Tinos

Tinos is the Cycladic island Greeks come to. The Panagia Evangelistria, in the upper town above the harbour, holds the icon found in 1823 that became the rallying symbol of the Greek War of Independence. On 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, pilgrims still climb the marble street to the church on their knees. Passenger ferries from Piraeus start running at 3am and fill the harbour. It is a serious religious observance, not a show for visitors.

The rest of the island runs at a different pace. Pyrgos, in the mountainous north, has been a marble-carving village since at least the seventeenth century, and its School of Fine Arts still trains sculptors. Hundreds of ornamental dovecotes stand across the hillsides like sculpture left in place: geometric stone towers with carved fretwork fronts, built by competing landowners over centuries.

Volax is the strangest of the inland villages. It sits in a field of giant granite boulders, and geologists still argue about what put them there. Its older men still weave reed baskets in the alleys. The food on Tinos is the surprise. In the last decade a handful of very good restaurants have opened in the small fishing villages on the west coast, with menus built on Tinian capers, raw cheeses and louza, the local sun-dried pork.

Late spring is the right time. From Easter to mid-June, before the August pilgrimage crowds the harbour, the food, the weather and the dovecote walks all line up. Tinos is a four-night island, and you will need a hire car.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    Tinos has no airport. From Athens, the SeaJet from Rafina takes 2 hours, and from Mykonos the crossing into Hora takes 30 minutes. At the height of summer the harbour and the road into Hora both gridlock behind the pilgrim crowds; a tender to a quieter cove, or a crossing outside the midday boats, avoids the worst of it.

  2. The address

    Pnoés Tinos is three minimalist villas in the Lagkades valley above Agios Fokas. Each villa has a private pool, and the earthy colours of the Cyclades run throughout. Diles & Rinies is the alternative for guests who want a full private villa rather than a hotel.

  3. Thalassaki at Isternia

    Thalassaki is Antonia Zarpa’s kitchen, on the platform at Ormos Isternion looking across to Syros, and is now in its third decade. Taramosalata, a dip of cured fish roe, and honeyed baked octopus are the dishes it is known for, and speedboats from Mykonos arrive for lunch. Book 3 weeks ahead in August.

  4. The Pyrgos museums

    Pyrgos has two separate museums. The Museum of Marble Crafts, run by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, shows the craft from quarry to chisel; it opens daily except Tuesdays, 10am to 6pm, from 1 March to 15 October. The childhood home of the sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas, at the entrance to the village, holds his tools, drawings and family rooms.

  5. The Cultural Foundation

    The Cultural Foundation stands at the south end of the quay in Hora. The Sacred Foundation of the Church of the Annunciation set it up in 2002 as a centre for conferences, exhibitions and research. Its permanent display of sculptures and plaster models by Yannoulis Chalepas is the reason to come, and a second hall changes its programme.

  6. The dovecote walk

    The valley below Tarabados holds the island’s highest concentration of restored dovecotes, about 20 in a narrow stretch of running streams and terraced gardens. Tinos Trails looks after the marked network across the island: roughly 150 kilometres of waymarked paths through the dovecote valleys, the marble villages and the granite-strewn plateau of Volax.

  7. Louza

    Tinian louza is the cured pork loin the island is known for. It is salted, steeped in dry rosé, rolled in local fennel seed, black pepper and allspice, then hung for 2 months to mature. Ioannis Kritikos cures it at his works in the port, next to the Tarsanas taverna; it was the first Cycladic fillet to carry an official designation, and the house has it cut to order and sent ahead to the villa, with the garlic and fennel sausage alongside.

  8. The beaches

    Kolymbithra in the north splits into two bays: Megali, with its surf school and beach bar, and Mikri, the shallower cove, sheltered for families. Pachia Ammos, in a cove behind Ai-Ioannis Porto, has dunes and turquoise water for a long midday. Livada, the wildest beach on the east coast, lies beneath the abandoned lighthouse of 1910.

  9. T-Oinos

    T-Oinos is a winery set among the granite boulders above Falatados, a quiet revival of the native Cycladic grapes: Assyrtiko, Mavrotragano and the near-forgotten Rosé planting. Clos Stegasta is the flagship wine, and visits and tastings are by appointment; the cellar is small and the harvest narrow. The estate has put Tinos back on the Greek wine map.

  10. Exomvourgo

    Exomvourgo, a cone of rugged granite 641 metres high that dominates southern Tinos, carries the ruins of the most powerful Venetian fortress in the Cyclades. From 1207, under the Ghisi brothers, it was the seat of the island’s government and a walled town of churches and houses, until an Ottoman fleet took it in 1715 and razed it over three days. A temple of Demeter once stood on the slopes and a Catholic monastery stands there now; the climb is short, and the view runs the length of the island.

Anchorage Notes

  1. Tinos Town

    Tinos Town has three ports along one waterfront, one for the passenger speedboats and two for the car ferries to Mykonos, Piraeus, Rafina, Andros and Syros, and a yacht moors among them. The wharf is the landing for the major Christian pilgrimage in Greece and lies 800 metres below the Panagia Evangelistria. In high summer the harbour and the road up are both gridlocked by the crowds.

  2. Panormos

    Panormos, at the island’s northwestern tip, is a small fishing village and one of the five Tinos harbours the Port Fund administers. It sits below the marble country, with Pyrgos and its quarries above, and its quay takes the fishing boats and tourist craft of this quiet end of the coast. A yacht lies here far from the pilgrim traffic of the town.

  3. Kionia

    Kionia lies 3 kilometres west of the town, where the Sanctuary of Poseidon and Amphitrite stands beside the sea. It was founded at the end of the fourth century BC and is the only sanctuary in the Cyclades raised to the sea god and his wife. A tender comes ashore here to a coast with a temple on it.

  4. Isternia

    Isternia is another of the five Tinos harbours on the Port Fund’s register: the bay below the marble village of the same name, on the terraced northwest coast. It is a small landing more than a working port, with the village climbing the slope above it. A tender takes the quay for the day, on the quiet stretch of coast between Panormos and the town.

Mythology

  1. Amphitrite

    At Kionia on Tinos, Amphitrite shared a sanctuary with Poseidon. Its temple held larger-than-life statues of both sea gods, and inscriptions record Amphitrite as a healer of women unable to bear children.