Paros

Paros has quietly become the island insiders choose. It has the whitewashed beauty of its famous neighbours, the food scene to match and none of the crush; a place where you can dine brilliantly in Naoussa one evening and have a mountain village square to yourself the next morning.

The coast is remarkably varied for one island. Kolymbithres curls around granite boulders on the calm side of the bay, Santa Maria offers clear shallows for families and the east coast catches the meltemi wind that makes Golden Beach and Pounda a world stage for kitesurfing. A short boat hop away, Antiparos adds sea caves and even quieter sands.

Inland, Paros remembers where its marble went: to the Venus de Milo and half the great sculpture of antiquity. Lefkes, the old capital, sits high in the hills along a Byzantine footpath that still makes one of the loveliest walks in the islands, and in Parikia the Ekatontapiliani, the Church of a Hundred Doors, has stood since the fourth century.

With our local team, Paros comes together effortlessly: a villa near the right beach for your kind of holiday, dinner reservations on Naoussa's harbour, a skipper for the day trip to Antiparos and the walks and villages matched to your pace. You arrive, and the island simply flows.