Venetian Towers of Naxos: Bazeos Tower, Belonia Tower and Agia Monastery

As you drive inland from Naxos Town toward Sangri, Melanes or Halki, you will notice something you won't see on Mykonos or Paros: rising above the olive and citrus groves are more than thirty freestanding, crenellated stone castle-towers called Pyrgia. Built between the 14th and 17th centuries by the Venetian and Frankish Catholic feudal lords who owned the fertile agricultural estates of Naxos, these three-storey fortified country villas served both as summer residences and as strongholds against pirate raids and local uprisings (complete with drawbridges lifting to a second-floor entrance door, machicolations for pouring boiling oil, and twin Catholic and Orthodox chapels in the garden).

Three Venetian Towers You Can Visit Today

1. Bazeos Tower (Pyrgos Bazeou, 12 km south-east of Chora at the Sangri Junction): standing right at the crossroads where the road turns off to the 530 BC Temple of Demeter, this magnificent early-17th-century fortress was built initially as the fortified Monastery of the True Cross (Timios Stavros) before being purchased in the 19th century by the Bazeos family. Restored to museum quality, it hosts contemporary art exhibitions and concerts during the summer Naxos Festival, climb through its vaulted stone rooms to the rooftop battlements.
2. Belonia Tower & The Twin Twin-Navels Church of Agios Ioannis (In Galanado, 5 km from Chora): overlooking the Livadi plain, the 16th-century Belonia Tower sits right beside a remarkable 13th-century church with two side-by-side naves, one Catholic and one Orthodox, sharing a single roof.
3. The Tower of Agia (Panagia Chryssopolitissa) & Abram Beach (North-West Coast): perched high above the dramatic north-western sea cliffs between Chora and Apollonas stands the ruined 17th-century Tower of Agia beside a freshwater spring and the secluded pebble-and-sand bay of Abram Beach.

The 3 Watermill Walk of Potamia Valley (Ano, Meso & Kato Potamia)

Just ten minutes east of Chora (between Belonia Tower and the Kouros of Flerio), a signposted 4-kilometre hiking footpath follows a running freshwater stream through the green valley of Ano, Meso and Kato Potamia ("The Three River Villages"), passing abandoned stone watermills, freshwater crabs, oleanders, and the 10th-century Byzantine church of Agios Mamas.