Paros Greece Travel and Holiday Guides.

The Greek Holiday Island of Paros is excellent for sightseeing, nice weather, many beaches and great food

The Greek Holiday Island of Paros is located within the Cyclades Islands of Greece in the Aegean and since the island has no jet capable airfield generally most people going on holiday to Paros get there by ferry - in fact the ferry harbour at Parikia is said to be one of the busiest in Greece. Travelling by air from Northern Europe means you land at Mykonos and then take around a 2 hour ferry ride to Paros.
Paros has many tracks and also miles of paths - however quite a few of the paved paths have been smashed up where they are close to tracks and roads making them hard to spot let alone actually access so they end up not being regularly walked on - thus the thorns etc. take over and they eventually become unusable - a vicious cycle. This is a real shame because there was obviously an extensive system of moni-paths and other paths connecting the numerous churches and monasteries on the Island. Our Paros includes walks (with many photos) we did on the island (over 230km in the fortnight). We stayed at Parikia and had the benefit of the really good bus service from the port which covered just about all of the island. We could therefore do "point to point" walks using either a bus or sometimes taxi to get to or back from a particular walk rather than having to be concerned about working out circular walks. In fact the bus service was so good/reliable that we did not even have to hire a hire-car for once whilst on holiday - excellent.

AntiParos is easily reached by small boat either from Parikia or by the normal ferry service which runs out of Pounta - two main reasons to go - to visit the caves and secondly go to the beach including a nice naturist beach. A bus is meant to run to and from the famous caves - however when we went over apparently the bus was brocken - (we did see an AntiParos bus parked in Parikia...) so maybe the service does not start until July/August. We simply hired bicycles - it's only 7km or so bike ride but has a very steep climb over the last km

Wildlife: Snakes - well presumably they are around - although we walked lots of kms on paths and tracks including high up in the hills we never did see a live one - in fact we only saw two small snakes during the entire fortnight - sadly both were ex-snakes.
Lizards - were certainly plentiful but always seemed reluctant to hang around long enough to get a decent photograph - some of the lizards were quite large.
Birds - the usual swallows, some herons, sea birds, the occasional hawks plus a few buzzards - probably plenty of other species but although we enjoy admiring birds we are not twitchers..
Bugs, Wasps, Bees and Mosquitoes - A few wasps and bees around especially near any water but they were not a problem - the mozzies certainly were out in force during the evening though, some of them great big things over an inch across (almost).

 

Getting Around (bus/taxi/taxis/car/scooter/quad bike-hire).

Buses. As mentioned we found the bus services were excellent value - most we payed to anywhere was about 2 Euros and the buses do cover nearly all of the island. They are not however that frequent to some destinations - though bearing in mind we were on the island end of May which means the tourist season was only just getting going the probability is they increase services as things get busier. There is a bus timetable at the bottom of this page.
Taxis. Plenty of taxis available at Parikia and several always around at Naoussa - elsewhere on the island you only have to get a tavern or shop owner to ring one up for you if you do not have your mobile with you. For being dropped off at a particular location to start a walk remember to take a map so you can show the driver where you want to go and then as always remember to agree the price. There are meant to be fixed rates for certain destinations for instance Parikia to Naoussa was meant to be 8 Euros.
Hire Cars/bikes/scooters etc. Fortunately we did not need a hire car - the bus and taxi services were much better value and got us where we want to go. Scooter hire was allegedly from 5 Euros a day but we think this could not have given you any worthwhile insurance cover. A popular hire seemed to be getting a Quad bikes - there were lots of people whizzing around on them so this must be the next "in" thing.
The Roads. The roads generally seemed to be well surfaced - in fact I nearly did hire a car just to have the pleasure of driving on a non-potholed road - something which we sadly cannot do at home in England due to our appalling road-surfaces often found in Oxfordshire and elsewhere.
The tracks vary enormously on drivability (using a car) - generally speaking if it looks pretty rough at the start of a track it will probably get much worse further in - there is an extensive network of tracks many of which are not on any of the maps and some just stop in the middle of nowhere after a few kms.

