Paros

Parikia stands on the site of the ancient city of Paros. Settlers from Athens brought prosperity, and the city founded colonies of its own on Thasos and at Parium on the Hellespont; the poet Archilochus, a native of the island, is said to have joined the colony on Thasos. Paros sided with Persia at Marathon in 490 BC, and an Athenian fleet under Miltiades besieged the town for 26 days before sailing away. In the Delian League it paid the highest tribute of any island, a sign of its wealth — wealth that came above all from its white, translucent marble, quarried by lamplight in tunnels and used by Praxiteles and other sculptors.

After the Fourth Crusade the island became part of the Venetian Duchy of the Archipelago, and in the early 17th century a castle was raised on the hill at Parikia from the stones of ancient temples. The Ottomans conquered Paros in 1537, with great cruelty to its people, and ruled until the War of Independence; in the 1770s Naoussa Bay served as the base of a Russian fleet. Paros joined the Greek kingdom under the treaty of 1832, and Manto Mavrogenous, the heroine of the war who had financed and fought in it, spent her last years on Paros.

Refugees from Asia Minor settled in Parikia after 1922, founding the Prosfygika quarter. In the Second World War the island came under German occupation. On 26 September 2000 the ferry Express Samina struck the Portes islets off the bay of Parikia, killing 82 people.

Parikia's year turns on the Panagia Ekatontapiliani, the church of a hundred doors, said to have been founded by Saint Helen, mother of Constantine the Great. On 15 August the feast of the Virgin is the biggest event of Parikia's summer; on 23 August Naoussa holds its own great feast for the Enniamera. On Ascension Day a festival is held at the chapel of Agios Fokas, begun in 1929 by the town's café owners, who were also its grocers.

The island's identity is bound up with marble. Paros is largely built of it, and "Parian" became the word for marble or porcelain of the same fine white quality. The remaining marble is now owned by the state and used for archaeological restoration, and the remains of ancient temples are built into the walls of Parikia's Venetian castle.

The refugees of 1922 left a lasting mark in Parikia's Prosfygika quarter. Today Parikia's houses keep the classic Cycladic look of flat roofs, whitewashed walls and blue shutters, and the waterfront bars give the town a busy nightlife. Since 2023 local people have protested on many beaches against businesses that crowd the sand with more umbrellas than the rules allow, and the protests led the government to tighten inspections.

Parikia had 4,166 residents and the island 14,520 at the 2021 census; Naoussa, the second town, had 2,415. Tourism is the main business — Paros ranks behind only Santorini and Mykonos in popularity among the Cyclades — and the island also produces olive oil, potatoes, wine, vegetables, fruit and grain.

Parikia is the working centre of the island: the ferry port, where boats to Piraeus, Crete and the other Cyclades call several times a day, the municipal offices in the old mansions, the shops of the old town and the bus routes to the villages. The arrival of a ferry still fills the quay with people offering rooms. Inland villages such as Lefkes lost many residents to Athens in the 1970s.

Summer and winter feel like different places. From June to September the waterfront and Naoussa's harbour stay lively late into the night; in winter many hotels close and the island returns to its residents. Pressure on the coast is the main local argument, from beaches crowded with umbrellas to the crowds of high season.

Paros eats from its own land and sea. The island grows potatoes, vegetables, fruit and grain, presses olive oil, and has long made wine: two local varieties hold protected designation, the red Mandilaria and the white Monemvasia, and local vineyards still produce wine.

Seafood is the heart of eating out. Naoussa's harbour is lined with fish restaurants and ouzeri, where gouna fish and octopus in vinegar are the dishes to order alongside a glass of ouzo. In Parikia the tavernas along the bay serve fresh fish and island produce, with the shops and cafés of the old town's lanes just behind.

Meals follow the island rhythm: long evenings by the water in summer, festival tables at the August feasts and at Agios Fokas on Ascension Day, and simple bakery food and gyros for travellers between ferries. Wine from the island's own vineyards is the usual companion to all of it, at the taverna table and the village feast alike.