The Erimitis cliffs at sunset

Almost the whole west coast of Paxos is cliff, and Erimitis is where you can stand on top of it. The rock is a soft near-white limestone streaked with ochre, cut into stacks and small caves by the open sea, and it falls sixty to eighty metres straight into water that stays a hard blue because nothing shallow is anywhere near.

There are two positions. From the clifftop terrace above the beach you get the classic wide, with the stacks below and the sun landing on the rock face. From the pebble beach at the bottom — a steep five-minute scramble — you shoot up at the wall, which gives scale but loses the horizon. Neither needs a long lens; the drama is in the geology, not the reach.

This is the sunset spot on the island and it is not a secret: a bar sits on the clifftop and fills in the last hour of light in high season. Go forty minutes earlier for the empty version and stay through the blue hour, when the rock keeps a warm cast against a cold sky. The edge is unfenced and undercut in places — stay on the worn ground and off the lip.