Flora. Even by late May the sun was taking it's toll and plants were drying up - nevertheless there were still some splendid flowers and shrubs to be seen especially high up in the hills. The hillsides must have been fantastic earlier.

Walking. By the end of our 2 week long Paros holiday we had trekked more than 200km - both on paths and tracks. As mentioned many of the access points to the obviously extensive set of paths on the island have been smashed up and blocked with rocks when the bulldozers have done their work on the roads and tracks nearbye - this is a terrible shame. Their are several paved paths that are clear to access and walk on and walks using these are described on one of our Paros Walks Pages. One interesting walking possibility is walking round the coastline - we walked a great deal of the island's coast and the authorities do seem to enforce the fact that the coastline must be available to anybody i.e. it cannot be blocked by hotels or private building. Coast walking was actually quite refreshing too since although the weather was pretty hot inland the sea breezes on the coast made walking enjoyable and relaxing.. The only problem we encountered was that parts of the coast are suffering from erosion and in places we found the path had completely fallen away into the sea - some bordering properties/villas had obviously allowed access along the bottoms of their gardens but in just a few cases some had not and this meant quite a diversion to continue the walk. We gps tracked a lot of our walks and when the data was placed onto our TOPO map we found it to be very accurate.

Greek Island of Paros and AntiParos Beach Photo Guide.

Paros has all types of beaches which you can use whilst on your holiday on Paros - lots of beaches available including naturist beaches.

Beaches. Their are loads of beaches on the island varying from small pebble coves and inlets to huge sweeping sandy bays - some are shaded and some are not, some have tavernas and beach chairs/umbrellas and some are the best type - just beaches. If you wish to go nude bathing/sunbathing it is easy enough to find somewhere to do this - lots of naturists were around the small beaches on Cape Korakas and Cape Almiros for instance - though we were unaware of any "official" naturist beach on Paros. On AntiParos their is what seems to be a recognised naturist beach - this is just a few minutes walk away from the ferry terminal on the island. On the Southern edge of Cape Korakas i.e. between Cape Almiros and the monastery at Aghios Ioanis there are small coves and pebble and/or sandy beaches which seem to be quite favoured by naturists. In fact whilst we were walking around the Cape we saw several people walking around nude i.e. wandering around the area wearing a hat one end and a pair of flip-flops at the other..
If you like really long sandy beaches you will certainly like Molos Bay - it is enormous. Curiously enough when we walked around that area the beach was mostly deserted (although bear in mind this was the end of May so very early in the tourist season. Also if you take the short track from Molos Bay over to Kalogheros there is a beautiful little beach hidden away - sandy and a few rocks - the beach is a picture - and this had quite a few naturists on it.
Another very large beach area is found near Cape Chone - Golden Beach is sandy and has all the facilities like tavernas and beach chairs etc available. The southern end of Golden Beach has a road leading up to the main road - this is the nearest point from the beach where you can get a bus back to Parikia and Nouassa.
A coastal path runs on from Golden Beach going past Dhrios and there are some nice little bits of beach to be found along here - we several times found our own bit of beach where it was fine to strip off and enjoy the sunshine for a few hours. AntiParos has several beaches easily reached from the ferry terminal with just a few minutes walk - several of them are predominantly used by naturists.

Parikia Area Beaches

Nouassa Area Beaches

West Coast - Ambela to Molos Bay.

Piso Livadhi to Dhrios Area

South Coast - Tripiti to Vaghia

AntiParos Beaches

 

Food and Drink. The food available from the tavernas in Parikia we found to be of really good value - big plate fulls of food, well cooked and not expensive - and of course the bonus of the always freindly taverna staff. As an example for the two of us typically - stifado, pork chops, potatoes/chips, vegetables, bread, litre of wine, water, apple pie/ice cream and a dish of 4 mixed ice-creams cost us around 25 Euros.

Places we visited
These are a few photos from around the island's main towns and villages. Lots of other photos of Paros can be found on our walks pages and beach photos page.

Parikia.
Parikia.
Parikia.
Lefkes.
Naoussa.
Naoussa.
Naoussa.
Prodhromos
Marpisa.
Piso Livadhi
Dhrios
AntiParos
AntiParos
AntiParos
Antiparos Cave

 

Paros Church and Monastery Photo taken around this interesting Greek Island.

