A short walk away from Piazza Vittoria down Via G. Orlandi, the church of San Michele is the village's principal sight, its tiled floor painted with an eighteenth-century depiction of the Fall that you view from an upstairs balcony - a lush work after a drawing by the Neapolitan painter Solimena , in rich blues and yellows, showing cats, unicorns and other creatures.

Continuing in the same direction, a good 45-minute hike away starting off down Via Lo Pozzo (or reachable by bus every twenty minutes from Piazza Vittoria), the Blue Grotto or Grotta Azzura is probably the island's best-known feature - though also its most exploitative, the boatmen here whisking visitors onto boats and in and out of the grotto in about five minutes flat (entrance L8000/€0.13, plus L7000/€3.62 for the rowing boat). The grotto is quietly impressive, the blue of its innards caused by the sun entering the cave through the water, but it's rather overrated, and the process is all over so quickly as to be barely worth the trip down here, let alone the extortionate fees. Technically, you can swim into the cave - it's not the exclusive preserve of the boatmen, though they'll try to persuade you otherwise - but the route through is so busy that unless you're a strong swimmer it's only advisable to try at the end of the day after the tours have finished. Incidentally, it's also possible to take a boat trip to the grotto direct from Marina Grande.

Time is much better spent walking in the opposite direction from Piazza Vittoria, past a long gauntlet of souvenir stalls to Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele (daily: March 9.30am-4.30pm; April 9.30am-5pm; May-Sept 9am-6pm; Nov-Jan 10.30am-3.30pm; L8000/€4.13), a light, airy house with lush and fragrant gardens that is one of the real highlights of the island. The Swedish writer and healer Munthe lived here for a number of years, and it's filled with his furniture and knick-knacks, as well as Roman artefacts ingeniously incorporated into the villa's rooms and gardens. Busts and bronzes abound: one statue of Hermes was given to Munthe by the city of Naples in thanks for his work in the city during the cholera epidemic of 1884 ; Corinthian capitals are converted as coffee tables, other surfaces topped with intricate Cosmati mosaic-work. His book The Story of San Michele - more the story of his life - is well worth a read.