Marble runs through the island's whole history. The quarries of Exo Meria produced white, grey and green stone, and the villages around Pyrgos produced the craftsmen who worked it. They carved fanlights, fountains, door lintels and grave markers, decorated with cypress trees, birds and ships.

In 2015 UNESCO added Tinian marble craftsmanship to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. About a quarter of the working masters today are women.

The Museum of Marble Crafts above Pyrgos was the first of its kind in Greece. It follows the work from the quarry to the finished piece.

In the nineteenth century, Tinos sent this skill across Greece and beyond. The island produced the sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas and the painters Nikiforos Lytras and Nikolaos Gysis.

The church and the fortress

The Church of Panagia Evangelistria in Chora holds an icon believed to work miracles. It is the focus of a large pilgrimage every 15 August.

On Exomvourgo, there was once a Venetian fortress — the highest in the Aegean — until the Ottomans destroyed it in 1715. A Catholic monastery stands at the foot of the hill.

The inland part of Tinos is the most interesting. The island rises to 750 metres at Tsiknias, and the slopes are covered in terraces held by dry stone walls. This is why the island calls itself hand-made.

The boulders

Around Volax, on the Livaderi plateau, the ground is covered with enormous round granite boulders. Some are the size of small buildings, and they lie scattered across open country with no obvious reason.

Geologists explain them as the result of weathering. Local tradition prefers a story about a fight between Titans. The village of Volax sits in the middle of them and still keeps a basket-weaving tradition alive.

Exomvourgo and the dovecotes

Exomvourgo is the island's other landmark: a sharp cone of rock 640 metres high, which looks more Alpine than Cycladic. Ruined walls stand on top, with views to Delos, Naxos and further.

Between these places stand the dovecotes — two-storey towers of stone and slate. The upper walls are pierced with geometric patterns. They were built under Venetian rule, and they are now among the most photographed buildings in the Cyclades.

Tinos has more than forty beaches, and the wind decides which one you want.

The south and west coasts are sheltered. Agios Sostis, Agios Ioannis Porto, Kionia and Agios Romanos have sand, shallow water and tavernas, and they are the sensible choice with children.

The north is exposed and more dramatic.

Kolimbithra is a double bay. The larger half is open to the waves and popular with surfers; the smaller half is sheltered and organised.

Livada is forty minutes from Chora on a narrow mountain road. It has dark sand and boulders, the water gets deep quickly, and there are often waves. There is no bus, and the currents can be strong.

Rochari lies around the headland from the fishing village of Panormos. It faces the meltemi directly, and it is where windsurfers and kitesurfers go.

Tinos is one of the best organised walking islands in Greece. Tinos Trails was created for the municipality and marked in 2019. It covers more than 150 kilometres in twelve routes, each with a theme, following the old donkey paths. There is a free app and printed maps.

The routes connect villages, monasteries, watermills, dovecotes and the boulder fields. Several can be walked in half a day.

Climbing

The boulders have made Volax a bouldering destination known well beyond Greece. About 500 recorded problems are spread across an area of some 18 square kilometres, with sectors at Volax, Kakia Skala, Petriados and Livada. It is best in cool weather, not in summer heat.

On Exomvourgo there are 90 bolted sport routes in nine sectors, graded from 5b to 7b+, on granite up to 55 metres high. You can rent equipment, including crash pads, in Chora.

On the water

The northern beaches attract surfers, and the bays that face the meltemi attract windsurfers and kitesurfers all summer.

Tinos has become one of the more serious food islands in the Cyclades, and this is built on small local producers rather than imports.

The terraced fields grow artichokes — the crop the island is best known for, grown mainly around the Komi valley — together with capers, sun-dried tomatoes, figs and thyme honey.

The cheeses are unusual even for Greece. Kariki is a rare blue cheese, aged inside a dried gourd, and the blue veins come from wild moulds rather than an added culture. Volaki is a cow's milk cheese shaped into balls, which becomes crumbly and peppery as it ages. There is also graviera, the sharp kopanisti, and petroma, which has no salt.

Louza is the cured meat to look for: pork tenderloin cured in red wine with fennel, cinnamon and cloves.

Tinos Food Paths is a group of producers and restaurant owners, formed in 2015. They run a food festival every spring.