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.
