Naxos: Chora Walking Food Tour & Cooking Class with Market

4.98

(135 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We’d barely stepped into the backstreets of Chora when our guide, Eleni, waved us over to a bakery window—she just grinned and handed me a warm koulouri without asking. The smell was that mix of sesame and something sweet I can’t name. We followed her through the maze-like alleys, past neighbors chatting in doorways, and I kept losing track of which way was north. I liked that nobody seemed to care about time here.

The local market was noisy but not rushed—Eleni knew almost everyone. She let us pick out tomatoes (still warm from the sun), and a man at the cheese counter insisted we try three kinds before we picked one. I tried to say “arseniko” like he did—he laughed and corrected me twice. There was a sharpness to the cheese that stuck with me all morning. We sampled some herbal liqueur in a tiny shop; it burned a little but smelled like mountain tea.

After winding up to the old castle walls (I definitely felt those 258 meters), we ducked into a taverna where Maria waited for us with an apron and a pile of eggplants. She showed us how to make dolmadakia—I rolled one too loose and she fixed it with quick hands. There was flour everywhere by the time we finished the kolokithokeftedes. We all sat down together for lunch—our own Greek salad tasted better because we’d picked every tomato ourselves. Maria brought out another dish she’d made (I think it was pastitsio?) and poured us each a glass of wine. The table got loud with stories from everyone’s home country, and I remember thinking how much lighter everything felt after that meal.