<Location> Naxos, Naxos Island, Cyclades, Greece
Naxos Town, or Chora, has been the capital city of the island since Antiquity. The population is about four thousand and several hundred.
In the photo above is Naxos Town seen from the Palateia (islet where the temple of Apollo is). At the top of the hill you can see the castle and the Catholic Church.
In the photo below is the view along the seaside walk where there are restaurants, cafeterias and souvenir shops.
As it can be often often seen in the old towns, Naxos has narrow and serpentine streets as a maze. Such style was developped to prevent the enemies and pirates should penetrate inside the town.
This is the view of one of such streets from upper floor of a building. When the enemies attacked, the inhabitants fought back throughing stones and boiled water and oil from the above.
One of the advantages of Naxos is that it is very close to a beautiful beach, Agios Giorgios. It takes about 15 minutes on foot. It is not always the case of the island capitals; for example Chios town and Mikonos town do not have decent beach in walking distance.
Below, one of the churches in Naxos town.
This is one of the steets leading to the fortified hight of Naxos.
An ancient building element (an Ionian capital upside down) is resued in the wall.
This is the hotel where we stayed. It is situated at the heart of the town, very economical (20 euros a night for double room, then), and the owner was very kind, but I don't dare to recommend to everyone. It was like "what you get is what you pay" category (but, not less than that).
Night view. On the seaside walk there are many restaurants and cafeterias, but we did not see any club. Comparing to a place like Mikonos, I think, Naxos is quieter and more family-oriented.
One of the advantages of Naxos town for tourist is it has beautiful Agios Giorgios Beach in walking distance. We visited there in late afternoon and the beach looks deserted in the photo, but is pretty crowded and lively during the daytime.
