About Naxos Island

Naxos is the largest island in the Cyclades at 430 square kilometres, and the least like the postcard version of the group. It has mountains with running water, real farmland and an economy that does not depend entirely on August, alongside the beaches. That is why it looks green from the ferry when its neighbours look bare, and why it has fed much of the rest of the archipelago for centuries.

Layers of history

• Myth: Naxian tradition places the infancy of Zeus in a cave on the mountain that carries his name, Mount Zas. The island is also central to the story of Dionysos, and to the episode in which Ariadne is abandoned there by Theseus.
• Rulers: in antiquity the island passed through Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman hands. From 1207 it was the seat of the Venetian Duchy of the Archipelago, founded by Marco Sanudo, and it remained under Latin rule until the Ottoman takeover in 1566. Each administration left something standing.
• Emery: the northeast of the island, around Apeiranthos and Koronos, produced emery, a corundum-rich rock used as an industrial abrasive, and for a long stretch of the modern period this was Naxos' principal export. Olives, figs, citron and potatoes came from the valleys.

Naxos sits at the centre of the Cyclades with ferry links running in every direction, which makes it a common start or finish point for anyone moving between the islands under sail. If you are working out the best time to charter a gulet in Greece, the island's own weather is a fair guide: the meltemi is at its most persistent here in July and August, and conditions are gentler on either side of that window while the water stays warm.

The landmarks

The Portara is the island's emblem and the first thing visible on the approach to the harbour: a freestanding marble doorframe of four blocks weighing roughly 20 tonnes each, on the islet of Palatia, which is joined to Chora by a short causeway. It is all that was ever finished of a temple of Apollo begun around 530 BC under the tyrant Lygdamis. Work stopped when he was overthrown, and the rest of the marble was carried away over the following centuries for other buildings.

Mount Zas, at 1,001 metres, is the highest point in the Cyclades. The path up from Filoti takes a few hours, passes the cave associated with Zeus, and on a clear day the summit shows most of the island group laid out below. Back in the capital, the Kastro is the walled Venetian upper town of Chora, and the Della Rocca-Barozzi tower house inside it is still standing and open. Bazeos Tower, often mentioned in the same breath, is not in Chora at all: it stands inland near Sangri, dates from the seventeenth century, and began as the monastery of Timios Stavros.

The villages

Away from the port, Naxos is a mountain island, and its villages are the reason people come back.

• Apeiranthos, built almost entirely of grey marble, is thought to have been settled from Crete and still speaks a distinct local dialect. It holds several small museums for a village of its size.
• Sangri sits above the Temple of Demeter at Gyroulas, an early Ionic marble temple of the sixth century BC, partly re-erected on its own site.
• Filoti, the largest village on the island, lies at the foot of Mount Zas among olive groves and is where the climb normally starts.
• Halki, in the Tragaia valley, houses the kitron distillery and sits at the centre of a concentration of Byzantine churches dense enough that the valley has been called the Mistras of the Cyclades.

The coast

The long sandy beaches run down the west coast, sheltered from the worst of the north wind. Agios Georgios is the town beach, shallow and fully serviced, a few minutes' walk from Chora. Agios Prokopios, about 5 km further south, is the best known of the open stretches. The same wind that makes the summer bearable also makes this coast one of the more dependable windsurfing areas in the Aegean; kayaking and diving operate from the same beaches.

Inland, the fertile ground behind the dunes produces the olives, figs, potatoes and citron that go into the island's kitchen, along with graviera, the hard cheese Naxos is known for. The food is a large part of why visitors here tend to stay longer than they planned.