Looking for itinerarty and transportation advice

Sorry, I have never been to Naxos. However, I would advise you to split your trip and see more of Greece, there is so much great stuff to see. At least spend some days in Athens.

I know that ferries provide transport to the islands from Piraeus (port of Athens). Perhaps you could check on that.

Presumably you will be flying through Athens and will want at least a cursory looks. I advise you to get a guide book because the transport can be dizzying, but I believe you will pass through other islands en route to Naxos, so it makes sense to stop over rather than pay double for rooms and visit other islands from Naxos.

Great choice of Naxos. The island has so much to offer and your 12 days will be full of things to see and do.
How are you planning to get to Naxos. It can be reached by ferry from Rafina and Piraeus and is serviced by Sky Express and Aegean airlines. I always try to get to my first island on the day of arrival and leave Athens to the end of the trip. Certainly do make sure you are in Athens at least a day before your return flight. We always fly to get to Naxos as quickly as possible.

We like to find studio hotels with at least a hot plate fridge kettle, dishes and cutlery. This allows us to shop locally for breakfast food and morning coffee. We often have a Greek Salad with fresh Greek bread for lunch and always eat out for dinner. Watching sunset from a seafront bar and having late dinner is a wonderful experience on Naxos.
We love St George beach because it is part of Naxos town so we get a beach holiday and all the activities of town just a short 10 minute stroll around the headland. However since you will be there in August you might consider staying out at one of the west coast beaches for a few days until the bulk of the European crowds have to return for school and work. There are three very good beaches about 7km from Naxos town on the west side of the island. Our favorite is Plaka beach. It is at least 3km long and has nice sand. It is serviced by a string of hotels and tavernas. The further south you go the less infrastructure there is. We stay at Three Brothers hotel. Its close to the beach. Almost every room has sea view and it is well priced.

Recently we have been starting our vacation at Plaka and spend 3 to 5 days then head into St George beach for the town portion of our trip. There are several good small studio hotels at St George.
Exploring other islands. Paros is essentially the only close by island that can be done by regular ferry. Its just the way the ferry routes are set up. You can get to Paros in the early afternoon and return on the late night 10ish Bluestar. There are two excursion Boats Alaxander and Naxos Star. They both do full day trips to Santorini, Delos and Mykonos and the Small Cyclades Islands.

On Naxos there are lovely mountain villages where you will see what Greece used to be like. In particular we always go to Chalki and Aparanthos and Filoti. Last September winds kicked up making beaching not very nice and we took the KTEL bus to Chalki two days in a row for hikes. There is a round the island bus tour that is quite good.

Last September we found a new tour company that does small group programs max 7 people. Our tour was a visit to a Goat and Sheep farm where we fed the goats and made cheese and had a Greek farm lunch. Later we visited a winery and did rather generous 7 bottle wine tasting. Be sure to look for Philema tours. The owner Elaini designed several unique itineraries that included local farmers, wineries and olive oil producers and marble quarries. More on this tour in the next post.

Naxos Town http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/sets/72157632094558042/

Trip around Naxos http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/sets/72157634605629689/

Naxos trip 2019 https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/albums/72157711294807761

Naxos sunsets https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/albums/72157700728046481

A week in Naxos https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/sets/72157645113682278/

I mentioned that I would give more detail of our cheese and wine tour by Philema Tours. This is what I wrote in my trip report.

The farm was way out in the country in an area we have never visited before. As soon as we arrived they herded about 20 goats into a nearby pen and we were allowed us to feed the noisy, rambunctious crowd of goats and play with their farm dog Harry. Harry was quite put out that the goats were getting more attention than he was. This close encounter with goats allowed us to ask why some goats have a bell while others didn’t. We thought that the most intelligent goat was a natural leader and the other goats would follow the bell. It turns out, the naughty goats get the bells so the farmer will know where they are at all times. Naughty goats climb trees, are escape artists. Climb fences, butt people, dogs and anything else that’s handy, and are always pushing to the front of the food trough. My wife has since been threatening to hang a bell on me when I am not on my best behaviour.

