Naxos — The Self-Sufficient Cycladic Giant
Unlike Mykonos or Santorini, Naxos feeds itself. The island's fertile interior — unusual in the arid Cyclades — produces the finest potatoes in Greece, the strongest local cheese (graviera), and citron liqueur (kitron) made from the leaves of a citron tree variety found nowhere else. The landscape ranges from sandy beaches at Plaka and Agios Prokopios to the marble-flanked summit of Mount Zas (1,001m — the highest peak in the Cyclades).
FFGR Greece Naxos Programme
The definitive Naxos day: the Portara (gateway of an unfinished 6th-century Temple of Apollo, now the island's emblem) at sunrise; drive through the marble-quarrying villages of Apollonas and Melanes to see the kouros (unfinished marble giants); lunch at a farmhouse restaurant in Filoti with the island's own produce; afternoon at Plaka beach; return via the Venetian kastro of Naxos Town.