We have been on holiday to quite a few Greek Islands and on most we have found loads of small churches dotted around the countryside. Sometimes these are way up on the top of almost inaccessible hills and mountains or are well hidden on the sides of gorges or ravines - and of course sometimes they are located simply alongside a track or path so that you can actually get to look at them with ease.
Paros certainly has it's fair share of small churches to visit whilst on holiday - fortunately many can be easily reached especially if you are out hiking or cycling. There are also several monasterys dotted around - some are mostly unused and really old looking - almost as if close to falling down like the lovely buildings of Aghios Minas, whilst others are in pristine condition and still functioning fully as a monastery.
Starting off with the magnificent main church in Parikia - the Ekatontapiliani - this must be an essential visit for anyone on holiday or visiting Paros - hopefully our photographs will show why we think this. Perhaps the best time to visit and look round this church is in the early evening when many of the day trippers have disappeared - also it's usually a bit cooler then too.
You can wander around most of the church both inside and outside - also we did ask if it was ok before we took some photographs whilst inside the church and were told this was fine. All you have to do of course is be considerate of anyone who is worshipping whilst you are wandering around.

Panagia Ekatontapiliani is translated as Our Lady with the "hundred doors" and is one of the best preserved and oldest Christian Temples in Greece.

 

Paros Monastery Photographs

 

Paros Church Photos.

Quite a few of these churches are un-named simply because we could not find anything out about them. This is also the case on actual location since quite a few photographs were taken whilst we were out walking and not actually near any named location that we could see.

 

Items about Paros on Our Site:- Paros Walks   Nouassa   Molos-Aliki   Lefkes+Marathi    and you may also be interested in Paros's close Neighbour of Naxos and not so far away are Sikinos and Santorini

There are lots more Greek Island Holiday Guides on our site - please see our Home Page - where there are also links to our other travel sites about England, The Canary Islands, Cyprus, Portugal's Algarve, India, Egypt, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangkok, Bali and several other Indonesian Holiday Islands.    Please visit our Resources topic if you wish to Email Us and/or to see our site privacy policy.

GPS readings WGS84.
Lighthouse-Cape Korakas   N37°09'14.89 E025°13'29.72"
Beacon Cape Kratzi   N37°02'58.26" E025°16'39.54"
AntiParos FerryTerminal-Pounta   N37°02'15.00" E025°06'01.56"
Aghios Ioaiis Monastery   N37°02'39.96" E025°11'21.72"

The five bus services all start out from Parikia and below was the bus timetables existing during our holiday: (Local time - Monday to Friday) (weekends fairly similar times)
No.1 Parikia-Lefkes-Prodromos-Logaras-Golden Beach-Drios
Parikia to Drios 0730 1000 1100 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Drios to Parikia 0900 1100 1310 1500 1700 1900
No.2 Parikia - Naoussa
Parikia    0750 0900 1000 1100 1130 1200 1230 1330 1400 1530 1600 1800 2000 2200
Naoussa 0740 0830 0930 1030 1130 1230 1300 1400 1430 1630 1700 1830 2030 2230
No.3 Parikia - Aliki
Parikia 0655 0900 1100 1215 1400 1600 1800 2000
Aliki 0715 0920 1120 1345 1420 1620 1820 2020
No.4 Parikia - Pounta (Pounta has the ferry terminal for Antiparos)
Parikia 0720 0815 0910 1010 1110 1210 1310 1410 1610 1710 1910
Pounta 0740 0830 0930 1030 1130 1230 1330 1425 1625 1730 1930
No.5 Parikia - Naoussa - Prodromos - Logaras - Pounda Beach - Golden Beach - Drios
Parikia 1130 1230 1330 1530
Drios   0710 1230 1330 1630

Other Web Resources
Paros Paradise
Paros Greece Travel Guide from Greek Island Postcards
Paros by Greeka
Walking the Greek Islands
Maps:- freytag&berndt Paros -isbn3-85084-587-7 and Anavasi-TOPO Paros -isbn960-8195-36-5

www.foxysislandwalks.com