We moved inside and were greeted with a big farmhouse table laden with food. There were spinach and cheese pies, zucchini fritters plus two egg and cheese dishes bread olive oil and homemade wine.
We discovered the only way you can get a Greek host from refilling your wine glass was to leave it full when you have had enough. I think I learned that lesson a bit late in the process but I wasn’t driving.
Behind the table was a large caldron of milk on a heater. This was fresh milk from the goats which had been simmering on the heat for the past two hours. The farmer brought out a stick and started to slowly stir the milk and it began to lump up. They had plastic baskets/molds and the farmer began to add the curds to the baskets. Each of us got an opportunity to fill the baskets and pat down the curds into a solid mass. Each basket was then submerged in the Whey and the cheese was coaxed out of the moulds turned upside down and reinserted into the mold. The cheese is stored in a separate room in coolers and is aged for several months. Apparently the little local products store where we buy spices, wine, ouzo Kitron and cheese is actually the business that purchases the cheese from this farm. That made our day, to discover the cheese we made today, would eventually end up in a shop we know well.

The tour next went to a winery. Apparently the wind in Naxos makes it very hard to grow grapes but what survives makes a high quality wine. We toured the grape field then were taken to a lovely sheltered picnic area where we had a wine tasting of 5 different wines. I am estimating that each pour was at least 2 ounces. Then they brought out two bottles of their home made wines.
By this time it was dark and we still had a half hour drive back to Naxos town to our hotel.

We are definitely going on the goat and wine tour now! Thank you for the advice!

Hello,

Within the scope of my studies, I just wrote a small article about "where to go to Greece".

https://www.buzzfeed.com/yannis_slds/the-mos…

Enjoy 😁🇬🇷

Taking side-trips by ferry isn't quite so easy as side-trips by rail, bus or car. Ferries are somewhat more likely to be canceled or delayed due to weather. On a first trip to Greece, I wouldn't choose to spend all my time on the same island, with the possible exception of the large, varied island of Crete. I did like Naxos, and I do recommend it.

There are day trips by ferry. I looked at ferries.gr/booking, put in a dummy booking for a day on Paros (the closest island, results here. The ferry pier in Naxos is a short walk from the center of town but if you want to be near a nice beach, you'll be farther away. In August you'll also find tours, both guided and transportation only. There's one to Delos (archaeological site) and Mykonos. It's an all-day trip, about 2 hours by boat to Delos (3 hrs), then a short sail to Mykonos for another 3 hours or so, and back to Naxos.

I would encourage you to consider spending several days at another location. I have never been to Hawaii but I imagine that the towns there are much larger with much more to offer than tiny Naxos, charming and relaxing as it is.

I spent 5 nights in Chania on Crete and loved it, would have been happy to stay much longer. There are a few sights, a lot of history, many cafes and restaurants, and lots of interesting shops to browse. I spent 4 nights on Naxos. It was calm and relaxing, and well, kinda dull - in a good way.

I wounder why you want to go that far from home (pretty high in terms of both time and expense) just to visit one place, spending most of it on the beach. As you pointed out, Hawaii is much closer for you if what you want is beach time. Naxos is wonderful but 12 days there - even with a couple day tours - seems like a waste given all the other wonderful places you could be seeing in Greece. Ferries are wonderful if you take slow ones - you can sit out on deck and watch the Agean as you sail by. The faster catermarans/hydrofoils are more like being in a bus or plane but they do get you between islands.

With 12 days you could have a very relaxing, slow travel trip but still include at least a couple more islands.

To be fair we have to admit every traveler has their own particular wants likes and dislikes. We have been going to Naxos since 1996. I stopped counting after 15 trips. Each visit has been for a minimum of 7 nights and a maximum of 14. After all that time we are still finding things and places we have never seen before. See my trip report on Philema tours above. That tour took us to parts of the island we have never seen and I though we had been everywhere. Throw in a couple of excursion tours to Paros, Delos/ Mykonos Santorini and the small Cyclades and 12 days will flash by.