Tinos · Towns & villages

Towns & villages of Tinos

Harbour towns, mountain hamlets and the places where island life still follows its own rhythm.

Exomeria & the marble villages

Pyrgos

The village of the marble carvers, where even the graves are works of art

Pyrgos is the largest village of Tinos and the home of its marble carvers, in the north-west of the island above the bay of Panormos. Marble is everywhere: in the doorframes and the carved fanlights over the doors, the fountain and the benches in the square under the plane tree, the bell towers and the steps. It has a school of fine arts where young carvers still learn the craft, the Museum of Marble Crafts, the house of the sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas, and a cemetery of marble tombs that people come to visit as if it were a gallery.

The Museum of Marble Crafts
The house of Yannoulis Chalepas
Coffee under the plane tree in the square
The marble tombs of the cemetery
Carvers at work in the workshops

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Tinos Town & the coast either side

Tinos Town

The port town of the pilgrims, climbing to the church of the Evangelistria

Tinos Town, which islanders call Chora, is the port and capital of the island, a working Cycladic town of white houses and pastel mansions climbing from the harbour to the great marble church of Panagia Evangelistria. Its two main streets run straight up the hill: one lined with shops selling candles, icons and votive offerings, the other with a strip of carpet along its edge for pilgrims who make the climb on their knees. Behind them are lanes of tavernas, bakeries and bars, and on either side of town the beaches of Agios Fokas and Kionia.

The church of Panagia Evangelistria
The pilgrims' street up from the harbour
The Archaeological Museum
Dinner in the lanes behind the port
Sunset over Syros from the harbour wall

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Exomvourgo & the inner villages

Volax

A tiny village in a field of giant granite boulders, where baskets are still woven by hand

Volax is a small village on a high plateau in the middle of the island, and it looks like nowhere else in Greece. It sits among hundreds of enormous round granite boulders, some as big as the houses, scattered across the land as if a giant had dropped them. Geologists explain them as granite worn into shape by wind and weather; the islanders have stories of their own. Only a few dozen people live here, in white houses between the rocks, and some of them still weave baskets from cane and willow in the old way.

Walking among the granite boulders
The basket weavers' workshops
The little open-air theatre
Lunch at a taverna in the square
The view up to Exomvourgo

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Exomvourgo & the inner villages

Tarambados

A hamlet above a valley full of the island's famous dovecotes

Tarambados is a small hamlet north of Exomvourgo, and below it lies the valley that has the finest dovecotes on Tinos. Dozens of them stand among the stone-walled terraces: two-storey towers whose upper walls are a lace of flat stones set in triangles, diamonds, suns and cypress trees, so that the pigeons can fly in and out. A footpath runs down through the valley between them, past the old threshing floors and fields.

The dovecote valley path
The stone patterns on the towers
Terraces and dry-stone walls
Quiet, with Exomvourgo above

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The west-coast villages

Kardiani

A green village of springs and gardens hanging above the west coast

Kardiani hangs on the steep slope of Mount Pateles above the west coast, one of the greenest villages on Tinos. Water from the mountain runs through it, so there are gardens, fig and lemon trees, fountains and terraces of vegetables, and from its lanes you look straight down to the sea and across to Syros. It has a Catholic and an Orthodox church, marble doorways and fanlights, and a path down to the beach of Giannaki at its foot.

The springs and gardens
The view down to the sea and Syros
Marble fanlights over the doors
The path down to Giannaki beach

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The west-coast villages

Isternia

Marble, blue domes and a bay of fish tavernas far below

Isternia is a village of marble carvers on the west coast, between Kardiani and Pyrgos, built in tiers on a slope that falls steeply to the sea. Its church has a dome of blue and white tiles, its doorways and fountains are carved in local marble, and its cafés look out over the Aegean to Syros. Far below, at the end of a winding road, is Ormos Isternion, its little harbour, with a beach under tamarisks and fish tavernas at the water's edge.

The tiled dome of Agia Paraskevi
Sunset from the cafés on the slope
Fish by the water at Ormos Isternion
Marble doorways and fountains

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Exomeria & the marble villages

Panormos

The fishing harbour where the marble of Pyrgos was once loaded onto ships

Panormos is the little harbour in the deep bay below Pyrgos, at the far north-west of the island. For centuries the marble carved in the villages above was brought down here and shipped across the Aegean. Today it is a quiet fishing harbour with a short waterfront of tavernas and cafés, painted boats tied up at the quay, and small beaches around the bay, the best of them Rochari, a short walk away.

Fish at a table by the boats
The beach of Rochari
The quay where the marble was shipped
An easy evening after Pyrgos

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Regions

Where to base yourself in Tinos

Tinos Town & the coast either side

The port and capital around the church of the Evangelistria, its lanes of tavernas and shops, the beaches of Agios Fokas and Kionia, the ancient sanctuary of Poseidon, and Ktikados on the slope above.

Exomvourgo & the inner villages

The granite rock of Exomvourgo with its Venetian ruins, and the villages around it: Volax among its boulders, Tarambados and its dovecotes, Kampos, Krokos and Loutra, many of them Catholic.

Exomeria & the marble villages

The windy north-west, where the quarries are: Pyrgos and its carvers, the harbour of Panormos, and small stone villages like Marlas, Mamados and Platia.

The west-coast villages

A chain of hill villages looking across to Syros: Kardiani in its gardens, Isternia with its blue domes, and steep roads down to small bays.

Porto & the east

The farming east and the long sandy coast facing Mykonos: Agios Ioannis Porto, Agios Sostis and Pachia Ammos below, Steni, Arnados and the monastery of Kechrovouni above.

The north coast

Open to the meltemi, wild and sparsely built: the dunes and river mouth of Kolymbithra, the granite of Livada, and tracks to bays with nothing at them.

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Last updated 12 November 2026