Chrysospilia

On the steep northeastern coast, about twenty-five metres above the water, opens a cave hung with stalactites. Its floor and walls have produced pottery, a Roman water cistern, and evidence of cult.

What makes it extraordinary is the writing. Around four hundred names are painted on the walls and the ceiling in reddish clay, most of them dating to the fourth century BC. They are men's names — Nikagoras, Themistokles, Kleon, Pythagoras, Lysikrates — and many carry an adjective saying where the writer came from: Cretan, Serifian, Naxian, from Elis.

They belonged to young men taking part in a coming-of-age ritual, a practice described by ancient writers. Getting into the inner chamber was difficult, and writing your name there was the proof that you had done it.

Because the cave is dry and water does not drip inside it, the writing has survived almost intact for twenty-four centuries.

Chrysospilia can only be reached from the sea, in calm conditions, and a permit is required. It is not open to ordinary visitors.

The Kastro

Chora grew around a medieval fortified settlement, still called the Kastro. Its houses form a continuous outer wall with no openings to the outside, in the manner of the Cycladic fortress villages, and on the northern side that wall is the cliff edge itself.

People still live in it, and it is in good condition. You walk in through a low arched gate.

Panagia

Above the town, on a rocky hill reached by a zig-zag path, stands the church of Panagia. It is the island's pilgrimage church and the walk up is the thing most visitors do first — it takes about twenty minutes and the view covers most of the island.

The Folklore Museum at Ano Meria is set out as a working farmstead, with a threshing floor and the tools of the island's rural life.

There are three settlements and they are entirely different from each other.

Chora is the reason people come. It is built along the cliff edge and organised around a sequence of small linked squares, shaded by plane trees, with the tavernas and cafés in them and no cars anywhere.

Ano Meria, five kilometres northwest, is not a village in the usual sense. It is a scattered farming settlement of separate homesteads spread along the road for several kilometres, each with its own outbuildings and threshing floor. This is where the island's agricultural life still is.

Karavostasis is the port, a small bay with a beach and a handful of rooms.

Folegandros has about twenty kilometres of paths crossing the island. They run between dry-stone walls, past old windmills, abandoned threshing floors, small ravines and isolated chapels, and several of them are the only way to reach a beach.

The route from Chora to Ano Meria and on to the northern coast is the long one. Shorter paths drop from Ano Meria to Livadaki and to the beaches of the north, and from Agali a path runs along the west coast linking three beaches in a few minutes each.

The Aspropounta lighthouse, built in 1919 on the southwest coast about fifty metres above the sea, is reached by a walk from Livadi.

The island is dry, treeless and exposed, and there is almost no shade on any of it.

The beaches are small, mostly a mix of fine sand and pebble, and several are reached only on foot or by boat.

Agali, on the west coast, is the main one — sheltered, partly organised, with tavernas behind it. From there a path leads in ten minutes to Fyra and in another ten to Galifos, both tiny, and on to Agios Nikolaos, which looks back across at Chora on its cliff.

Katergo, at the southeastern tip, is the one people photograph: white sand and fine pebble between huge rocks, reached by boat from Karavostasis or on foot.

Livadaki is remote, below the lighthouse, and reached by boat from Agali or by a path from Ano Meria.

Vardia and Livadi, near the port, are the easy ones.

The northern beaches — Serfiotiko, Vorina — take forty to fifty minutes on foot from Ano Meria and are exposed to the north wind. Go only in calm weather.

Folegandros has two dishes that belong to it.

Matsata is hand-cut pasta, made on the island and served with rabbit or with rooster in tomato sauce. It is the thing to order.

Kalasouna is a pie of onions and souroto, the local soft cheese, and it is the everyday food.

Beyond that the island produces the usual things of a dry Cycladic island in small quantities — capers, thyme honey, cheese from a few flocks — and the tavernas in Chora and Ano Meria cook them simply.