Why this hidden Greek island is the perfect birdwatching break

It turns out there are still some near-secret Cycladic isles. From Santorini, solitude-seekers leave the crowds behind on a ferry bound for a little-known alternative: Folegandros, where there’s no such thing as an airport or cruise ship terminal. This is an island of rocks and hard places, where locals still tend to their donkeys, grasses whisper in the salty breeze and disused farm terraces cascade gently towards the Aegean.

There’s not much on the island — and that’s its charm. Highlights are low-key: sharing lemony calamari with the sparrows at Agali Beach’s clifftop taverna and exploring the old town of Chora, where locals meet around wooden tables and street cats play amid the bougainvillea.

At dusk, there’s one thing to do: navigate the hairpin bends up to Panagia church, whose lofty perch affords the best view of the island in the day’s dying light. Falcons wheel overhead, the sound of the lapping ocean washes up from far below and the world seems to hold its breath as it takes in the sun-washed show.

The experience

Just one main road carves a path across Folegandros — and a relatively new branch of it, to the island’s south west, leads to Gundari. Little more than a rudimentary track, the route bumps across the rocky terrain until the clifftop hotel emerges, mirage-like, on the horizon, backed by a sweep of blue sea. It’s built from the island’s rust-hued stone, enhanced by woven willow canopies and olive trees.

Gundari sits in 80 acres of a bird preservation zone, and the hotel has partnered with Greek nature conservation consultant Dr Tasos Dimalexis to help protect the native Eleonora’s falcon — a slender peregrine doppelganger that can be found here between March and October. Some two thirds of the world’s population of Eleonora’s falcons, which is thought to currently stand at around 20,000, breed in and around the Greek islands.

On a boat journey alongside Dr Dimalexis, one of the bird’s foremost researchers, guests can circle Folegandros and its surrounding isles in search of falcons, learning about their behaviour while keeping an eye out for Bonelli’s eagles, too. Guests can also help researchers with bird’s-nest monitoring via live camera feeds, participate in volunteer surveillance expeditions south east to the Christiana Islands or embark on guided hikes.

The stay

Getting to Gundari is part of the adventure, but once you arrive at this boutique resort, life is simple. Late-risers breakfast on Greek yoghurt with nuts and honey; pool-damp feet pad across warm honeyed stone; and all sound narrows to just lapping water, bleating goats and the whispers of a book’s pages being turned by the breeze. Eleonora’s falcons and Bonelli’s eagles wheel in the sky, looping around the craggy cliff head that looms large in the views of the 27 suites and villas. Each one is south-facing to shelter against the northern Meltemi winds in summer, with sun-heated infinity pools that spill over the cliff edge into the unbroken Aegean. And the rooms are suitably rustic — furnished in wood, rattan and a natural palette of earthy browns. Some feature open-air showers, too.

Days here are best spent lazily, whiling away the hours before lunch beside the clifftop lap pool and swim-up bar. At Orizon, a contemporary Greek menu awaits, crafted by Lefteris Lazarou, who opened Greece’s first Michelin-starred restaurant. What’s available changes with the seasons, and ingredients are sourced from across the island, as well as from the hotel’s own garden. Seafood features heavily, with the likes of cuttlefish risotto with squid ink, and orzo with shrimps, Lemnos sweet wine and chilli. After lunch, it’s back to the pool — or to the subterranean spa for a treatment using Folegandros’s native herbs.