Hike
Walk the old olive lanes
Follow the old paths between dry-stone walls from hamlet to hamlet through the groves, past chapels, wells and olive presses, with hardly a car in sight.
The interior, from Magazia or Gaios
Paxos · Things to do
Things to do in Paxos
Beaches, trails, festivals, food and wine: the experiences that make this island its own.
Experiences
Our favourite things to do
Ideas for every kind of day, from a lazy swim to a full-day hike.
Nature
Hire a little boat for the caves
Rent a small motorboat that needs no licence and explore the west coast at your own pace: the blue caves, the sea stack of Ortholithos, empty coves and a swim wherever you like.
From Gaios, Lakka or Loggos
Beach
A day on Antipaxos
Take the morning boat from Gaios, swim at Vrika, walk over the headland to Voutoumi and stay for lunch above the bay.
Vrika and Voutoumi
Nature
Sunset at Erimitis
Stand on the clifftop as the sun goes down over the open Ionian and the white cliffs below you turn gold, then pink.
The west cliffs near Magazia
Hike
Walk to the Tripitos arch
Follow tracks through the southern olive groves to the clifftop above the natural rock bridge of Tripitos and its turquoise water.
The south-west coast
Festival
The feast of the Panagia
On the feast of the Dormition, boats carry the faithful to the monastery on Panagia islet, and the celebration carries on with music and dancing in Gaios.
Gaios, 15 August
Food & wine
Harbour hopping by night
Have dinner in a different harbour each evening: the channel of Gaios, the little curve of Loggos and the yacht-filled bay of Lakka.
Gaios, Loggos and Lakka
Only on Paxos
What makes Paxos different
What makes Paxos one of the most peaceful islands in Greece.
An island without an airport
Every visitor to Paxos comes by sea, on a boat from Corfu or Igoumenitsa or on a yacht. That one fact keeps the island small-scale: no package-holiday resorts, no big hotels, and day-trippers who leave again in the afternoon.
A forest of olive trees
Almost the whole island is an olive grove, planted over centuries and encouraged under Venetian rule, when olive oil was the Ionian islands' great export. Many of the trees are hundreds of years old, with trunks twisted into strange shapes, and the oil of Paxos is still pressed every winter.
Dry-stone walls and old presses
Under the olives, the hillsides are terraced with walls of stone fitted without mortar, and the old paths between them still link the hamlets. Scattered through the groves stand the stone buildings of old olive presses, where the oil was once crushed by animal power, then by machine.
A harbour behind two islets
Gaios lies on a narrow channel sheltered by the islet of Agios Nikolaos, with the walls of a Venetian fort among its pines, and by Panagia islet with its monastery of the Virgin. Few Greek harbours are so enclosed or so still.
Caves on the west coast
The west coast is a long wall of white limestone hollowed into sea caves, where sunlight bouncing off the sandy floor makes the water glow blue. Offshore stands Ortholithos, a solitary needle of rock, and further south the Tripitos arch.
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