A Paros itinerary: two nights, or five days

On a Cyclades island-hopping route: two nights. That buys Parikia’s old quarter, an afternoon in Naoussa and one beach - which is exactly what our published route allots it. Paros is that route’s connector, and the port you can reroute from if the wind grounds a leg somewhere else.

As your single base: four to five days. Three is the workable minimum. Four to five lets you swim both wind coasts, walk Lefkes and the Byzantine Road, give Antiparos a full day and still keep slow harbour evenings.

Base first: Parikia or Naoussa

Paros has two towns and almost everyone stays in one of them. They are twenty minutes apart and they are not the same trip.

Parikia is the port and the transport hub. Every ferry docks here and every bus starts here, which makes it the practical base - especially if Paros is one stop on a hopping route rather than the whole holiday.

Naoussa, on the north coast, is the pretty one: a small fishing harbour with a half-sunken Venetian fort, boats pulled up on the quay, and a dense little grid of whitewashed lanes behind it. It is more expensive and more fashionable.

Where to stay in Paros sets them against each other properly.

The two-night version

Day one is the town: Parikia’s old quarter and Ekatontapyliani, which is one of the oldest churches in Greece. Day two is Naoussa in the evening with a beach in between, and the beach is chosen on the morning rather than the night before - see the wind section below.

If that is your Paros, it slots straight into the ready-made Cyclades route, and how to plan an island-hopping trip covers building your own.

The four-to-five-day version

With the base case you get a bonus few islands can match: from Paros you can day-trip to Naxos, and in season to Mykonos or Santorini, without ever changing rooms.

• Both wind coasts. They are genuinely different swims, and doing only one is the most common way to misjudge this island.
• Lefkes and the Byzantine Road. The interior, on foot, and the part of Paros that has nothing to do with the harbours.
• Antiparos, a full day. A short ferry from Pounta to a smaller, quieter island with a single main street and a large cave in its interior.
• A day out by boat. Day trips from Paros covers what is reachable and what is only reachable in season.
• Slow harbour evenings, which is the actual reason to give the island five days rather than three.

The wind decides your day, not your itinerary

Paros sits in the path of the summer meltemi, and this is not a footnote: it determines which coast is usable. The east coast around Golden Beach catches it, which is why the windsurfers are there and why it hosts international competition. The sheltered bays are on the other side.

So build the plan around coasts rather than named beaches. Check what the wind is doing in the morning and pick a coast accordingly, rather than committing to one beach the night before. The beaches explain which is which.

When to come

May to June or September to early October. Those windows give you warm days, a sea still swimmable into early autumn, and rooms and dinner tables you do not have to fight for. July and August are Paros’s double peak: the biggest crowds of the year stacked on top of the strongest wind.

Our Paros guide has the rest, and things to do in Paros covers the marble, the churches and the interior.