Paros Travel Guide
Our Paros Travel Guide - Where We Stayed, Ate & Swam
We came to Paros for a few quiet days and left already planning the trip back. It's the kind of island that doesn't try too hard - no postcard crowds, no queue for the perfect photo. Just clear water, long lunches, and beaches you have to earn. We travelled with our little one in tow, which shaped a lot of our days (early dinners, shady tavernas, the occasional ice cream bribe), and honestly it made everything better.
Here's everywhere we stayed, ate and swam - the full list, no gatekeeping.
Stay - Parìlio
If you do one splurge on Paros, make it here. Parìlio sits up near Kolymbithres, all soft stone, arched doorways and that long pool we never wanted to climb out of. It's calm in a way that feels deliberate - the kind of place where you slow your whole pace down within an hour of arriving. Family-friendly without losing an ounce of the grown-up, design-led feel that made us book it in the first place.
Eat
The food was the surprise of the trip. We're fussy about this - we'll always choose the local, authentic, slightly-out-of-the-way spot over anything polished or touristy - and Paros delivered every single night.
Gialos - Piso Livadi A tiny harbour on the eastern side of the island, boats moored a few metres from your table, the light going gold over the water. Gialos does modern Parian cooking right on the edge of the bay - fresh fish, beautiful pasta, local wine. Book a table on the water and go early enough to watch the sun drop. Piso Livadi itself is worth the trip: a proper little fishing village that feels like a quieter, more authentic version of Naoussa.
Mario Restaurant - Parikia This is where we had the pasta - seafood and fresh pasta that genuinely rivalled anything we've eaten in Italy. Seventeen-odd years of awards behind it and you can taste the precision. Worth dressing up a little for.
Sama - Parikia - Our favourite meal of the whole trip. Sama is tucked upstairs in an old neoclassical building in the heart of Parikia, run by a local chef who actually came out to chat at every table. The grilled octopus over fava was the dish we're still thinking about - local gastronomy done with real finesse. Book ahead; this one fills up.
And while you're in Parikia, just wander. The streets are some of the prettiest on the island - whitewashed lanes, blue-domed churches, bougainvillea spilling over everything, little boutiques and restaurants around every corner.
Swim
Our one rule on Paros: the longer the walk, the better the beach. The spots you can drive straight to are lovely. The ones that take a dusty fifteen-minute walk past the reeds and the dry-stone walls are the ones you'll remember.
The isolated beaches we loved - and we tried them all:
Tripiti Beach 2
Perikopetra Beach
Makra Miti
Clear, quiet, barely another soul. Pack water, pack shade, and pack a towel that actually shakes the sand off — we may be biased on that last one.
Indulge
A small, non-negotiable ritual: one Greek ice cream a day. Every kiosk and corner freezer has the same trays of them - the mango ones, the pistachio sticks, the little chocolate-dipped cones - and they're the perfect post-beach hit for less than a euro. We refuse to apologise for the once-a-day rule.
For something a little more special, Agkairia Bakery (down near Aliki in the south) is the local stop for proper pastries, barley rusks and homemade sweets.
A few extra tips
The spots that didn't make the carousel but earned their place:
Tsekeri - patisserie, for when the ice cream won't cut it
Afros - café
Rema Flogga - café
That's Paros. Slow mornings, salt-water afternoons, the best seafood pasta outside Italy, and an ice cream habit we brought home with us. If you go, do the walks, book the tables early, and leave more time than you think you'll need - we wish we had.
Travelling somewhere sandy next? Our sand-free towels were the one thing we packed for every single beach. Have a look here.
