Last time, I shared with you all the beginning of this summer’s Greek adventure on the island of Mykonos. This time it’s all about Naxos. 

Whilst planning our trip, we explored our Greek island options. To be honest with you, we’d never even heard of Naxos or some of the other islands dangled in front of us enticingly.

After some great advice from Greek Sun Holidays, we ended up settling on the following 14 night itinerary: Manchester > Mykonos > Naxos > Paros > Antiparos > Santorini > Manchester.

We arrived on Naxos by ferry from Mykonos and were met at the port by our Naxos Tours guide, Dimitri, who showed us to our taxi transfer. Dimitri met us the next morning at our hotel and was ever so helpful in showing us a side of Naxos that many tourists might not get to see. He kindly circled on our map the ‘go to’ places, including the ones with best gyros and cocktails.

We had set ourselves a budget of around €100 per day spending money, to cover lunch, sunbeds, cocktails, beach treats and an evening meal. We’d opted for B&B accomodation to guarantee us getting a decent continental-type breakfast every morning. We also took around €400 extra for fun excursions, and other little luxuries.

We were on holiday, after all.

Hotels…

We stayed on Naxos at Hotel Asteria. A pretty hotel, quite traditionally basic, but with super clean rooms and a stunning sea view. This place has a stunning location - it’s right on the beach, perfectly situated to enjoy the beautiful Naxian sunsets.

Food…

Whilst on the island we ate at a variety of restaurants - some much better than others. But on the whole, the food was good. The tuna I ordered, at the bar/restaurant opposite-ish the Asteria’s own bar, was a bit overdone, which was rather disappointing. Just to clarify, this wasn’t the wood-fired oven pizza place - we didn’t get to try there, but it looked good.

Dimitri had also heartily recommended that we try Maro, a local family run restaurant, priding itself on excellently cooked local cuisine without making you pay through the nose for it. The hoards of people lining the roadside in the hope of securing the next table are testament to this.

If you’re thinking about how much you might need to budget, our meals on Naxos cost between 17 euros and 45 euros a night, for two people. If you’re trying to save money though, try ordering a couple of delicious chicken gyros. Basically, it’s a chicken kebab, filled with salad, chips and sauce. They cost a couple of euros each and are great Greek street food that you can eat kerbside whilst doing a spot of people-watching. You know the gyros are good when there’s a constant stream of Greek guys buying them to feed their hungry families. We happily followed suit. Also, we must recommend ordering a couple of ice cold bottles of Mythos and a bowl of vanilla icecream to eat at the same time - it’s amazing!

Continued in part two…

Photography © Lucie Kerley