Naxos

Naxos is the largest and most fertile of the Cyclades, and one of the most rewarding for travellers who want beaches, mountains and everyday Greek life on a single island. Where its glossier neighbours trade on nightlife, Naxos offers valleys of olive and citrus groves, marble-built villages high in the hills, and a working agricultural rhythm — it is famous across Greece for its potatoes, cheeses and citron liqueur.

Boats arrive at Chora (Naxos Town), crowned by a Venetian kastro and guarded at its harbour entrance by the Portara, the great marble doorway of an unfinished ancient temple to Apollo. It is the island's signature image and its finest sunset spot. Below the old town, a long sweep of sand begins.

That sandy coast is one of Naxos's great draws. Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna and the endless dunes of Plaka run south from town in a near-continuous ribbon of shallow, family-friendly water, with wilder, wind-blown bays further down for kitesurfers.

The interior is what sets Naxos apart. A drive inland climbs past the marble quarries and the huge ancient kouros statues left lying in the fields, up to villages like Halki, with its distilleries and Byzantine churches, and Apeiranthos, built almost entirely of marble. Above them all rises Mount Zas, the highest peak in the Cyclades and, in myth, the boyhood home of Zeus, reached by a well-trodden trail from the Aria spring.

Naxos is well connected — a small airport and frequent ferries from Piraeus, some of them fast — which makes it easy to combine with Paros or Santorini. It stays more affordable and more grounded than the flashier islands, which is much of its appeal. Late spring and early autumn bring warm seas and quiet roads; give it four or five days to enjoy both the coast and the mountains.