FILOTI: THE VILLAGE AT THE FOOT OF ZEUS’S MOUNTAIN

Where Apeiranthos is a village of marble, Filoti is a village of amphitheatre: whitewashed houses stacked up the slopes of two hills, olive groves spilling down into the Tragea valley, and above everything the grey bulk of Mount Zas, the highest summit in the Cyclades. It lies about 18 kilometres from Chora on the island’s main road, at an altitude of roughly 400 metres, and it is generally counted the largest village on Naxos — the 2021 census recorded 1,617 residents, while local sources round the figure up to about 1,800. Yet it has not become a museum of itself. Filoti is a working shepherds’ and farmers’ village, with a lively main square, and that is much of its appeal.

A Village Between Two Hills and a Mountain

Filoti is built on the slopes of two hills at the foot of Mount Zas, which rises to about 1,004 metres. The surrounding summits leave only two openings: one running west toward the Tragea valley, the other south toward the livestock farms. What now appears as a single village is in fact a union of smaller settlements, usually named as Klefaro, Rachidi and Lioiri (the spellings vary), of which Klefaro and Rachidi are the two main neighbourhoods. The name is ancient and is generally thought to be of Ionian origin. The streets are narrow, paved and often hung with flowers, the houses are flat-roofed, and residents traditionally use those roofs as terraces in the warm months.

From Frankish Fief to Mountain Stronghold

The cave on Mount Zas shows that people were using this landscape long before there was a village, but the written story begins with the Venetians. When Marco Sanudo divided Naxos into fiefs after 1207, one of them was recorded under the name Filotis, and the area remained one of the more important feudal holdings of the Duchy. Local history summarised in the standard reference sources adds that around 1344 pirates destroyed the neighbouring settlement of Aria and that its survivors took refuge in Filoti. The Ottomans took Naxos in 1537, but the Venetian-era families kept much of their property and influence, and in Filoti that meant the Barozzi, whose name is attached to the village’s best-known tower and to one of its best-loved stories.

Panagia Filotitissa and the Barozzi Tower

The church of Panagia Filotitissa, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, is the village’s principal landmark and one of the finest churches on Naxos: a triple-aisled, domed basilica with a carved marble bell tower, old icons and a marble iconostasis. Its date is given variously as around 1710, 1715 and 1718, which most plausibly reflects the difference between when building began and when it was completed; the shared answer is the early 18th century, on the site of an older church. The story attached to it is one of Naxos’s best. Tradition says that a villager named Psarras sheltered a shipwrecked Turkish child, who years later, as a judge, ruled in his favour when the villagers went to court against the feudal lord Barozzi over the very plot on which the church had stood. The villagers won the right to rebuild, and a carving on the bell tower is said to portray Psarras himself, a small act of civic gratitude set in marble.

Just a short walk away stands the Barozzi Tower itself, a massive 17th-century stone residence in the heart of the village. Sources date it variously to before 1620 or to about 1650, and a lintel inscription is read as naming Geronimo Barozzi and the year 1718, so it is best described as a 17th-century tower that was later reworked. The feudal lords who lived here have a reputation for harshness, which is partly what gives the church story its point. Beside the tower, a marble wall with a spring-fed tap is attached to an inscription from the reign of King Otto (1832–1862), a small reminder of how many layers of history sit within a few metres of one another. The tower is private property and is best admired from outside.

Squares, Fountains and the Plane Tree

Climb the stepped lanes from the main road and you reach the square of Pera Perivoli, with its monumental marble fountain, while the central square, known as Gefyra, is shaded by a tall old plane tree that has long been the meeting place of the village and is surrounded by cafes, shops and traditional eateries. In front of the church stands a small Ecclesiastic and Folklore Museum, and the village also has a number of old Byzantine churches that are worth entering for their frescoes whenever the doors happen to be open. As elsewhere on Naxos, many houses are entered through an arched doorway opening onto a covered terrace, and the details are worth slowing down for.

Mount Zas and the Cave of Zeus

The mountain is the other reason to come. By Greek tradition Zeus was raised on Naxos, sheltered from his father Cronus in a cave on the mountain that still carries his name in its local form, Zas. The Cave of Zas lies on the western flank of the mountain at about 600 metres, has stalactites and stalagmites, and has yielded evidence of human use from the Neolithic period onward. It is reached on foot from the Aria spring, roughly 800 metres south of Filoti, where the road is signposted; the cave is unlit and unmaintained, so bring a torch and sturdy shoes. The summit, at about 1,004 metres, is the highest point in the Cyclades, and a second route starts from the chapel of Agia Marina on the road toward Danakos, about three kilometres east of Filoti. Trail conditions, heat and weather vary, so carry water, start early and check locally before setting out.

A Taste of the Mountain: Cheese, Spoon Sweets and the August Feast

Filoti’s economy rests on livestock, and the village is known for lamb and goat, and for a family of Naxos cheeses that includes kefalotyri, anthotyro, xinotyro, myzithra and the strong, aged arseniko. A women’s association in the village is known for traditional spoon sweets (glyka koutaliou) made from local fruit. The village’s great day is 15 August, the feast of the Assumption, which at Panagia Filotitissa begins what is usually described as the island’s biggest traditional festival: a three-day celebration with music and dancing to local violins. If your stay allows, it is the one occasion when this quiet village feels like the centre of Naxos.

Visiting Filoti Today

Filoti sits on the main road across the island and is easily reached by car from Chora in roughly half an hour or less; buses from the Chora terminal also run through the village several times a day, though timetables change with the season and should be checked locally. There is parking in the village. The best way to see it is on foot and without a plan: allow a couple of hours for the lanes, the church, the tower and a coffee or lunch in the main square, and add half a day if you intend to walk to the Cave of Zas. Because the village is lived-in and works for a living, keep to the public lanes and be quiet around houses.

Nearby: Tragea, Danakos and the Chimarros Tower

Filoti is the natural centre of a day among the Naxos mountain villages. The Tragea valley, with its olive groves and Byzantine chapels, stretches west toward Chalki. Just after the Danakos turning, a parking area known as “Filoti View” looks back across the village and the valley to the sea and Paros, and above Danakos stands the fortified monastery of Christ Fotodotis. On the road toward Kalandos stands the ancient Chimarros Tower, a round tower of the Hellenistic era usually dated to the 4th century BC. To the east, the marble lanes of Apeiranthos are the obvious companion visit, and the fortified old town of Chora is described in our guide to the Kastro of Naxos.

Filoti does not show off. There is no single monument that explains it, no grand viewpoint it keeps for itself; it is simply a large, busy, handsome village that has gone on living at the foot of a mountain with a god’s name. Come for the tower, the church and the story of Psarras, but stay for the plane tree, the cheese and the hour when the light on Zas turns the whole amphitheatre of whitewash gold. It is, in the end, one of the most honest introductions to the interior of Naxos.