About Mariet Naxos Suites

The house where you will spend your holidays, a house that for a few days becomes yours, a place of special hospitality, is called Glezou House. It is estimated to be about 300 years old. And the building style testifies to that. It took its name from the name of the famous singer and writer Mrs. Despina Glezou. Above the beach, below the castles, in narrow streets with culture and finesse. Above the House is the Venetian piece that connected with the already existing ancient history of the island from 1202, when the Venetians led by Marco Sanudos conquered the surrounding islands and made Naxos Ducato. Walking in the castles you will feel the history, you will touch the legacy left by the nobles. If your eyes fall on an inscription that says the name of Nikos Kazantzakis, it is because the great teacher studied at the commercial school of Naxos and the locals consider him their own man. It is worth visiting the Venetian Museum and the Roman Catholic Church which still belongs to the Vatican.

Going down to the beach, what will magnetize our eyes is the temple of Apollo (portara), characterizing the island that has an archaeological history of 3,500 years. The temple was never completed and the cause was the war that broke out between Samos and Naxos. In the archeological museum we can find exhibits of Early Cycladic culture, creations from crystalline marble (as the variety of marble of Naxos is called). To the south, there are organized beaches such as Agios Georgios with cafes, bars and restaurants. Using KTEL buses that run frequently and rental cars and motorbikes, we can visit Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna, beaches with crystal clear waters and one of the most famous called Hawaii. We get information from the Naxos Bus.

Signs lead us to the Archaeological Museum and the temple of the goddess Demeter, located in Sangri, twenty minutes from the country. Continuing a few kilometers in an environment with intense sounds of nature, Mikros Mystras is waiting for us. Naxos was part of the Byzantine Empire and in the area called Halki there are churches of the period, mansions and alleys. A road leads to the village of Moni, where just before entering the settlement you will meet a Byzantine Church, while, if you take the other road, a few meters above Kerami, Florios Chorianopoulos passionately created one of the most beautiful folklore museums of the Cyclades, a pole of attraction for many visitors, whose fame reached newspapers in Austria and Switzerland. At about three kilometers we meet Filoti, the largest village in Naxos, offers a stop, ideally in the plane tree located in the center of the village for rest, for a drink or refreshment.

On the road that leads to Aria, between plane trees and springs, there is a path that leads to the cave where Zeus grew up. In half an hour you are in the cave and you can hear inside it, the sounds of water that change and indicate the continuous creation of stalactite material. Leaving the area, at 4 km, there is a sign called Agia Marina and a path to the top of Za (Zeus), the largest orogeny of the Cyclades, 1,005 meters above sea level. In one hour and 20 minutes you reach high, where you can gaze at all the surrounding areas, mountains and seas, islands and villages. The big surprise of the island, a special place 28 km from Chora, and the next stop is Apeiranthos.
Three kilometers from the settlement of Apeiranthos is the Byzantine church of Agia Kyriaki 8-9th c. AD which was recently preserved by Greek and foreign archaeologists and won the first European award, in 2017 and 2018. The place has strong Cretan elements from Cretan refugees, who found refuge in parts of mainland Greece and Naxos after the revolution of Ioannis Vlachos (Daskalogiannis) in 1770 against the Turkish conquerors. A story written by the people of Apeiranthos, with poems, verses with nobility and beauty and is witnessed in the cobbled streets, the mansions with the coats of arms, the women’s textile art cooperative, the collections and museums, the libraries in memory of Petros Protopapadakis and hero N. Glezou. The interior of the place is dominated by stone and local marble and travels the visitor to times and seasons.

The port of Apeiranthos, at 11 km is Moutsouna. Halfway in the area of Kambi we see the wind turbines on the mountain Amomaxi, where the best quality emery in the world is found, an ore that has been used since ancient times and is referred to as Naxia Lithos. We will admire the aerial railway, a project that was completed in 1926, when the ore was a foreign exchange product. Arriving in Moutsouna, we find clean beaches and fresh seafood. If we want to continue our course, we will pass through areas with little tourism, enough tranquility, natural beaches with highly sedimentary terrain and we will reach the end called Panormos, a place that no weather touches, and the sea is always calm. On the site there is the ancient Acropolis, where unfortunately only the floor plan of the temple remains.
Another point of interest that we must also mention is the area of Apollo, a coastal place, where one of the two unfinished Kouros that remained in the place where they were carved is located.
It is worthwhile to go around the island and be sure that it will give you pieces of it, will charm you and will travel you. On the way back to your hotel, you will be accompanied by the sun that sets and disappears in the waters of the Aegean.
Enjoy your stay on our island!