Naxos, Cyclades, Greece

Day 1

• The Portara

  The marble doorway of a temple of Apollo that was never finished, begun in the 6th century BC on an islet in front of the harbour: it survived because its blocks were too big to be carted off and reused. You reach it on foot along the causeway, it's free, and it's where you watch the sunset.

• The Chora and the Venetian Kastro

  The main town climbs from the harbour through a tangle of covered lanes to the fortified quarter the Venetians built in the 13th century, family coats of arms still above the doorways, a Catholic cathedral and a small archaeological museum. Getting lost is the point, and it's all uphill.

• Archaeological Museum of Naxos

  Inside the Kastro, in the former Jesuit school where Nikos Kazantzakis studied: the collection of third-millennium-BC Cycladic marble figurines is among the most important in the Aegean, and explains where the whole aesthetic of the islands comes from.

Day 2

• Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna and Plaka

  The three beaches in a row south of the Chora, linked by frequent buses: pale sand, shallow clear water for hundreds of metres and a stretch of shore that always stays free. Plaka is the longest and quietest, with naturist sections towards the far end.

• Mount Zas

  The 1,004 metres of the highest peak in the Cyclades, which myth makes the place where Zeus grew up: two hours up from Filoti or from the little church of Agia Marina, passing the cave named after the god. From the top you see Paros, Ios, Amorgos and, on clear days, Santorini.

• Apeiranthos

  The marble village on the slopes of Fanari, with paved streets, iron balconies and five small museums that open in rotation. Its people descend from Cretan settlers and speak a distinctive dialect: the handsomest village on the island and one of the most genuine in the Cyclades.

Day 1

• The kouroi of Flerio and Apollonas✦ hidden gem

  Archaic statues up to ten metres long, abandoned in the quarries where they cracked during carving and left there for two and a half thousand years, still attached to the rock. The Apollonas one is in the north, the two at Flerio half an hour from the Chora among olive trees: free to visit.

• Alyko, the cedar forest and the abandoned hotel✦ hidden gem

  A dune peninsula holding the last juniper-cedar forest in the Cyclades and, in the middle of it, the shell of a hotel that was never finished, now an open-air gallery of murals. The coves around it are the most secluded on the west coast.

• Bazeos Tower and the Naxos Festival✦ hidden gem

  A 17th-century tower-monastery out in the countryside, restored and turned into a cultural venue: from late spring to autumn it hosts exhibitions, theatre, concerts and screenings. The finest way to spend an evening on the island without ending up in a tourist taverna.

Day 2

• Panagia Drosiani at Moni✦ hidden gem

  A small dark-stone church from the 6th century with some of the oldest frescoes in the Balkans, which survived iconoclasm because they were hidden under later layers. Ten minutes to visit, for a donation, just outside the village of Moni on the road to Apeiranthos.

• Filoti and the Tragea valley✦ hidden gem

  A vast unbroken olive grove in the heart of the island, with ancient stone paths linking Byzantine chapels and mountain villages. This is the Naxos nobody expects: green, shaded and cool even in July, perfect for a morning walk.

Day 1

• Potatoes, graviera and arseniko

  Naxos potatoes carry a protected geographical indication and are a serious point of local pride; the cheeses are the PDO cow's-milk graviera and arseniko, a sharp aged sheep's cheese. In the inland tavernas you eat what grew two kilometres away.

• Naxos kitron

  The liqueur distilled from citron leaves, made on the island since the mid-19th century and protected by designation: sweet green, dry yellow, very strong white. Drunk ice-cold at the end of a meal, and the bottle is the most sensible souvenir to take home.

• Fish tavernas and harbour souvlaki

  Along the Chora waterfront and in fishing villages like Moutsouna you eat fish by weight and sun-dried octopus; in the lanes, souvlaki costs a few euros and is everyone's fast meal. As everywhere in Greece, ask the price per kilo before ordering a whole fish.