Naxos Trip
As part of our long trip to Greece, we decided to visit just one island and spent a week there. Why Naxos? Over the years I have visited many islands, but I had some of my fondest memories from visiting Naxos while in college with friends. Naxos has some of the best beaches in Greece but is not as touristy and expensive as some of the other well-known islands (like Santorini and Mykonos). We also didn’t want to go to a remote island that is less touristy than Naxos because it typically takes much longer to get there from Athens. Naxos is a relatively large island compared to many other island (about 170 sq mile according to Wikipedia) and is well known for its beautiful beaches. It is relatively close to Athens. It takes about four hours with the fast ferry from Piraeus (the large port next to Athens) and we paid around 150 Euros per person round trip. Using the ferry is the most popular way to get to the islands (at least the ones close to Athens). Flying is an option although I think taking the ferry is more fun and relaxed. Naxos is large enough that a car is probably required. There are buses but the car provides more flexibility. We found a pretty inexpensive car for 30 Euros per day. The car was small but could fit 4 people and our luggage for the week. Therefore, we opted to get the rental rather than bring a car from Athens by ferry.
We decided to stay at the Plaka beach which is one of the most beautiful beaches in Naxos. It is not too crowded but also not too remote and relatively close to the main city of Naxos which we wanted to visit and did several times. The picture slightly exaggerates the beauty of the beach but only very slightly. It is a great beach. I’m not sharing my own pictures because they all include family members in bathing suits and I don’t think they will forgive me for sharing. We found a small two-bedroom apartment through Airbnb about 100 yards from the beach (easy walk) and ended up paying about $275 per night (we paid in $$s through Airbnb). Not bad for two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen/common area and a great porch. We had more than enough space for the four of us. The beach was really nice but the water was a bit cold for the rest of the family (mid-June) although everybody got in (just didn’t stay in as long as in warmer water). I often like to stay in the water for over an hour and I think only my daughter came close to that on one of the warmer days. There were chairs and umbrellas to rent at the beach but those are very pricey. We bought a couple of chairs and umbrellas locally for not that much (50 or so Euros total) and that was a much more economical arrangement. I think you can easily spend 40+ Euros per day if you want to rent them at the beach. We actually took the ones we bought back to Athens and left them with my mom so that we can use them for future trips.
We made several visits to the main town in Naxos (City of Naxos). We walked around the old town which was very beautiful (see picture on the left). There is not a great layout of the streets and as a result we got lost a couple of times but Google Maps bailed us out. We tried several of the restaurants in the town. We used mostly ratings on Google Maps and advice from our landlord and other people we met. I would say they were all good although none met my threshold for exceptional (really good authentic food and inexpensive). This is pretty hard to find these days given the number of tourists on the islands. We liked the Typografio restaurant a lot. The food was good and the environment was very pleasant. One place that stood out for the view (see picture) was up on the top of the castle called Avaton 1739. They are not a place for dinner but rather for drinks and desert. We had desert there and coffee which were good and got to the chance enjoy the view for a while. We did have a bit of trouble finding it because we were told to take the elevator to get to the top of the castle. Unfortunately, there were no signs. We had to ask several locals for directions to the elevator and even then we had trouble finding it. After the fact, I saw that Google Maps has the location so make sure you follow that if you’d like to go.
We did have an interesting Greek salad (as shown in the picture) in one of the restaurants (Sarris Tavern). The salad looked really pretty but we did not enjoy eating it as much. Taste was not the issue. It was too much effort to cut the different vegetables in smaller pieces. Especially the cucumber was barely cut. Everything we ate there though was good.
One of the things that Naxos is very famous for is cheeses. We were introduced to a cheese called arseniko which is a type of Greek kefalotyri which is similar to parmesan cheese. I personally preferred the local graviera which is similar to Swiss cheese. I was told to try the local xenomyzethra (ξινομυζηθρα in Greek) instead of feta cheese in the Greek salad. I must admit that everybody else in my family hated it and I ended up eating it myself. Unless you like sour cheese stick with feta cheese on your Greek salad. Our landlord recommended a store in the main town called Tziblakis local products. We tried that and bought some great cheese and other products from there. It is a bit more expensive than the super market but it has better selection and quality.
We were encouraged to visit some of the smaller villages and some of the ancient monuments on the island. We did drive around one morning when the weather was not very good and visited a couple of the villages. I’d say it was not worth the time. From the ones we visited, Filoti stood out but it was still not worth the drive in my opinion. Our main goal for our trip to Naxos was to relax and spending an hour in the car was not very appealing. It was also recommended to us to visit some other beaches but we skipped that. We had a beautiful beach close to our place and we didn’t feel like getting in the car to drive around to get to another beach that may be at most slightly more beautiful than the one we were at. We were going to do enough driving in the rest of our trip in Greece so we kept it simple in Naxos.
