Visit the village of Apeiranthos

You climb out of Chora and the landscape changes before your eyes. The beaches fall behind, the olive groves give way to vineyards and oak trees, and the road winds up the mountain’s slopes. Somewhere around 600 metres, perched beneath the peaks, Apeiranthos appears — grey, stone-built, silent. You park, take your first steps on the cobblestones, and immediately understand why it’s called the “marble village.”

The village you walk on marble

Here marble isn’t decoration — it’s the very ground beneath you. Apeiranthos’s alleyways are paved with slabs of local Naxian marble, polished by centuries of footsteps until they gleam. You pass beneath vaulted archways, climb steps that link the houses together, and the light slides across the stone in a way that makes every turn feel like a stage set.

Naxos has always been an island of marble — from the archaic kouroi to the quarries that supplied the whole Aegean. In Apeiranthos you see this heritage not in a museum, but underfoot.

Venetian towers and stone mansions

The settlement keeps its history in its fortifications. At the heart of the village stand the Venetian towers — the Zevgoli Tower and the Bardani Tower — testimonies to the era when Naxos was the capital of a Frankish duchy. Around them spread stone mansions with arches, vaulted passageways and hidden courtyards.

Walking among them, you feel time moving more slowly. Nothing here is staged; authenticity isn’t a choice, it’s simply the way the village continues to live.

In Apeiranthos you don’t visit the past — you meet it alive, on the threshold of every house.Traditional saying of the Apeiranthites

A proud, distinctive identity

The residents of Apeiranthos, the Apeiranthites, are known for their distinctive dialect and their deep connection to letters and tradition. The village has produced scholars, poets and politicians, and keeps alive the custom of “kotsakia” — improvised rhyming couplets exchanged at festivals. You’ll also find small local museums here, from archaeological finds to folklore collections, set up through the community’s own devoted effort.

Sit for a while at one of the cafés on the square, listen to the locals talk, and you’ll understand that here identity isn’t theory — it’s pride, handed down.

Flavours of the Naxian hinterland

The mountains of Naxos nourish a rich table. In Apeiranthos’s little taverns you can try the famous PDO Naxos graviera cheese, local meat slow-roasted, herb pies, and the island’s unique Naxian potato. For dessert or a refreshment, kitro liqueur — distilled from the leaves of the citron tree — rounds off the meal with an aroma found only on this island.

Every dish here carries the geography of the place: the soil, the mountain, the rain that makes Naxos the most fertile island of the Cyclades.

The view that rewards the climb

Before you leave, find an edge of the village that looks downward. The slopes descend in terraces, the vineyards stretch into the distance, and on clear days the eye reaches all the way to the sea. Behind you rises the bulk of Zas, the highest mountain in the Cyclades at 1,004 metres. It’s the moment you realise Naxos isn’t only beaches — it’s also this wild, stone-built hinterland that keeps it real.

Apeiranthos doesn’t dazzle you with grand sights. It wins you over slowly, with the marble underfoot, the silence of the towers, the taste of graviera. And as you descend again toward the sea, you leave with the sense that you’ve seen something deeper than a beautiful village — you’ve seen the soul of mountainous Naxos.