Paxoi Island Warnings and Dangers

Lizards are everywhere, but seem to be quite harmless. If you leave an outside light on when you go out in the evening, you'll probably find at least one or two around it, waiting to catch moths, when you get back home at night.

Because Paxos is so rural and covered in olive and cypress trees, the wildlife there is abundant. Some of this you'll probably never see, like the elusive skops owls, whose eerie calls you may hear without even realising it every evening.

However, if you're staying outside the main villages, it is likely that you'll come across the occasional rat (or tree hamster, as we prefer to call them!) running across the track as you make your way home at night. Don't worry, they are much smaller and cuter than town rats and they seem far more scared of people than we are of them! If you don't bother them, they probably won't bother you.

The photo is of a more acceptable form of wildlife - a hedgehog that shuffled across our terrace one evening as we were enjoying a nightcap.