Gaios

Gaios is the capital of Paxos, the smallest of the seven principal Ionian Islands, and sits on the island's east coast facing a narrow strait rather than the open sea. The town had 1,396 residents at the 2021 census and takes its name, according to local tradition, from a disciple of Paul the Apostle who is said to have brought Christianity to the island. It is the main port of Paxos and the seat of a municipality that recorded 2,466 inhabitants in the same census, divided between Gaios and the two smaller northern harbours of Lakka and Longos.

A Harbour Sheltered by Two Islets

Two islets shelter the harbour from open water: Agios Nikolaos, directly opposite the town, and Panagia a little further north. The channel between the town quay and Agios Nikolaos is so narrow that arriving boats seem to be entering a river rather than a bay. Panagia, the northern islet, holds a small whitewashed monastery that opens to visitors once a year, on Assumption Day in August, when islanders cross the short stretch of water for the service. The combination of a sheltered, old-feeling harbour, olive-covered hills behind the town and a genuinely historic waterfront has made Gaios a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Greece, who can walk the quay in an afternoon before returning to their yacht for the night.

The Venetian Fort on Agios Nikolaos

On Agios Nikolaos stands a Venetian fort begun in 1423, when Adam II San Ippolito, nephew of the first Venetian lord of Paxos, obtained permission from the Venetian Senate to build it at his own expense. Work dragged on for generations and the fortress was only completed in 1510. Its purpose was blunt: to give the islanders somewhere to shelter from the pirate raids that plagued the Ionian in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and a second, smaller castle was raised inland at Dialetos for the same reason. Much of the outer wall survives today, along with a water tank, a gunpowder store, a watchtower, a few abandoned cannon and two small chapels dedicated to St Nicholas and St John. The defences did not spare Paxos entirely, since Ottoman attacks in 1537 and 1571 devastated the island's population, and in 1814 British forces occupied the fort during the closing stages of the Napoleonic Wars, an operation in which Theodoros Kolokotronis, later a leader of the Greek War of Independence, took part.

Venice, Britain and Union with Greece

Venice took control of Paxos at the end of the fourteenth century and held it until the Republic fell in 1797. After the Napoleonic Wars the island became part of the United States of the Ionian Islands, the British protectorate established in 1815, and it passed to Greece in 1864 along with the rest of the Ionian group, ceded following the coronation of King George I. A small local museum on the waterfront, housed in a former school, follows that story from prehistoric flint tools through Classical pottery, Venetian-era weapons and household goods, and everyday objects from the British and early Greek years.

Olive Groves, Sea Caves and Antipaxos

Paxos itself is tiny, covering about 25 square kilometres, roughly 10 kilometres long and nowhere more than 3 kilometres wide, rising to just 231 metres at Agios Isavros. Almost all of that interior is olive grove, and until tourism took over in the mid-1960s the island lived on olive oil, soap manufacture and fishing. The two coasts could hardly be less alike. The eastern side, where Gaios lies, is low and indented with small bays; the western side is a wall of white chalky cliffs, undercut at sea level into a series of blue caves, the largest of which, Ypapanti, is big enough to take a small boat inside. Further along that coast the sea has cut clean through the rock to form the Tripitos arch, while the cliffs at Erimitis face the sunset. Five kilometres to the southeast lies Antipaxos, an almost uninhabited islet of vineyards whose beaches at Vrika and Voutoumi are the usual afternoon destination for boats leaving Gaios. Greek myth explains the whole arrangement neatly: Poseidon is said to have struck Corfu with his trident and broken off Paxos so that he and Amphitrite could have somewhere quiet.

Getting There and When to Go

There is no airport on Paxos, so every visitor arrives by water. Ferries reach Gaios from Igoumenitsa on the mainland in about an hour and a half and from Corfu to the north, with faster hydrofoils added during the tourist season, while yachts and gulets simply come alongside the town quay. The sailing season runs from late spring to early autumn, with the warmest, calmest water in July and August and noticeably quieter streets in June and September. Because the island is small and the distances short, most visitors treat Gaios as a base: an hour's walk inland reaches olive terraces and stone villages, and the boat trip around to the western caves takes half a day.