Paros has an international Airport receiving flights from many European Countries.

Another option is to fly to Mykonos (again an international airport offering many intereuropean flights) and take the fast boat to Paros.

During summer, daily ferries link Paros with Piraeus and Rafina. From the harbour of Piraeus, Paros is reachable in 5 hours or in 2, 45 hours with a High-speed catamaran. From the harbour of Rafina (second main port of Athens, 1 hour drive from the centre, nearby the new airport) the trip to Paros is shorter.

During summer, frequent ferry services operate to various destinations such as: Amorgos, Anafi, Ikaria, Ios, Samos, Koufonisia, Mykonos, Naxos, Rhodes, Santorini, Schinousa, Skiathos, Syros, and Tinos, but also to Crete, Volos and Thessaloniki.

Paros belongs to the Cyclades island group and lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about 8 km (5 mi) wide. It lies approximately 100 nautical miles (185km) south-east of Piraeus.

Paros' geographic co-ordinates are 37° N. lat, and 25° 10' E. long. The area is 165 km². Its greatest length from N.E. to S.W. is 13 miles (20.8 km)., and its greatest breadth 10 miles (16 km). The island is of a round, plump-pear shape. It is formed of a single mountain about 800 m (2500 ft) high, sloping evenly down on all sides to a maritime plain, which is broadest on the north-east and south-west sides. The island is composed of marble, though gneiss and mica-schist are to be found in a few places.

To the west of Paros lies its smaller sister island Antiparos. At its narrowest, the channel between the two islands is less than 2km wide. A car-carrying shuttle-ferry operates all day (to and from Pounda, 3 miles south of Parikia). In addition a dozen smaller islets surround Paros.

The island is famed for its beaches. The largest is Chrissí Aktí (Golden Beach, Greece), near Drios on the east coast, facing Naxos. The constant strong wind in the strait between Paros and Naxos makes it a favoured windsurfing location. Other fine sand beaches are to be found (anti-clockwise from Golden Beach) at Pounda, Logaras, Piso Livadi, Naoussa bay, Parikía and Agía Irini.

The capital, Parikía, situated on a bay on the north-west side of the island, occupies the site of the ancient capital Paros.

Parikía harbour ia a major hub for Aegean islands ferries and catamarans, with several sailings each day for Piraeus (the port of Athens), Heraklion (the capital of Crete) and other islands such as Naxos, Ios, Santorini, and Mykonos . The harbour approaches are notoriously hazardous due to the presence of a group of isolated rocks. The most recent and deadly shipwreck off Paros was that of the car ferry MV Express Samina. It ran onto the rocks and sank in a storm on the night of 26 Sept 2000. This resulted in the drowning of 80 passengers.

In Parikía town, houses are built and decorated in the traditional Cycladic style with flat roofs, whitewash walls and blue-painted doors and window frames and shutters (Fig.1). Shadowed by luxuriant vines, and surrounded by gardens of oranges and pomegranates, the houses give the town a picturesque and pleasing aspect. On a rock beside the sea are the remains of a medieval castle, built almost entirely of the marble remains of an ancient temple. Similar traces of antiquity, in the shape of bas-reliefs, inscriptions, columns, & etc., are numerous. On a rock shelf to the south are remains of a precinct which was dedicated to Asclepius. In addition, close to the modern harbour, the remains of an ancient cemetery are visible, since being discovered recently during non-archaeological excavations.

In Parikía's main square is the town's principal church, the Ekatontapiliani (literally: "church of the hundred doors"). Its oldest features almost certainly predate the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire (391 A.D.). It is said to have been founded by the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I the Great (ruled 306 - 337 A.D.), Saint Helen, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There are two adjoining chapels, one of very early form, and also a baptistery with a cruciform font.

On the north side of the island is the bay of Naoussa (Naussa) or Agoussa (Fig.2), forming a safe and spacious harbour. In ancient times it was closed by a chain or boom. Another good harbour is that of Drios on the south-east side, where the Turkish fleet used to anchor on its annual voyage through the Aegean during the period of Ottoman rule over Paros (1537 - 1832).

