Much of Paxos is dressed in olive trees, some of them centuries old, their silver-green foliage catching light that is distinct in the Ionian — brighter, somehow, than the Aegean. The eastern coast is gentle: three small harbour villages, Gaios, Lakka, and Loggos, each with brightly-painted houses crowded around a waterfront. Turn to the west and the island becomes suddenly dramatic. Steep chalk-white cliffs drop to the sea, heavily eroded at the base into a network of sea-caves — the so-called blue caves — where the water glows turquoise in certain lights. The highest point, Agios Isavros, reaches only 231 metres, so the views are wide rather than vertiginous. The island is approximately trapezoidal in shape, and some scholars connect that geometry to the Phoenician word pax, from which they believe the name derived.

Few islands this small carry so much history. Phoenicians are said to have been the first settlers. In 229 BC, during the First Illyrian War, a battle was fought in these waters between Greek and Illyrian fleets, recorded by the historian Polybius. Rome came next, then pirates in the Byzantine era, then Crusaders, then the Venetians, who controlled Paxos from the late 14th century onward. During the Napoleonic Wars, the island was briefly in French hands before the Royal Navy frigate HMS Apollo arrived on 13 February 1814, accompanied by 160 troops from the 2nd Greek Light Infantry and the Royal Corsican Rangers. The British then established the United States of the Ionian Islands in 1815. In 1864, when King George I was crowned in Greece, Paxos and the rest of the Ionian Islands were formally ceded to the Greek state — the end of a long queue of masters.

Tourism replaced olive oil, soap, and fishing as the main industry from the mid-1960s onward, and Paxos became particularly well-known among British visitors. Among its semi-permanent British residents were actor Peter Bull, who wrote a memoir called It Isn't All Greek to Me, and actress Susannah York. The Agnelli family, of Fiat fame, built a palatial holiday home on the tiny islet of Kaltonisi, just off the southeastern tip, complete with a tower modelled on a medieval original. The Paxos International Music Festival, founded by John Gough and now organised by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, has for years brought young classical musicians to perform in the former school at Loggos. Winter on the island is quieter — ferries still run year-round from the mainland port of Igoumenitsa, a 90-minute crossing, but hydrofoils from Corfu are weather-dependent and infrequent, and occasional storms can isolate the island entirely for short periods.

Today Paxos has around 2,500 permanent residents. There are no airports: the island is reachable only by sea, which keeps it at a pace the myth prescribed. Gaios, the capital, is a small town of Venetian-influenced architecture, with a square by the waterfront and a museum of local history. The surrounding waters — clear, sheltered by the islets of Agios Nikolaos and Panagia that frame the harbour — are popular for sailing and swimming. Antipaxos, just 5 kilometres to the southeast, has sandy beaches and produces a small amount of wine. The hinterland of Paxos remains largely as it has been for a very long time: old stone paths through old trees, the occasional hamlet, birdsong, and the light shifting through the canopy. Whatever Poseidon was looking for, he chose carefully.