7 Best places to stay in Naxos

Obsessively clean, with an unending breakfast buffet featuring home-baked pies that will carry you easily past lunch, this two-star family hotel at the northern edge of town has spectacular sunset views over Portara.

The owners, Dimitris and Nikoletta, who run the place, are the perfect ambassadors for Greek filoxenia (hospitality) and will easily cross the boundaries of a concierge and become your friends for life.

To top it all, there’s parking – rare for a town hotel – and easy access to the rocky beach at Grotta, where you may discern a Mycenaean submerged village when the sand bed moves the right way.

At the edge of Naxos Town and dead on the beach of Agios Georgios this is a deluxe hotel run by the island-born Spanos family that offers a lot more than many a five-star in the Cyclades.

Not only is it convenient for the beach and town nightlife, not only are the ivory-white surfaces a designer gem (in the last renovation rooms were merged to offer more space), but it also offers some eye-catching details.

Breakfast is cooked fresh daily with a free glass of sparkling wine; the bathrooms all have tubs as well as power showers; and the restaurant is always full of townspeople and the pool-cum-beach bar has some great kitron cocktails.

A great location for this stunner of a two-star: 50m from the Agios Prokopios beach and a few steps from the bus stop to town at the entrance of Agios Prokopios. It’s close enough to walk to the waterfront restaurants and bars (and traipse back safely), but far enough to escape any noise.

There is a pretty large pool for the star rating – complete with a safe children’s pool – laptop rental, and excellent service, but it’s the stylish individuality in every room blending tradition with modern comforts that tips the scales. Get as large a room as you can afford.

Boutique and bijou, Naxos Island is the best of the five-stars bunched up around Agios Prokopios.

Unlike others though, it’s dead on the beach and features a rooftop infinity pool plus a bar/restaurant with panoramic vistas.

It’s also a stone’s throw away from the bus stop to Naxos Town and to the lively strip of restaurants and bars of Agios Prokopios.

The spa centre certainly punches above its size with a wide range of offerings including chocolate treatment and a – wait for it – gold therapy massage.

If you are mobile and in need of a lavish base for your adventures, then the Naxian Utopia is a great choice. It lies on the main road, a short drive to the village and beach of Agios Prokopios.

What you get however is Cycladic blinding-white chic, special coco-mat mattresses (the best in Greece), a private pool, a well-stocked kitchenette, parking, and, most importantly, peace and privacy, as the suites are so well appointed that you may spend a day there before you see another guest.

Should you want to extend your stay in the Lesser Cyclades, it is tiny, but trendy Ano Koufonissi, with its slew of unspoilt beaches that provides those ‘early Mykonos vibes’ and family-run Myrto where you should book at.

Rising at a small hillock 50m from the main beach and with great views towards mysterious Keros – out of bounds, as the whole island is an active archaeological site – the hotel subscribes to the sparkling white Cycladic style with marble bathrooms, airy rooms with large windows and high ceilings.

A lush walled garden with a pool, a freshly-cooked breakfast and warm, friendly service will complete your idyllic hideaway.

Luxury on the Beach would be a far better name for this adults-only beachfront boutique hotel that feels undervalued by at least one star.

It claims its own patch at the southern end of Naxos’s Plaka beach with umbrellas, sun loungers plus waiting service, and it includes a restaurant, Tortuga, that was supervised in its infancy by the late, great Anthony Bourdain.

The room decor is all wicker and bamboo southeast Asian chic, the bathrooms are fashioned by polished concrete that feel cavern-like; and the balconies boast sea views over dunes colonised by marram grass. (The rooms on the top floor are the best…)

The bus stop to Naxos Town is just outside and taxis are on call 24/7.