The three villages of Dragoulas, Mármara and Tsipidos situated on an open plain on the eastern side of the island, and rich in remains of antiquity, probably occupy the site of an ancient town. They are known together as the "villages of Kephalos" after the steep and lofty hill of Kephalos. On this hilltop stands the abandoned monastery of Agios Antonios (St Anthony). Around it are the ruins of a medieval castle which belonged in the late Middle Ages to the Venetian noble family of the Venieri. They gallantly but vainly defended it against the Turkish admiral Barbarossa in 1537.

Parian marble, which is white and translucent (semi-transparent), with a coarse grain and a very beautiful texture, was the chief source of wealth for the island. The celebrated marble quarries lie on the northern side of the mountain anciently known as Marpessa (afterwards Capresso), a little below a former convent of St Mina. The marble, which was exported from the 6th century BC onwards, was used by Praxiteles and other great Greek sculptors (Fig.3). It was obtained by means of subterranean quarries driven horizontally or at a descending angle into the rock. The marble thus quarried by lamplight was given the name of Lychnites, Lychneus (from lychnos, a lamp), or Lygdos [1]. Several of these tunnels are still to be seen. At the entrance to one of them is a bas-relief dedicated to Pan and the Nymphs. Several attempts to work the marble have been made in modern times, but it has not been exported in any great quantities.

Parikía town has a small but interesting archaeological museum housing some of the many finds from sites in Paros. The best pieces, however, are in the Athens National Archaeological Museum. The Paros museum contains a fragment of the Parian Chronicle, a remarkable chronology of ancient Greece. Inscribed in marble, its entries give time elapsed between key events from the most distant past (1500 B.C.) down to 264 B.C.

The story that Paros was colonized by one Paros of Parrhasia, who brought with him a colony of Arcadians to the island is one of those etymological fictions which abound in Greek legend. Ancient names of the island are said to have been Plateia (or Pactia), Demetrias, Strongyli (meaning round due to the round shape of the island), Hyria, Hyleessa, Minoa and Cabarnis.
From Athens the island later received a colony of Ionians under whom it attained a high degree of prosperity. It sent out colonies to Thasos and Parium on the Hellespont. In the former colony, which was planted in the 15th or 18th Olympiad, the poet Archilochus, native of Paros, is said to have taken part. As late as 385 BC the Parians, in conjunction with Dionysius of Syracuse, founded a colony on the Illyrian island of Pharos (Hvar).

Shortly before the Persian War Paros seems to have been a dependency of Naxos. In the first Greco-Persian War (490 B.C.), Paros sided with the Persians and sent a trireme to Marathon to support them. In retaliation, the capital Paros was besieged by an Athenian fleet under Miltiades, who demanded a fine of 100 talents talent (weight). But the town offered a vigorous resistance, and the Athenians were obliged to sail away after a siege of 26 days, during which they had laid the island waste. It was at a temple of Demeter Thesmophoros in Paros that Miltiades received the wound of which he afterwards died. By means of an inscription Ross was enabled to identify the site of the temple; it lies, as Herodotus suggests, on a low hill beyond the boundaries of the town.

Paros also sided with shahanshah Xerxes I of Persia against Greece in the second Greco-Persian War (480 - 479 B.C.), but after the battle of Artemisium the Parian contingent remained inactive at Kythnos watching the progress of events For their support of the Persians, the islanders were later punished by the Athenian war leader Themistocles, who exacted a heavy fine.

