The archaeological sites of Naxos
People have been coming here to cut stone for two hundred thousand years. Everything on this page is a consequence of that one fact.
Last reviewed July 2026
The short version
- The Portara
- A 6th-century BC temple gate to Apollo. Free, always open, five minutes from the port.
- The kouroi
- Giant marble youths lying where they cracked, 2,600 years ago. Free. Extraordinary.
- Temple of Demeter
- c.530 BC, all Naxian marble, older than the Parthenon. €5, and the only ticket you need.
- Stelida
- Neanderthal tools, 200,000 years old. An active dig, not a visitor site.
- The Kastro
- Venetian, 1207, with the Archaeological Museum inside. Free.
- The catch
- Almost everything closes on Tuesdays, and shuts by mid-afternoon.
Here is the thread that runs through all of it. Naxos is an island made of good stone, and that has been drawing people to it for longer than our species has existed in Europe. First it was chert, for blades. Later it was marble, for gods. The quarries changed hands and the reason never did.
What follows runs forward in time, from a hill outside Chora where Neanderthals knapped tools to a castle the Venetians built in 1207. That is a two-hundred-thousand-year story on one island, and most visitors see about ninety minutes of it.
The deep past: Stelida
Three and a half kilometres southwest of Chora there is a double-peaked hill, 152 metres high, that most visitors drive past on the way to the beach. It is called Stelida, and it may be the most important archaeological site in the Cyclades.
The hill is an outcrop of chert, a hard stone that flakes to a cutting edge. That made it worth walking to, and worth sailing to, long before anyone here was building temples. Excavations since 2013 have recovered around nine thousand stone artefacts, dated by luminescence to between thirteen thousand and two hundred thousand years ago.
Among them are Mousterian tools. Mousterian means Neanderthals, and that is the part that matters, because it puts them in the middle of the Aegean.
Why that is a big deal
The long-standing assumption was that only modern humans could build boats and settle islands, and that the Aegean was therefore a barrier: anyone moving out of Africa into Europe went the long way round, by the land bridge at Thrace. Stelida suggests the sea may instead have been a route, either crossed deliberately or walked across when sea levels were low enough.
The work is run by Dr Tristan Carter of the Canadian Institute in Greece and Dr Demetris Athanasoulis of the Cycladic Ephorate of Antiquities, and the dating was published in Science Advances. The hill was found in 1981 and given protected status in 2000. It is still being dug.
This is a working excavation, not a visitor attraction. There is no ticket office, no path and nothing roped off. Look it up before you come, look at the hill when you drive past it, and leave the ground alone.
And then the rest of prehistory
- Zas Cave, on the mountain, held one of the oldest known settlements in the Cyclades, around seven thousand years old. You walk past it on the way up.
- Grotta, under the sea just off Chora, is a Mycenaean town of about 1300 BC, now semi-submerged below Mitropoleos Square. You can see it through the water on a calm day.
- Dwarf elephants lived here in the Pleistocene. An island species, now extinct, called Palaeoloxodon lomolinoi. That is not a joke.
The kouroi, still lying where they broke
A kouros is a standing marble youth, the standard sculptural form of archaic Greece. Naxos exported them across the Aegean. It also has three that never left, because something went wrong during the carving and the quarry simply walked away and left them where they lay. They are still there, in the open, free to visit, and they are the most affecting things on this island.
The Kouroi of Flerio
Two of them, each around five metres, in an orchard at the bottom of a green valley. They cracked in the making and were abandoned roughly 2,600 years ago. One lies on his back looking at the sky through the trees. There is a cafe. It is a twenty-five minute drive and a short walk, and almost nobody is ever there.
DirectionsThe Kouros of Apollonas
The giant. 10.7 metres and perhaps 80 tonnes, lying unfinished on the hillside above the village, still half attached to the rock he was being cut from. Too heavy to move, which is exactly why he is still here. An hour's drive north, and worth combining with lunch at the harbour.
DirectionsThe Flerio walk is the best easy hike on the island: 6.1km from Melanes through Mili, about three hours, ending at the kouroi. You arrive the way the quarrymen did.
The temples
The Portara
Two jambs and a lintel: all that was ever finished of a temple to Apollo begun in the 6th century BC and abandoned when the tyrant who ordered it fell. Because it was never completed, it was never quarried for its stone, which is why a doorway outlived every temple that got built. Free, unfenced, always open.
DirectionsThe Temple of Demeter
Built around 530 BC, entirely of Naxian marble, on a low hill above a fertile plain with Mount Zas behind it. Inscriptions name Demeter, Persephone and Apollo. Architecturally it is considered a forerunner of the Parthenon, which it predates by most of a century. Partly rebuilt as a Christian basilica in the 6th century AD, excavated from 1976, and now carefully restored.
DirectionsThe Temple of Dionysus
Naxos was one of the great cult centres of Dionysus in the ancient world, rivalled only by Thebes, and this was his sanctuary. There was a fertility cult on this spot by about 1400 BC and a succession of temples built over each other since. Excavated from 1986. Quieter and less restored than Sangri, and closer to the beach strip than you would expect.
DirectionsThe Archaeological Museum
Up in the Kastro, and free. The Cycladic collection is the reason to go: the flat marble figurines that influenced Brancusi, Modigliani and Picasso, made here, out of this island's stone, four and a half thousand years ago. See the note below about the current building works.
