From the first minute that we set foot on Naxos, it has been our favorite island of the Cyclades, and its main town our favorite Greek settlement. As much as I prefer to explore new places on my travels – thus making Paros the centerpiece of this past summer’s Greek vacation – the pull of Naxos was such that including it on the itinerary was a no-brainer.
We even stayed at the same hotel (that was a definite first for us), the frankly incomparable in its homeliness and unassuming amenities Hotel Grotta at the northern edge of town. Here is what the core part of the Chora looks like from the hotel’s rooftop terrace.
The hilltop part is called Kastro (which means “castle”). The Venetian ruling class in the 13th-16th centuries segregated themselves from the Greek populace and built a fortified city-within-city. Remnants of that still exist in many places.
The lower-lying southeastern part of town is not rich in notable sights, which makes the dome cluster of the Saint Nikodimos Holy Orthodox Church even more of an eye-catcher.
We are now at another elevated vantage point, looking southward from a rooftop lounge on the side of Kastro that was hidden from us in the opening shot. As befits a largely low-key locale, the view is nice without many standout features, but closeups offer a measure of interest.
The opposite northward view towards Kastro, with the Sphinx of the Naxians in the foreground.
This is a very modern copy of the original statue that was offered as a votive gift to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi by a then relatively rich Naxos in the 6th century BCE in order to obtain the promanteia, a privilege of priority in asking the Oracle of Delphi. The original sphinx is housed in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi.
Repeat perspectives are somewhat unavoidable when you revisit a place you’ve been to before, and I am actually sort of surprised that I can only find a few definite repetitions of the same views that are found in my first Naxos portfolio.
That church ahead of us is the Cathedral of the Presentation of the Lord, situated at the highest point of the Kastro (you can see the tower and the dome in the upper middle part of the opening shot).
Here are a few of those aforementioned remnants of the Venetian castle.
And assorted other corners of the hilltop quarters.
Street art is not too obvious in town, but occasional examples can be found.
A couple of peeks into the specialty stores to the east of Kastro, where the marketplace was originally located.
Portara, the massive arch that is the only remaining part of an unfinished 6th-century BCE temple, is essentially Naxos’s calling card.
Here is one other repeated perspective of a view found in the first Chora portfolio. We are looking towards Kastro from underneath the Portara, only this time in the late-afternoon rather than early-morning sunlight.
The small islet on which the arch stands attracts hundreds of people every evening for the sole purpose of catching the sunset framed within the ancient “window”. I am, in most circumstances, unlikely to willingly spend time on something of this kind, given the number of unwanted companions. This time around, however, we ended up by the Portara at sunset because we had gone on a guided walking tour of Chora that was timed to conclude in that fashion.
Since I was here anyway, I did attempt the requisite shot. Of course, you need to be standing in a specific spot at a specific moment in time to obtain the perfect compositional alignment of the sun bookended by lower beams. Pushing off a guy who was occupying the coveted spot did not seem like a workable course of action, even as there was a fair amount of commotion on all sides of him. I managed to wedge myself into the crowd one or two degrees off the main axis and stood my ground to take a bunch of pictures, the best of which is probably this one.
The best sunset-viewing in Naxos takes place, in my completely and entirely unbiased opinion, on the aforementioned Hotel Grotta rooftop.
First is a picture that includes an airplane coming in for landing at the Naxos airport.
The airport is a self-professed contender for the title of the smallest in the world, with a tiny terminal and a short runway suitable at best to midsize turboprops, serving barely a dozen flights a day, most of them connecting Naxos with Athens. It is a curious fact that the entire island of Naxos has just two traffic lights, positioned at the opposite ends of a vehicular causeway that runs just a few meters beyond the end of the airport runway. They turn red only at the time of a plane landing or taking off.
The flight from Athens takes less than half an hour. But limited options and the absence of any international schedule very much contribute to Naxos not being as overrun with visitors as, say, Santorini or Mykonos, even in the peak season.
And here is a selection of the sunset sequence shots taken on that rooftop.
Can’t get enough of those views!
But Chora is not the only lovely town on Naxos. We will visit a few others in the upcoming installments.