Things to do in Paxos

Paxos is small, and it is honest to say what that means: there is no headline sight here, no castle, no ancient city, no museum you plan a morning around. What there is, is three harbour villages with very little built up between them, a dramatic west coast, and an olive landscape that is the island’s actual subject. Read it that way and Paxos is one of the most restful weeks in the Ionian. Read it as a sightseeing island and you will be finished by lunchtime.

The three villages, running busiest to quietest. On an island this small even the busiest is calm, and choosing between them is a choice of pace rather than of hotel.

Gaios, the island’s front door. The capital and main ferry port, wrapped around a natural harbour that two little wooded islets, Agios Nikolaos and Panagia, screen almost entirely from the open sea, which is why the water inside stays flat. Most of what the island keeps in the way of shops, services, ATMs and boat hire is here.

Lakka, in a near-enclosed horseshoe bay at the northern tip. Ringed by olive-covered hills, and the village travellers most often name as their favourite. The bay’s calm water makes it the island’s small centre for swimming and sailing, and short walks lead out to nearby coves, with Plani the closest.

Loggos, the smallest. A former fishing harbour tucked into a narrow inlet on the northeast coast, and the quietest base on an already quiet island. Its reputation rests on its waterfront, where a cluster of tables along the water makes dinner the event of the day. There is little to do beyond swim, read and eat, which is precisely the appeal.

The west coast, which is the island’s one piece of drama. High white cliffs pierced with sea caves. Tripitos, toward the southern end, is a large natural arch left standing when part of a sea cave collapsed, reached by walking a few hundred metres of footpath from the hamlet of Ozias or seen from the water. Erimitis, halfway down the western side, is the island’s newest beach, opened up in 2008 when an earthquake brought the cliff down and left a new shore behind it.

Why you meet that coast from a boat. The west is exposed and the caves sit under high rock, so a small hired boat is the wrong tool there in any swell, and the organised trips go when conditions allow. Taking the trip rather than hiring something yourself is the right call rather than the lazy one.

Antipaxos, the day everyone crosses for. A tiny islet about five kilometres off the southeast, reached only by small boat or water taxi from Gaios, with two beaches, Vrika and Voutoumi, and nowhere much to stay. It is strictly a day trip and it is the best water within reach of this island. The beaches page covers it properly.

What to actually do with a week. Walk between the villages through the olives, swim the east-coast coves, take one boat day along the west and one to Antipaxos. That is the island in full, and the absence of a sight-list is the point rather than a gap. Our Paxos guide has the practicalities.