DirectionsSources disagree about whether the Temple of Demeter is Ionic or Doric, and we are not going to pretend to settle it. What is not in dispute: it is all marble, it is roughly 530 BC, and the Parthenon owes it something.
Byzantine and Venetian
The classical world ended and the quarrying did not. The Byzantines built churches out of the same marble; the Venetians built towers out of it; the villages built their houses out of it. Apeiranthos is paved with the stuff.
- The Kastro, Chora. The Venetian castle at the top of the Old Town, built in 1207 by Marco Sanudo, who made Naxos the capital of a duchy that lasted three centuries. Still lived in. The walk up through the alleys is the point.
- Panagia Drosiani, Moni. A Byzantine church in the Tragea, among the oldest on the island, with frescoes layered over centuries. Small, dark, and worth the stop.
- Fotodotis Monastery, near Danakos. The oldest monastery on Naxos, in a spectacular position above the gorge.
- Cheimarros Tower. A Hellenistic marble tower standing alone in the hills, reached by a track from Filoti. Round, precise, and improbably intact. Getting there is half of it.
- The Venetian towers. Scattered through the interior: Barozzi at Filoti, Fragopoulos at Kourounochori. The Tragea is full of them.
Hours, tickets, getting there
| Site | Cost | Hours | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portara | Free | Always | Walk, 5 min from the port |
| Archaeological Museum | Free | 09:00-14:00, closed Tue | Walk, up through the Kastro |
| Temple of Demeter | €5 / €3 reduced | 08:30-15:30, closed Tue | Car. ~10km, near Sangri |
| Kouroi of Flerio | Free | Daylight | Car, ~25 min. Or walk from Melanes |
| Kouros of Apollonas | Free | Daylight | Car, ~1 hr north |
| Temple of Dionysus, Yria | Small charge | Check locally | Car, near Agia Anna |
| Cheimarros Tower | Free | Always | Track from Filoti. Rough. |
Three things worth knowing
- Tuesday closes almost everything. Both the museum and the Temple of Demeter shut. Plan around it.
- So does mid-afternoon. Demeter closes at 15:30 and the museum at 14:00. These are morning visits, and the light is better then anyway.
- The best ones are free and unfenced. The kouroi, the Portara, Cheimarros. No ticket, no gate, no queue.
The Archaeological Museum's main building in the Kastro is closed for restoration under the Islet of Museums project. The Cycladic collection has not gone far: it is on the second floor of the Saint Ursula Cultural Centre, inside the Castle, and still free.
Almost every site on this page is inland, and the bus does not go to any of them except Chora's. Demeter, Flerio, Apollonas and Cheimarros all need a car or a driver. How getting around works.
Four sites, one morning, no bus to any of them.
Demeter shuts at half three and the kouroi are an hour apart. Doing them properly in a day means driving, or letting someone who knows the roads do it while you look out of the window.
- Flerio, Sangri, Apollonas, in the right order
- Drivers who know which sites shut when
- Waits while you walk around
- Fixed price, quoted before you travel
Asked often
What are the main archaeological sites in Naxos?
The Portara, a 6th-century BC temple gate to Apollo, free and five minutes from the port. The Temple of Demeter near Sangri, built around 530 BC entirely of Naxian marble and considered a forerunner of the Parthenon. The kouroi at Flerio and Apollonas, giant marble figures abandoned in their quarries 2,600 years ago. The Venetian Kastro in Chora with the Archaeological Museum inside. The Temple of Dionysus at Yria.
How much is the Temple of Demeter in Naxos?
€5, or €3 reduced, and that includes the small Giroulas Collection museum on the site. It opens 08:30 to 15:30 and closes on Tuesdays. Admission is free for everyone up to 18 and for EU citizens up to 25 with valid ID. It is about 10km from Chora near Sangri, and there is no useful bus.
Is there really evidence of Neanderthals on Naxos?
Yes. Excavations at Stelida, a chert-bearing hill 3.5km southwest of Chora, have recovered around nine thousand stone artefacts dated from 13,000 to 200,000 years ago, including Mousterian tools associated with Neanderthals. The dating was published in Science Advances. It matters because it suggests the Aegean was a migration route into Europe rather than a barrier. Stelida is an active excavation, not a visitor site.
How big is the Kouros of Apollonas?
About 10.7 metres and perhaps 80 tonnes, lying unfinished on a hillside above the village of Apollonas on the north coast, still partly attached to the rock. He is still there precisely because he was too heavy to move. Free to visit, about an hour's drive from Chora.
Are the Naxos archaeological sites free?
Most of the best ones are. The Portara, both sets of kouroi, the Cheimarros Tower and the Archaeological Museum all cost nothing. The Temple of Demeter is €5. That is close to the whole bill.
Can you visit the Naxos sites without a car?
Only the ones in Chora: the Portara, the Kastro and the Archaeological Museum. The Temple of Demeter, the kouroi at Flerio and Apollonas, and the Cheimarros Tower are all inland or on the north coast, and the bus does not serve them usefully. You need a car, a scooter or a driver.
Which day are the Naxos archaeological sites closed?
Tuesday. Both the Archaeological Museum and the Temple of Demeter close, and it catches people out. Note also that Demeter shuts at 15:30 and the museum at 14:00, so these are morning visits.