Paros, Greece

Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa

Price per night from$330.18

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR321.99), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Alfresco Aegean abode

Setting

Top of the rocks

On a crag of Paros’s north-eastern coast, Parocks is an outlier of the island’s hotel scene, which is largely centred around the bougie town of Naoussa, once a fishing village, now a magnet for (super) yachties. Instead, it’s on a snorkelling-ready shore in Ambelas, but a swift drive away from the action. Everything — from the lounger-lined beach and breezy open-air restaurant to the sea-facing suites — makes the most of the outcrop advantage, with views out to Naxos and the nearby mountains.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A welcome treat and bottle of wine, plus 15% off spa treatments. GoldSmiths get the spa discount and a bottle of champagne

Facilities

Photos Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa facilities

Need to know

Rooms

40, including nine suites.

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates usually include breakfast.

Also

There are two specially adapted rooms for guests with mobility issues at Parocks, plus a ramp to reach the restaurant and Braille menus. Please note that unfortunately there's no wheelchair access to the hotel's beach.

Hotel closed

The hotel opens annually for the Greek summer season, between April and October.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, gym, beach and paid laundry service. In rooms: Nespresso coffee machine and tea-making kit, TV with screen-mirroring, air-conditioning, minibar, beach bags and towels and Diptyque bath products. Suites also have Marshall Bluetooth speakers.

Our favourite rooms

Every room type has some sort of body of water, so pick accordingly depending on whether you want a swift soak or some full lengths – not all have a sea view, so that should be a consideration, too. There are interconnecting options for families. Top tip: corner rooms, such as 313, have the biggest terraces, and room 110 has our pick of the views.

Poolside

Swim in the Aegean (just over the road) or in the curvaceous, infinity-edged pool, flanked by sunloungers, close enough to the bar for easy refreshment, and open from 11am until 7pm. For dips à deux away from prying eyes, retire to your private plunge pool or Jacuzzi.

Spa

You might prefer to spend all day out in the bright sunshine, but there’s a subterranean spa trying to do a Hades and tempt you to the underworld — for an Ariadne Athens treatment, a swim and a spell in the sauna.

Packing tips

Paros is a leading destination for both kitesurfing and windsurfing, so if you’re hoping to try your hand, pack the appropriate accoutrements.

Also

Pilates and yoga instructors, personal trainers and nutritionists can all be booked in for consults on request.

Pet‐friendly

Small pets weighing less than nine kilogrammes are welcome with prior notice. See more pet-friendly hotels in Paros.

Children

All ages are welcome, but Parocks is more geared towards full-size Smiths. Infants stay for free; the charge for under-11s is €30 a night (over-12s are considered adults). Babysitting (€40 an hour) can be arranged with three days’ notice.

Sustainability efforts

The bathroom amenities are packaged in recycled paper, straws are paper and bottles are glass; toilet roll is eco-friendly and lights are set to a timer. Lots of the ingredients used at the restaurant are sourced from local farms and producers.

Food and Drink

Photos Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa food and drink

Top Table

Most of the seats at the open-air restaurant have a view out across the Aegean to Naxos, but there’s a snug, secluded pair of tables at the edge for couples seeking privacy.

Dress Code

Grecian gods and goddesses. At the start and end of the season, evening temperatures can be a little chilly, though blankets will be on hand if you’ve forgotten your light layer.

Hotel restaurant

At the open-air Sea Salt restaurant, you’ll be able to enjoy modern Mediterranean food, with some Asian influences along the way: asparagus with miso and ponzu, zingy ceviches, classic sea-bass fricassée and pastitsada pasta, During the day, you can order fried shrimp bao buns and burrata straight to your sunlounger. The well-curated buffet spread is complemented by à la carte add-ons. 

Hotel bar

The bar is between the restaurant and the pool, ready to dispense cooling cocktails and barrel-aged Negroni sundowners.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 8am to 11.30am, lunch from 1pm to 4.30pm and dinner from 9pm to 11pm. The pool bar is open between 8am and midnight.

Room service

Available around the clock.

Location

Photos Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa location
Address
Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa
Ampelas
Paros
844 01
Greece

Parocks is on the north-eastern shores of Paros in the Greek Cyclades, near the hamlet of Ambelas.

Planes

An international airport is in the works, but for now you’ll have to touch down in Athens and connect to a swift domestic service to Paros. The airport is near the village of Aliki in the south of the island, 35 minutes by car from the hotel. One-way transfers can be arranged, from €80.

Trains

Automobiles

You’ll need a set of wheels to get around the island if you don’t want to rely on taxis – there are various car-hire offices at both the airport and port. The hotel has free parking.

Other

Ferries dock at Parikia, one of the main towns on Paros, from all over the Cyclades and beyond, with frequent arrivals from Naxos, Mykonos, Piraeus in Athens and many more in high season.

Worth getting out of bed for

The usual Greek-island agenda applies here — by which we mean finding a sunlounger and lying on it — but Paros is also a premier destination for kitesurfing and windsurfing should you be feeling a little more active. Directly over the road from Parocks is a small beach, reached via a ladder — more coves like these can be found all over the island, some of which (including the one opposite the hotel) are especially good for snorkelling. If you like your beaches a bit more buzzy, there’s a club called Sea Rocks a handy half-kilometre away. As the heat starts to cool off a little, head into Parikia or Naoussa for a gelato-enhanced sundown stroll, or towards Lefkes for a hike to the island’s highest village.

Local restaurants

Down the road in Ambelas, there is a couple of simple but excellent seaside tavernas to try: Thalami, where you can order tarama and fried shrimp to enjoy on a rustic table right at the water’s edge; and Christiana for more typical Greek plates. If you’ve made the seven-minute journey into Naoussa, there are lots of restaurants to choose from set along the shore of the newly glamorous fishing village, but Sigi Ikthios is a stand-out. 

Local bars

In Naoussa, there’s more seaside-cocktail potential along the flagstone paths that line the harbour: try Santé, with tables set beneath a eucalyptus tree, or Methystra for a backdrop of bougainvillea and bobbing boats.

Reviews

Photos Parocks Luxury Hotel & Spa reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this beachside hotel in the Cyclades and unpacked their swimwear and sunhats, a full account of their island break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Parocks in Paros…

For the past few summers, Paros has been a rising contender to the Cycladic crown, quietly overthrowing Santorini and Mykonos from the most-visited rankings. It has long been one of the most cosmopolitan isles, popular with chic French holidaymakers who adore its chi-chi towns like Naoussa and Parikia. Much of the development in recent years has centred around Naoussa, upping the glamour stakes of this quaint fishing village and increasing the number of arrivals by yacht. Parocks has gone down a different route, selecting the hamlet of Ambelas as its address. It was a wise move, since it means guests get the best of both: a quieter corner, with a beach over the road, and the harbour-edge tavernas and stylish stores of Naoussa within a seven-minute drive. Each room has some sort of water feature, whether it’s a hot tub on the terrace or a pool you can swim in. From the main open-air restaurant and bar deck, you can spy the island of Naxos in the distance. Next season, we’ll have ours on the (Pa)rocks. 

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Price per night from $314.80