Under the Delian League, the Athenian-dominated naval confederacy (477 - 404 B.C.), Paros paid the highest tribute of all the island members: 30 talents annually, according to the estimate of Olympiodorus (429 B.C.). This implies that Paros was then one of the wealthiest islands in the Aegean. Little is known of the constitution of Paros, but inscriptions seem to show that it was modeled on Athenian democracy, with a senate- Boule (ancient Greece)- at the head of affairs. In 410 BC the Athenian general Theramenes found an oligarchy governing Paros; he deposed it and restored the democracy. Paros was included in the second Athenian confederacy (the Second Athenian Empire 378 - 355 B.C.). In c.357 B.C., along with Chios, it severed its connection with Athens.

From the inscription of Adule we learn that the Cyclades, presumably including Paros, were subject to the Ptolemies, the Hellenistic dynasty that ruled Egypt (305 - 30 B.C.). Paros then became part of the Roman Empire and later of its Greek-speaking successor state, the Byzantine Empire.

In 1204, the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade seized Constantinople and overthrew the Byzantine Empire. Although a residual Byzantine state known as the Empire of Nicaea survived the Crusader onslaught and eventually recovered Constantinople (1261), many of the original Byzantine territories, including Paros, were lost permanently to the crusading powers. Paros became subject to the Duchy of the Archipelago, a fiefdom made up of various Aegean islands ruled by a Venetian duke as nominal vassal of a succession of crusader states. In practice, however, the duchy was always a client state of the Republic of Venice.

In 1537 Paros was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained under the Ottoman Empire until the Greek War of Independence (1821 - 29). In 1832, under the Treaty of Constantinople, Paros became part of the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, the first time the Parians were ruled by fellow Greeks for over six centuries. At this time, Paros became the home of a heroine of the nationalist movement, Manto Mavrogenous, who had both financed and fought in the war for independence. Her house, near Ekatontapiliani church, is today a historical monument.

Valley of Butterflies

Calling it a valley is probably a bit of an exaggeration since the whole area is only a few square acres situated by the foot of a hill, but it is still worth it. You find the Valley of Butterflies just a few kilometers south of Parikia in the same direction as the airport. The place is well marked from the main road, and situated above it. From the parking lot there is a lovely view of Antiparos.

The area is now made into a small park with paths and steps, so making your way around is rather easy. In this valley lots of bushes/trees of a certain kind grow. These trees are the favorite dish of the butterflies, and the reason why there are so many of them here. There really are lots of them, though they are not easily spotted at first sight. Not very many of them fly around in the air, though there are some, but if you want to see lots of them, look in the shadows, and close to the stone walls. In the bushes they cling by thousands. And yet they are not easy to spot; since there are so many of them and they sit on bushes with very little leaves, the butterflies themselves look like leaves. They cling to each other, really looking like leaves, dark-green with light green nerves streching out to the sides, just like on real leaves.

Around the park there are several signs telling you not to disturb the butterflies, and really, they do look like they sit there sleeping. But occasionally some of them move so that we can see them flying in the air. The beautiful orange color under the wings and on the "body" then can be seen. The color is completely covered when they sit still. It is very difficult to take photos of them. With an ordinary compact camera, the butterflies appear as tiny spots that hardly can be seen on the photos. If you want really good pictures, you need good equipment with a good macro lens, and lots of patience and luck.

Castle Hill

The site of the Medieval Castle has formed the nucleus of civilization on the Island of Paros since the 4th Millennium B.C. until the present.

The Castle itself was built by the Venetian Duke of Naxos, Sanoudos (13th Century A.D.) using various remnants of ancient structures. Archeologists have determined that incorporated within the walls of the castle are elements of three ancient and two classical temples from the ancient city. Of those temples only a small chamber of the Temple of Athena (6th Century B.C.) has been saved, situated at the top of the hill. Near the foundations of what was the temple a portion of a Pre-Cycladic settlement has been discovered.

When exploring the Castle you encounter many tiny churches, many built right into the walls: Panaghia of the Cross (1514), Agia Anna, Aghios Markos, Agios Stylianos and the architectural gem of Aghios Konstantinos with its covered portico, graceful arches and stunning view of the sea. It ranks among the most beautiful churches in the Aegean.