Paros Island

By ferry

Paros can be reached by high speed vessels and ferry boats that depart from the ports of Piraeus and Rafina as well as routes connecting the Cyclades islands.

From Piraeus

With Blue Star Ferries, 20 times a week in 4 hours

With Aegean Speed Lines, 6 times a week in 3 hours

With Hellenic Seaways, 7 times a week in 3 hours

From Rafina

With Blue Star Ferries, 7 times a week in 4 hours and 55 minutes

With Sea Jets, 7 times a week in 3 hours and 10 minutes

With Hellenic Seaways, 7 times a week in 3 hours and 20 minutes

From Lavrio

With Nel Lines, 1 time a week in 8 hours and 40 minutes

The following islands can be visited from Paros: Syros, Mykonos, Tinos, Andros, Sifnos, Serifos, Milos, Kimolos, Folegandros, Sikinos, Naxos, Ios, Santorini and the Small Cyclades, as well as Amorgos, Anafi, Astypalaia, Heraklion Crete and, Antiparos.

By Plane

Flights to Paros depart from Eleftherios Venizelos Airport in Athens and the journey takes is approximately 45 minutes.

The Paros Airport is located 9 kilometers southwest of Parikia, in Voutakos Agkairias.

KTEL

The KTEL buses serve visitors and permanent residents with a variety of routes and vehicles. All villages are linked both to each other and the two large towns of the island, Parikia and Naoussa, all year round.

In summer months the routes, particularly to Naoussa, continue through the early hours of the morning, with more frequent routes to and from the port.

The main KTEL routes include:   

Parikia > Kostos > Lefkes > Prodromos > Marpissa > Piso Livadi > Logaras > Pounta (Beach) > Chryssi Akti > Drios and back to Parikia   

Parikia > Aliki > Parikia   

Parikia > Naoussa > Parikia   

Parikia > Naoussa > Prodromos > Marpissa > Piso Livadi > Logaras > Pounta (Beach) > Chryssi Akti > Drios and back to Parikia

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.

• ANTIQUITY

The story that Paros of Parrhasia colonized the island with Arcadians is an etymological fiction of the type that abounds in Greek legend.

The island later received from Athens 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, a 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 BC), Paros sided with the Persians and sent a trireme to Marathon to support them. In retaliation, the capital was besieged by an Athenian fleet under Miltiades, who demanded a fine of 100 talents. 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 wasted the island. It was at a temple of Demeter Thesmophoros in Paros that Miltiades received the wound from which he died. By means of an inscription, Ross was able to identify the site of the temple; it lies, as Herodotus suggests, on a low hill beyond the boundary of the town.

Paros also sided with shahanshah Xerxes I of Persia against Greece in the second Greco-Persian War (480–479 BC), but, after the battle of Artemisium, the Parian contingent remained inactive at Kythnos as they watched the progression 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 BC), Paros paid the highest tribute of the island members: 30 talents annually, according to the estimate of Olympiodorus (429 BC). This implies that Paros was one of the wealthiest islands in the Aegean. Little is known about the constitution of Paros, but inscriptions seem to show that it was modeled on the Athenian democracy, with a boule (senate) at the head of affairs. In 410 BC, Athenian general Theramenes discovered that Paros was governed by an oligarchy; he deposed the oligarchy and restored the democracy. Paros was included in the second Athenian confederacy (the Second Athenian Empire 378–355 BC). In c. 357 BC, along with Chios, it severed its connection with Athens.

From the inscription of Adule, it is understood that the Cyclades, which are presumed to include Paros, were subjected to the Ptolemies, the Hellenistic dynasty (305–30 BC) that ruled Egypt. Paros then became part of the Roman Empire and later of the Byzantine Empire, its Greek-speaking successor state.

• CRUSADES

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.

• OTTOMAN ERA

In 1537, Paros was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained under the Ottoman Empire until the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). During the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) in 1770–1775 Naoussa Bay was the home base for the Russian Archipelago Squadron of Count Alexey Orlov. Under the Treaty of Constantinople (1832), Paros became part of the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, the first time the Parians had been 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.

• RECENT

On 26 September 2000 the ferry MS Express Samina collided with the Portes islets off the bay of Parikia, killing 82 of those on board.

FLORA

The Marpissa mountain range rises from the center of the island, with peaks at Agion Panton and Stroumpoula (800 m.). Cultivated land spreads in all directions from these hills and the slopes are covered by bushes, trees and flowing waters that lead to the coasts, forming estuaries with deltas and wetlands that are augmented by many streams. The limestone soil of Paros allows water to penetrate deep into the earth and create underground basins, which form the natural water tanks that provide the island with its water source. Our earth nurtures some of the richest flora in Europa. The island is decorated with wonderful wild mountain flowers, sturdy dry rock plants, entire plant communities on the coast as well as fragrant medicinal herbs in the low hills.

FAUNA

The fauna of Paros, birds in particular, is diverse. Over 200 species of birds have been recorded, which feed in the salt marshes, pastures and wetlands.Alkyoni, the rehabilitation center and hospital for wild animals and birds run by volunteers is situated on the island.The fish fauna of the Aegean, with 5,000 species, abound in the waters around Paros, which boasts both the largest catch and fishing fleet in the Cyclades. 

Source: paros.gr wikipedia.org

• YIANNIS PARIOS

Yiannis Parios was born Ioannis Varthakouris on the island of Paros. He made his first appearance as a singer in 1969. He is quoted as saying “Whenever a song is born and wherever it is sung, it belongs to everyone. That, really, is the reason why music exists: so that it cannot be fenced in by frontiers”. This quote is thought to be the main inspiration for his songwriting and performances.Yannis Parios was the first Greek singer to perform Alain Barriere’s song “Tu t’en vas” with Greek lyrics. Under its new title “Tora pia”; the song was a gigantic hit, on an unprecedented scale for the time, and it marked the beginning of a new age in which many Greek singers adapted “foreign” melodies to Greek lyrics.Yiannis Parios has worked with many of the leading Greek composers, including Greek composers, including Manos Loizos, Yorgos Hadzinasios, Stavros Xarchakos, Stamatis Spanoudakis, Yorgos Katsaros, Marios Tokas, Yannis Spanos, and, off course, Mikis Theodorakis. He has written lyrics of his own, and often composed music. A number of his songs have been translated and sung abroad.One of his releases holds the record for Greek sales (one million and four hundred thousand units): this was the album “Nisiotika”, released in 1982 and consisting of a collection of songs of the Aegean islands which, as an islander himself, he may have learnt and first sang in childhood.Yiannis Parios has not confined appearances to Greece: He has also performed in Albert Hall, the Carnegie Hall and most of the major venues in Canada, Australia, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey and Israel.Parios has four sons from two marriages. His oldest son, Harry Varthakouris, is an accomplished singer-songwriter himself.