where traditional basket weaving is still practised. A handful of elderly weavers work from small workshops with reeds gathered from the nearby valleys, and we can arrange for you to visit one of them. Go. This is an encounter that will simply not be available in ten years’ time, and it is worth more than any beach day.

At sunset the boulders turn almost lunar, and a private picnic among them, which our team arranges – is the most unusual thing we offer on Tinos, and possibly the most beautiful.

3. Kardiani: A Village Suspended Above the Sea

Kardiani is the show-off of the family, though it would never admit it. Built into the steep western face of the island, its houses cascade down terraced slopes toward the deep blue of the Aegean far below, and natural springs run audibly beneath the lanes, you can hear water trickling underfoot as you walk, which is a deeply strange and lovely sensation on a Cycladic island.

The result is a vertical garden: bougainvillea over every wall, fig and pomegranate trees in the courtyards, Venetian flourishes mixed into the Cycladic architecture, and views across the sea to Syros that will stop you mid-sentence, particularly at golden hour. Artists and writers have been quietly colonising Kardiani for decades, and one understands why.Do not try to “do” Kardiani efficiently. It is a place for a long lunch on a shaded terrace, a slow walk, and an hour spent looking at the sea while pretending to read. For those who wish to linger, our concierge can arrange a private dinner in one of the small terraced tavernas, with a wine chosen to match the setting, which is setting a high bar, frankly.

4. Isternia: A Sunset Worth the Journey

A short drive south of Pyrgos, Isternia rewards those who arrive in the late afternoon and punishes no one. Perched high on the western coast, it commands what I will go ahead and call the finest sunset view in the Cyclades, Syros, the open sea, and on clear evenings the distant outlines of Andros and Naxos and I am prepared to argue about it.

The village is exquisitely preserved: marble-paved squares, a bell tower of pure white stone, deep blue doors against whitewash. Like its neighbour Pyrgos it has a strong artistic streak, and several galleries and ateliers operate discreetly out of old village houses, in the Tinian way, no signage to speak of, occasionally open, always worth it.

The taverna on the main square serves some of the best traditional Tinian cooking on the island: local cheeses, slow-cooked artichokes, and seafood brought up from the little harbour below at Ormos Isternion. We are happy to book your table for the hour you prefer, which should be the hour the sun goes down.If you have time and on Tinos you should always have time, walk down to the bay along the old marble path. The small beach at the bottom has a handful of fish tavernas and absolutely nothing else, which is exactly as it should be.

5. Falatados: The Heart of Tinian Hospitality

Set in the fertile central valley among vineyards and groves of fig and almond, Falatados is the largest of the inland villages and comfortably the most hospitable. This is the centre of the island’s raki and tsipouro tradition, distilled at the end of each harvest in small copper stills that have changed little in a century and changed nothing about how strong the result is, so pace yourself.

In late autumn the village erupts into the rakizia: communal distillations that become all-day celebrations of food, music and conviviality, and to which guests are welcomed with the kind of warmth that cannot be staged. Our concierge can arrange a private introduction to one of the local distillers, an experience that captures the openness of this island as little else does. Even in high summer, Falatados is the place for an evening that feels properly local, excellent tavernas, some of the best produce on the island, and not a whiff of polish.It is also a fine base for the surrounding villages of Steni, Triantaros and Dyo Choria, each a short drive away, each with its own particular charm. A full day drifting slowly between them, with lunch booked ahead and a driver arranged so nobody has to argue about the raki, is one of the most rewarding days Tinos offers.

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