Paros

Paros is the practical centre of the Cyclades, and every guest asks the same question: whether to stay in Parikia or Naoussa. Choose Naoussa for the food and the evenings on the harbour. Choose Parikia for the ferries, the church and a quieter base. If you have four nights, split them.

The island’s history rests on its stone. Parian marble, prized since antiquity for its translucence, the way light passes a little into it, was quarried in the hills above the village of Marathi and shipped across the ancient Mediterranean. The mines are silent now but can still be visited. The Hermes of Praxiteles in the Olympia museum was carved from this stone, as was much of the finest sculpture of the classical period.

In the centre of Parikia stands the Panagia Ekatontapiliani, the Church of One Hundred Doors. It is attributed to the mother of Constantine the Great and is one of the few surviving fourth-century Byzantine churches in Greece. Local tradition holds that 99 of its doors have been counted. The hundredth, it is said, will reveal itself only when Constantinople returns to Greek hands.

Naoussa has changed in the last decade. The harbour once held only fishermen mending nets. It now holds restaurants of real ambition alongside the old kafenia, the traditional coffee houses. The ruins of the Venetian fortress at the harbour entrance are still partly under water at high tide. Inland, Lefkes, a village paved in marble, is the place to escape the August heat of the coast for a long lunch.

House Notes

  1. Arrival

    Paros has its own airport (PAS), with daily flights from Athens and seasonal charter flights from Europe, and a helicopter from Athens takes about 45 minutes. For a day trip to Antiparos, a short car ferry crosses through the day from Pounta on the island’s western tip, or a hired boat crosses the mile of the sound direct.

  2. The address

    Cosme, on Naoussa Bay, is a 40-suite Luxury Collection resort by Interior Design Laboratorium, with a half-moon pool that mirrors the bay and chef Yiannis Kioroglou’s Parostia and Volta restaurants on the beach. Parīlio is a 46-suite hotel set inland in a quiet valley on the north-eastern coast, built in colour-washed concrete and local marble.

  3. The kitchens

    Mario, now in Parikia after 17 years on the Naoussa harbour, is the refined kitchen that the other restaurants of Paros are measured against. Siparos at Xifara, 3 kilometres east of Naoussa, has a tamarisk garden for a long dinner at sunset. Sigi Ikhthyos, on the harbour square at Naoussa, serves fish grilled in the evening by Giannis Zoumis himself.

  4. The Marathi quarries

    At Marathi, two underground galleries, the Quarry of the Nymphs and the Quarry of Pan, were opened in the 7th century BC and worked into late antiquity. They gave lychnite, the snow-white statuary marble unique in its translucence, from which the Hermes of Praxiteles, the Aphrodite of Milos and the Victory of Samothrace were carved. Visits are arranged through Friends of Paros.

  5. The Aegean Center

    The Aegean Center for the Fine Arts is an art school founded in 1966 in a restored neoclassical building in the old town of Parikia, and the only school of its kind in the Cyclades. It runs two semester-long programmes a year for at most 24 students, and 15-day summer workshops in painting, drawing, photography, printmaking and classical singing.

  6. The beaches

    Kolymbithres, west of Naoussa, has granite formations that make natural pools, and Monastiri, in the same bay, is calm and shallow. Santa Maria, on the east coast, is for snorkelling, and Faragas, in a sheltered bay on the south coast, is for a windy day. Water taxis from the old port of Naoussa reach Kolymbithres, Monastiri and Laggeri.

  7. Antiparos, the day trip

    The car ferry from Pounta to Antiparos takes 10 minutes and runs through the day. The Antiparos cave, in the hill at the centre of the island, descends nearly 100 metres into chambers of stalactites, with Greek inscriptions on its walls from the 4th century BC; the Marquis de Nointel celebrated Christmas Mass inside it in 1673. A guided visit takes about an hour.

  8. Ekatontapyliani

    Behind its legend of a hundred doors, Ekatontapyliani is a three-aisled cruciform basilica raised over an ancient gymnasium and reworked under Justinian, with parts of its marble iconostasis (the screen before the altar) and its pulpit kept from the Early Christian period. Beside the main church, the 4th-century baptistery is among the best kept in the Orthodox East, with a cruciform font cut whole into the marble. The Byzantine Museum in the complex holds the icons and woodcarvings.

  9. The Byzantine Road

    A marble-paved track a thousand years old runs for an hour from Lefkes, the mountain village that was the first capital of Paros, down to Prodromos, through olive groves and vineyards thick with thyme and oregano. Some stretches keep their original marble paving intact, and on others it lies scattered in the dirt. Prodromos closes its lanes to cars under a domed arch that links two small churches, and the four beaches of Molos, Kalogeros, Tsoukalia and Drios lie below.

  10. Moraitis at Naoussa

    The Moraitis estate at Aghioi Anargyroi, by the beach, was founded by Manolis Moraitis in 1910 and is now in its third generation, with 18,000 square metres of organic vineyard. Its varieties are native to the Cyclades: Monemvasia, Mandilaria, Aidani Black, Vaftra and Karampraimi. Paros is held to be the ark that preserved the Monemvasia grape from the time of Venetian rule onward.

Anchorage Notes

  1. Parikia

    Parikia is the central port and the island’s hub. Alongside the ferries, the Municipal Port Fund of Paros and Antiparos serves small and large speedboats, sailing and motor yachts, fishing boats and tenders at its marina. It is the busiest harbour in the Cyclades by daily arrivals, with nearly 30 ferry calls a day in high summer, so a yacht lies here in company or lies at Naoussa instead.

  2. Naoussa

    Naoussa, on the great bay to the northeast, holds the largest fishing fleet in the Cyclades, and the Port Fund calls it one of the most picturesque small harbours in the whole Aegean. It has grown into a summer town and is still the island’s working ψαροχώρι, its fishing village. A yacht lies among caïques, the traditional wooden fishing boats, and the catch comes ashore to the tavernas around the quay.

  3. Piso Livadi

    Piso Livadi, on the east coast, is a fishing refuge (αλιευτικό καταφύγιο) in the Port Fund’s register, and it has always taken larger yachts and impressive inflatables as well as its own boats. It is a seaside settlement rather than a resort, with its tavernas along the water. It is the harbour for a vessel that wants the quieter, unfashionable side of Paros.

  4. Pounta

    Pounta, on the western tip of Paros, is the port for Antiparos, across the strait the Port Fund names Amphigeo: 1 nautical mile, or about 5 minutes by car ferry. It is a crossing point more than a harbour to lie in. The small ferries run constantly through the day, and a chartered tender can make the crossing as easily under its own power.