With a gentle and undramatic landscape arranged around the central peak of Profítis Ilías, PÁROS has a little of everything one expects from a Greek island: old villages, monasteries, fishing harbours, nice beaches and varied nightlife. However, Parikiá, the capital, can be touristy and expensive, and it is very difficult finding rooms and beach space here in August, when the other settlements, the port of Náoussa and the satellite island of Andíparos, handle most of the overflow. Drinking and carousing is many people’s idea of a holiday on Páros, so it’s not surprising that both Parikiá and Náoussa have a wealth of pubs, bars and discos, offering staggered happy hours.
Parikiá and around
Bustling PARIKIÁ sets the tone architecturally for the rest of Páros, its ranks of typically Cycladic white houses punctuated by the occasional Venetian-style building and church domes. The town’s sights apart, the real attraction of Parikiá is simply to wander the town itself, especially along the meandering old market street (Agorá) and adjoining Grávari. Arcaded lanes lead past Venetian-influenced villas, traditional island dwellings, ornate wall-fountains and trendy shops. The market street culminates in a formidable kástro (1260), whose surviving east wall incorporates a fifth-century BC round tower and is constructed using masonry pillaged from a nearby temple of Athena which is still highly visible. On the seafront behind the port police are the exposed, excavated ruins of an ancient cemetery used from the eighth century BC until the third century AD.The Ekatondapylianí
Just beyond the central clutter of the ferry port, Parikiá has the most architecturally interesting church in the Aegean – the Katopoliani (facing the town). Later Greek scholars purified the name and connected it with past glories, so they changed it to Ekatondapylianí (“The One Hundred Gated”), a nickname that baffles today’s visitors. Tradition, supported by excavations, claims that it was originally founded in 326 AD by St Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine, but what’s visible today stems from a sixth century Justinian reconstruction.Enclosed by a great front wall, sign of an Imperial-built church, the church is in fact three interlocking buildings. The oldest, the chapel of Áyios Nikólaos to the left of the apse, is an adaptation of a pagan building dating from the early fourth century BC. On the right, there is another building attached, housing a Paleochristian baptistry, where the initiate used to dip in a cross-shaped pool. Inside the church courtyard, there is a small Byzantine museum (church hours; €2) displaying a collection of icons. Look through the iconostasis (which still retains its ancient marble frame) to observe two unique features: at the back, a set of amphitheatric steps, the synthronon, where the priests used to chant, and, at the front, the ciborium, a marble canopy over the altar.