NAXOS TOWN (CHORA): THE HARBOUR CITY BENEATH THE PORTARA

Most visitors meet Naxos Town from the sea. As the ferry rounds the harbour, a lone marble doorway appears on a small islet, facing out toward Delos, and behind it the white town climbs to the walls of the Kastro. Locals simply call the town Chora — “the town” — and it has earned the word. Its community counts 8,897 residents (2021 census) and the wider municipal unit 14,708, making it by far the island’s largest settlement; it has been inhabited continuously since prehistory, and in its time it has been a Bronze Age port, an Archaic city-state, the capital of a Venetian duchy and, today, the working harbour from which the rest of Naxos fans out.

Palatia and the Portara: A Doorway to Nowhere

The Portara, or “great door,” is the emblem of the island: the monumental marble gateway of an unfinished temple of the 6th century BC, standing on the islet of Palatia at the northern end of the harbour. It was begun by the tyrant Lygdamis, who ruled Naxos from around 546 BC with the support of Peisistratos of Athens, and it was left incomplete when he was removed from power around 524 BC; later tradition adds that a war with Samos halted the work. The surviving frame rises to roughly six metres and is built of huge blocks of local Naxian marble, each weighing up to about 20 tonnes, which were brought from the quarry at Flerio some ten kilometres away. The temple is traditionally attributed to Apollo, because it faces Delos, though some scholars have suggested Dionysus, the patron god of Naxos.

Later history left its marks. A Christian church was built in the ruins, and a cut in the threshold, still visible, was made for the church door; much of the temple’s stone was later reused in the Venetian Kastro. Palatia is also where Greek myth sets one of its great love stories: here Theseus is said to have left Ariadne asleep after the Minotaur, and Dionysus found her and made her his wife. The islet has been joined to the town by a causeway since 1919, and the walk out along it, at sunset, is one of the simplest and best things to do on Naxos. It is a free, open-air site, so bring a light jacket for the evening wind rather than a ticket.

Layers of a Port: From Grotta to the Duchy

The oldest layer lies just north of the harbour at Grotta, where the remains of a Mycenaean-era city are still visible, partly beneath the sea and partly beneath the modern town. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Naxos dominated commerce in the Cyclades and its marble sculpture travelled to Delos and Delphi. In 490 BC a Persian fleet captured and burned the city, but the Naxian ships that were forced to join the Persian fleet are said to have switched sides at the battle of Salamis. In the Byzantine centuries the town was partly abandoned because of piracy, and the capital shifted inland.

The turning point came in 1207, when the Venetian Marco Sanudo made Naxos the capital of the Duchy of the Archipelago and moved the seat of government back to the coast, which had the better harbour. He built the Kastro on the old acropolis, and from 1207 to 1566 twenty-one dukes of two dynasties, Sanudo and Crispi, ruled from here. Under the Ottomans the town kept much of its administrative continuity, and after the revolution of 1821 Naxos finally joined the Greek state in 1832. A last wave of newcomers arrived in the 1920s, when refugees from Asia Minor founded the Prosfygika quarter, and the town expanded rapidly again with the arrival of tourism from the 1970s.

Four Old Quarters, One Walkable Town

The Old Town, roughly a third of the modern city, is made up of four historic parts. The Kastro on the hill was the fortified quarter of the Venetian and Catholic families, and several of their descendants still live there; we cover it in depth in our guide to the Kastro of Naxos. Below it, Bourgos — the name comes from the Venetian borgo — was the district of the merchants, artisans and landowners, a labyrinth of narrow lanes, dead ends and arched passages that is often said to have been laid out to confuse pirates. Nio Chorio, south of the Kastro, was where poorer farmers and labourers lived, and its streets are wider and gentler. Grotta in the north takes its name from the caves beneath the cliff at Aplomata. Near Bourgos was the old Jewish quarter, Evriaki. Wandering in no particular direction is the right way to see all of this, as every lane eventually leads either to the castle or to the sea.

The Old Market and the Paralia

Behind the harbour, the Old Market is a maze of covered passages and narrow streets lined with shops, bakeries and small tavernas, and it remains the heart of everyday town life. Along the water runs the Paralia, the seafront promenade, which combines a pedestrian street of shops and restaurants (Protopapadaki Street), a road that is closed to traffic on summer nights, and a walkway beside the sea. Sections of the promenade have been under restoration in recent seasons, so expect some detours. Out on a rock at the edge of the old harbour stands the tiny chapel of Panagia Myrtidiotissa, a favourite place for photographs at dusk and one of the smallest churches in town.

Cathedrals, Museums and an Excavation Beneath the Square

The Orthodox Cathedral of Zoodochos Pigi (“Life-Giving Spring”), at the northern end of the old town, took its present form between 1780 and 1787, built from materials taken from older churches and ancient monuments; tradition says its granite columns came from Delos. In front of it, an in-situ museum under the square opens a window onto the ancient city that lies below, with remains from the Mycenaean period to Roman times. The Archaeological Museum, in the Kastro above, is housed in a former 17th-century Jesuit school and holds one of the most important collections of Early Cycladic marble figurines. Opening hours change with the season, so check locally before planning a visit around them.

Beaches at the Edge of Town

Unusually for an island capital, Chora has its own beaches. Grotta lies at the northern edge of the old town, close to the archaeological site, while Agios Georgios, south of the town, is the long, popular town beach, lined with hotels, cafes and tavernas and sheltered enough to be a good choice when the summer wind is blowing. Both can be reached on foot from the centre, and the larger and wilder beaches of the south-west coast are a short drive beyond.

Festivals and the Town’s Calendar

Chora keeps a lively calendar. The Naxos Carnival is a three-day event with costumed parades and torch-lit processions; the feast of St Nicodemus on 14 July and that of Panagia Chrysopolitissa on 21 November are marked with parades and processions of icons. For a village-scale festival, see our guide to Filoti and its 15 August feast.

Practicalities: Ferries, Buses and Parking

The port connects Naxos to Piraeus, about 180 kilometres (100 nautical miles) away, and to the neighbouring islands; the airport, about three kilometres from the centre, has daily flights to Athens. The bus station is at the port, with regular KTEL services to the villages that run more often in summer; taxis wait by the harbour. Traffic and parking in the town can be difficult in July and August because several ferries arrive each day carrying vehicles, so the best approach is to leave the car at one of the free municipal car parks and walk. Local advice is that the tap water is not recommended for drinking, and many residents use filters or bottled water.

Nearby: Where the Island Begins

Chora is the natural starting point for every other excursion on Naxos. Within a few kilometres are the Temple of Dionysus at Yria and the Temple of Demeter at Sangri; farther inland lie the mountain villages, including the marble lanes of Apeiranthos and the amphitheatre of Filoti. The quarry at Flerio, from which the Portara’s marble was cut, is in the same direction.

It is easy to treat Chora as a transit point, a place to arrive, buy a ticket and leave. That would be a mistake. The town contains almost the whole story of the island in a single walk: a prehistoric port under the sea at Grotta, an unfinished temple on a rock, a Venetian citadel still lived in, a labyrinth of merchants’ streets, and a seafront where the island’s ordinary life carries on regardless. Give it an evening, and let the Portara have the last light.