Naxos

Naxos is the island returning visitors quietly recommend over its famous neighbours: the biggest and greenest of the Cyclades, prosperous enough from farming and marble never to need tourism desperately, and better for it. The Portara - a colossal marble doorway of an unfinished ancient temple - frames the sunset at the harbour's edge; the west coast runs in kilometres of genuinely sandy beaches from family-calm to windsurf-wild; and the interior climbs through olive and citrus valleys to marble-paved mountain villages under Mount Zas, the Cyclades' highest point, where mythology says Zeus was raised. The island's potatoes, cheeses and citrus liqueur are minor celebrities in Greece, and its tavernas cook like they mean it.

History

In Greek myth the young Zeus was raised in a cave on Mount Zas, whose name means Zeus, and Homer's "Dia", the "divine" island, was a name given to Naxos too. Legend tells that Theseus left Ariadne here after she helped him kill the Minotaur, and that Dionysus, protector of the island, found her and fell in love with her; the giant brothers Otus and Ephialtes appear in other Naxian myths, in one of them as the island's settlers (Wikipedia, Naxos).

What's there

• The Portara at sunset - the great marble gate on its islet by the harbour.
• The west-coast beaches - Agios Prokopios, Plaka and the long sands south.
• The mountain villages - Halki, Apiranthos and Filoti under Mount Zas.
• The kouros statues - the giant unfinished ancient figures still lying in their quarries.

When to go

May, June and September are the sweet months - swimming weather, uncrowded villages and hiking temperatures for Zas. July and August fill the beaches without overwhelming the big island the way smaller ones drown; the meltemi wind delights windsurfers at Mikri Vigla and tests beach umbrellas everywhere else.

Before you go

Naxos does not perform the caldera drama of Santorini or Mykonos's polish - its glamour is groceries, sand and marble lanes, which is exactly the appeal. Beaches near town fill in peak weeks; the sands run far enough south that walking solves it. A car earns its cost - the mountain villages and quarries are the island's second half, and buses serve them thinly. Ferries in high summer sell out; book the spine routes ahead.

Nearby

The Small Cyclades sail from Naxos daily; Paros is twenty minutes across the channel.

Key facts