9 Best Sights in The Cyclades, Greece

A bewildering maze of twisting cobblestone streets, arched porticoes, and towering doorways, the Old Town plunges you alternatively into cool darkness and then suddenly into pockets of dazzling sunshine. The Old Town is divided into the lower section, Bourgos, where the Greeks lived during Venetian times, and the upper part, called Kastro (castle), still inhabited by the Venetian Catholic nobility.

Essentially an extension of Naxos Town, the easily accessible Ayios Georgios Beach is a popular, developed destination that sees its throng of crowds during the peak summer months. Protected from summer winds, the sandy coastline edges up against shallow waters that make it ideal for kids. The bustle of the main town extends here; restaurants, tavernas, and café bars are all within easy walking distance with views of the sea. It's also an ideal beach scene to take in the sunset. Amenities: food and drink. Best for: sunset; swimming; walking.

Built by Marco Sanudo, Venetian founder of the Duchy of the Aegean, in the 13th century, this grand cathedral was restored by Catholic families in the 16th and 17th centuries. The marble floor is paved with tombstones bearing the coats of arms of the noble families. Venetian wealth is evident in the many gold and silver icon frames. The icons reflect a mix of Byzantine and Western influences: the one of the Virgin Mary is unusual because it shows a Byzantine Virgin and Child in the presence of a bishop, a cathedral benefactor. Another 17th-century icon shows the Virgin of the Rosary surrounded by members of the Sommaripa family, whose house is nearby.

Located in the 800-year-old Dellarocca-Barozzi house, the Domus Venetian Museum lets you into one of the historic Venetian residences. The house, enclosed within the soaring walls of Chora's castle, adjacent to the "Traini," or Great Gate, was first erected in 1207. Inside, the house is like an Naxian attic filled with fascinating objects ranging from the Cycadic period to Victorian times. The house's idyllic garden, built into the Kastro wall, provides a regular venue in season for a concert series, from classical to jazz to island music, known as the Domus festival.

The Greek Orthodox cathedral was built in 1789 on the site of a church called Zoodochos Pigis (Life-giving Source). The cathedral was built from the materials of ancient temples: the solid granite pillars are said to be from the ruins of Delos. Amid the gold and the carved wood, there is a vividly colored iconostasis painted by a well-known iconographer of the Cretan school, Dimitrios Valvis, and the Gospel Book is believed to be a gift from Catherine the Great of Russia.

You won't miss the gates of the castle. The south gate is called the Paraporti (side gate), but it's more interesting to enter through the northern gate, or Trani (strong), via Apollonos Street. Note the vertical incision in the gate's marble column—it is the Venetian yard against which drapers measured the bolts of cloth they brought to the noblewomen. Step through the Trani into the citadel and enter another age, where sedate Venetian houses still stand around silent courtyards, their exteriors emblazoned with coats of arms and bedecked with flowers. Half are still owned by the original families; romantic Greeks and foreigners have bought up the rest.

The entire citadel was built in 1207 by Marco Sanudo, a Venetian who, three years after the fall of Constantinople, landed on Naxos as part of the Fourth Crusade. When in 1210 Venice refused to grant him independent status, Sanudo switched allegiance to the Latin emperor in Constantinople, becoming duke of the archipelago. Under the Byzantines, "archipelago" had meant "chief sea," but after Sanudo and his successors, it came to mean "group of islands," that is, the Cyclades. For three centuries Naxos was held by Venetian families, who resisted pirate attacks, introduced Roman Catholicism, and later rebuilt the castle in its present form. In 1564 Naxos came under Turkish rule but, even then, the Venetians ran the island, while the Turks only collected taxes. The rust-color Glezos tower was home to the last dukes; it displays the coat of arms: a pen and sword crossed under a crown.

Built in the square in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral is a small museum that showcases the history of Naxos beginning with the Mycenean era. Displays include pottery, artifacts, and even a tomb from ancient times used to cover the graves of prosperous Naxians.

This little museum shows costumes, ceramics, farming implements, and other items from Naxos's far-flung villages, giving insight into how life was on the island beginning in the 18th century.

Although the capital town is primarily beloved for its Venetian elegance and picturesque blind alleys, Naxos's most famous landmark is ancient: the Portara, a massive doorway that leads to nowhere. The Portara stands on the islet of Palatia, which was once a hill (since antiquity the Mediterranean has risen quite a bit) and in the 3rd millennium BC was the acropolis for a nearby Cycladic settlement. The Portara, an entrance to an unfinished Temple of Apollo that faces exactly toward Delos, Apollo's birthplace, was begun about 530 BC by the tyrant Lygdamis, who said he would make Naxos's buildings the highest and most glorious in Greece. He was overthrown in 506 BC, and the temple was never completed; by the 5th and 6th centuries AD it had been converted into a church; and under Venetian and Turkish rule it was slowly dismembered, so the marble could be used to build the castle. The gate, built with four blocks of marble, each 16 feet long and weighing 20 tons, was so large it couldn't be demolished, so it remains today, along with the temple floor. Palatia itself has come to be associated with the tragic myth of Ariadne, princess of Crete.

Ariadne, daughter of Crete's King Minos, helped Theseus thread the labyrinth of Knossos and slay the monstrous Minotaur. In exchange, he promised to marry her. Sailing for Athens, the couple stopped in Naxos, where Theseus abandoned her. Jilted Ariadne's curse made Theseus forget to change the ship's sails from black to white, and so his grieving father Aegeus, believing his son dead, plunged into the Aegean. Seeing Ariadne's tears, smitten Dionysus descended in a leopard-drawn chariot to marry her, and set her bridal wreath, the Corona Borealis, in the sky, an eternal token of his love.

The myth inspired one of Titian's best-known paintings, as well as Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos.

North of Palatia, underwater remains of Cycladic buildings are strewn along an area called Grotta. Here are a series of large worked stones, the remains of the waterfront quayside mole, and a few steps that locals say go to a tunnel leading to the islet of Palatia; these remains are Cycladic (before 2000 BC).