Best hotels I stayed in: Chez Sophie Santorini, Polikandia Folegandros, Grotta Naxos

Best food: Milos, Mykonos, Syros.

Best restaurants I ate in: Filippos Kea (grill), Baboulas Mykonos, Floisvos (Milos), Simos (Sifnos).

Best single meal: Baboulas Mykonos (Mussels cooked in seawater is out of this world).

Best view: Santorini caldera from Akrotiri (not from Oia).

Best view from my hotel: Hotel Stavros, Sifnos. And here it is.

Best nightlife: Mykonos, Ios, Paros.

Best driving: Andros (the roads are high up looking down on the Aegean like California’s Highway One).

Best night out: Club Dubliner Paros (it helped that I didn’t pay for drinks).

Best Sunset: Ios, Folegandros, Santorini.

Best Camping: Paraga Mykonos, Aghia Irini Paros.

Friendliest: Kimolos, Kea, Serifos.

Quietest: Kythnos, Serifos.

Best for Birdwatching: Kimolos, Serifos, Naxos.

Best museums: Folklore Museum Paros, Ecclesiastical Museum Milos (is it a coincidence they are both private museums, I wonder).

Best beaches: Paros, Milos, Naxos.

Most beach for your buck: Serifos (best value for money island in the Cyclades).

Weirdest experience: fish falling from the sky on Serifos while I was lying on the beach (looked up and two seagulls were fighting).

Most serendipitous experience: Meeting my old classmate Nikos Papandreou on Andros.

Prettiest single town: Batsi, Andros, Chora Folegandros, Naoussa Paros.

Personal Highlight: Tour of the island of Milos.

Cultural Highlight: The church of Ekantopyliani, Paros built by Emperor Constantine the Great.

Gobsmacked by: The Lost El Greco, Syros; The Marble city of Pyrgos, Tinos.

Best rental car: Huyndai Getz.

Driving nightmare: Mykonos (drunk Italians), Kimolos (roads), Santorini (proliferation of quad bikes).

Worst roads (what ‘pristine’ really means): Kimolos – probably why there is no car rental on the island.

Worst rental car: Fiat Punto (see below).

Worst rental car experience: Fiat Punto fuel pump failure on Sifnos, leaving me stranded in 30C heat with no shade. Rental company response: “Well, it happens with Fiats”.

Worst meal: Sikinos ( only one restaurant, ergo no competition).

Eaten by mosquitoes on: Sikinos.

To Be Fair to the Island: Clearest water: Sikinos.

Most interesting : Syros, Tinos, Folegandros.

Best for trekking: Sifnos, Tinos.

Best Season to go: 20 June-30 June and 1 Sep-10 Sep (the sea is also warmer then).

Worst Season to go: August (Far too many people and prices become stratospheric).

Disappointed by: Ios (I love this island but there now seems to be a local campaign against the young tourists who have made the island their own).

Will deffo return to: Serifos, Paros, Naxos.

I don’t think I will return to: Kythnos, Sikinos (but never say never).