Six of the best experiences in the Greek Cyclades Islands

Blue-domed churches and whitewashed houses – these are the calling cards of the Cyclades, but delve deeper for local, transformative experiences.

Swim at Agia Anna on Amorgos

Agia Anna, one of the Cyclades’ prettiest coves.

Swimming at Agia Anna, one of the Cyclades prettiest coves, is akin to being in a Greece film set and it was – as a film location for free-diving movie The Big Blue. Underwater, the various gradients of blue are beautiful beyond belief, with saturated emerald and inky tones easing to a cobalt and heliotrope haze. Above the surface is a dreamscape of cliffs and a miniature, blue-domed church. If you’ve just visited the 1200-year-old Monastery of Panagia Hozoviotissa, which clings vertiginously mid-cliff 300 metres above, a sweat-sluicing swim reinvigorates both body and soul.

Cook with Anthony Bourdain’s mentor on Naxos

Dishes at the Naxian Collection include produce from the hotel’s garden.

When the late, great Anthony Bourdain came to Naxos to plunder its secrets to turbo-charged food flavours, he headed to the Naxian Collection. Not for their swish sugar cube shaped villas with pools but to learn village-style cooking from the owner’s mother, Juliana. Cooking dishes with her like traditional Gemista (stuffed vegetables) is available to guests and includes selecting ingredients from the hotel garden. Julianna speaks limited English, but while chopping, laughing and swapping stories you’ll find her philotimo (the Greek concept of open hearted welcome) and humility leave the deepest and sweetest aftertaste. See naxiancollection.com/en/

Eat at Captain Pipinos on Antiparos

Seafood is the star of the show at Captain Pipinos.

It’s easy to see why Tom Hanks purchased a house on Antiparos, a tiny island of raw beauty near Paros. His signed photo rests at remote Captain Pipinos, but the star of the show here is the seafood. Headline acts include calamares with tentacles like sausages, cuttlefish caught by the owner’s fisherman father and the shrimp with feta and parsley deserves a standing ovation. There’s no pretension, it’s all about the blissful Cycladic breeze and taste explosions so fresh and zesty you’ll want only one thing – a sequel. See captainpipinos.com

Harvest honey with the Bee Man of Folegandros

Learning about beekeeping on Folegandros.

My young daughter barely breathes as beekeeper Yiannis Lidis gently dots her closed fist with fresh honey, coaxing a bee to feed. “Look”, he whispers. “Bees are our friends.” Under her netted face mask she smiles and I mentally do a didactic travel fist pump. Bees are a keystone species for our planet’s survival and here on Folegandros, a tiny, volcanic island rearing out of the Aegean like a piece of precious, polished pumice, we’ve donned full suits, sampled golden liquid oozing from hives like a sweet lava run and learned how to protect the planet. Unbee-lievable. @Chrisospilia on Instagram.

Visit the winery at the end of the world on Serifos

Most don’t make it to Serifos, the last in a trilogy of neighbouring islands, including moonscape Milos and gourmand magnet Sifnos. But once here, a wild slice of Greece awaits. Chrysoloras Winery is so far off the beaten track (the access road is barely a track) that arriving at the architect-designed eyrie with jaw-dropping vistas is completely unexpected. Two brothers are reviving almost extinct local varietals (the Serifotiko wine you’ll find only here), plus biodynamic wines. So, if wondering what’s at the end of the world (in tourism terms), it’s a stellar winery. Cheers to that. See chrysoloras.gr

Sail Santorini’s Caldera

In the Cyclades, Poseidon’s call dominates, and if there’s one experience to splurge on it’s a day with Renieris Santorini Sailing Centre, sailing the caldera on your own odyssey. Far from any crowds, sail past Akrotiri Lighthouse, Red Beach and nose onto a private mooring at volcanic Nea Kameni island, contemplating Santorini-as-lost-civilisation-of-Atlantis theories. If time-rich, continue to Thirasia further east, the caldera island with few inhabitants and negligible tourism as most don’t even know it exists. See sailingsantorini.gr