22/06/2026
🇬🇷 Greek Island Hopping Diary: Day 2 | 28th May | Exploring Naxos Town 🇬🇷
After breakfast at Plaza Beach Hotel, we decided to spend the day exploring Naxos Town (Chora).
Our hotel is located on Plaka Beach, around 30 minutes from Naxos Town by bus. One of the things I really liked about staying there was that it was the last stop on the route, with a bus stop right outside the hotel entrance so no chance of missing our stop!
At the end of May, buses were running every hour and cost €2.50 per person - we bought all our tickets in bulk from the kiosk in Naxos Town and spent around €40 on bus tickets for the four days we were on the island in total.
I had stayed in Naxos Town for three nights during a solo island-hopping trip a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it, so I was looking forward to showing Jon around.
The old town in the kastro area is Beautiful!Whitewashed buildings, brightly painted doors and shutters, winding alleyways, medieval walls, tunnels and tiny passageways that seem to lead somewhere different every time you visit. It’s so photogenic and I could happily spend hours wandering around with my camera.
One thing Naxos definitely doesn’t have a shortage of is cats. They were everywhere!
I also wanted to revisit Honey & Cinnamon, where I stayed during my previous trip. When I visited at the end of October, everything was closed for the season, so it was nice to see it open and busy this time. We stopped there for a smoothie.
From there we wandered over to the Portara, Naxos’ most famous landmark. It’s the huge marble gateway that sits on a tiny islet connected to the town by a causeway and is the first thing you see when arriving by ferry. It was originally intended to be the entrance to a temple dedicated to Apollo around 530 BC, but the temple was never completed. It’s a must see sunset spot!
Later that evening we headed back into Naxos Town with one goal in mind - getting a table at Metaxi Mas.
I’d heard good things about it before the trip and it definitely lived up to expectations. It’s tucked away in a beautiful little courtyard surrounded by cats, plants and fairy lights and had a lovely atmosphere. We both enjoyed our meals and one thing we noticed throughout Naxos was how affordable meals out seemed compared to some of the other islands we’d visited.
A couple of years ago, whilst on a sunset excursion in Santorini, I got chatting to a lady who absolutely loved Naxos. She gave me lots of recommendations and one place she insisted I visit was Naxos Café.
It’s more of a bar than a café and during low season it only opens in the evenings. It turned out to be one of my favourite places of the whole trip. Tiny, rustic and full of character, with a singer and guitarist playing beautiful Greek music.
For a complete change of scene, we then headed to Swing Bar, a rooftop cocktail bar overlooking the harbour. The cocktails were definitely more expensive than elsewhere. My Bloody Mary at Naxos Café had cost €10, while cocktails here were around €16, but the views across the port were lovely.
We caught the bus back to Plaka Beach and headed to bed after a really lovely first full day on Naxos.
Still itchy from those six mosquito bites, though!
Links:
To watch my full vlogs: https://youtube.com/?
Pre bookable taxis with booking .com (says airport taxis but I use them for all over the islands): https://go.shopmy.us/p-63026581
Ferryhopper I use to book ferries: https://www.ferryhopper.com/?
Plaza Beach Hotel Naxos: https://go.shopmy.us/p-63027107
