Sunday I took a vacation from my vacation. I hung out on my hotel balcony, ate cherries and some Greek biscuits and read a 400 page novel.
Monday, I took a day trip around Naxos in an bus tour. As I don’t have a car and the public bus schedule requires a decoder ring to figure it out, I went organized. Naxos is relatively big for a Cyclades island and has lots of agriculture. (This is Dionysus’ island–it figures that I’d stay a week.) It’s a rather green place and it grows/produces potatoes, citrus fruits, olives, figs, grapes for wine, corn and honey. Also some fire-water liquor called Kitron made from the leaves of a bitter lemon tree. Kitron is very smooth but not exported–darn.
The tour took us to 2 mountain villages (Halki and Apiranthos). Halki is a postcard with neo-classical villas, a Venetian flavor and bougainvillea dripping from everywhere–Lonely Planet gives it a full page. There was a very tempting pottery shop there… Apiranthos is a town with marble streets and settled by Crete exiles. Every time this town is brought up, the sentence trails off. Sounds like the are talking about some holler in W. Virginia or something. We also visited a fishing village (Apollonas) on the north coast. It was mistakenly named after Apollo when they found an ancient statue nearby. Turns out it was actually Dionysus. We ate in a harbor-side taverna and went for a swim on the sheltered beach. I sat with an Aussie couple. The Greek-born husband was back on a roots tour. They took pity on me after the guide snapped at me. (I am pretty sure she was German and she did not get a tip.) We also saw 2 significant historical sights–a Kouros (boy statue) of Dionysus and a very, very old so-called miracle church– Panagia Drosiani–with interesting 7th century frescoes. They also quarry marble here and there was one blinding white mountain that allegedly rivals Carerra.
The drive through the middle and the west part of the island had many hairpin turns and switchbacks–around Mt. Zeus and down to the coast. Glad I wasn’t driving. It reminded me a bit of Maui–both driving and the island feel.
I stopped by Happy Hour (starts at 6 here) at an Irish bar and had a beer. I also went for a swim early in the evening at the local beach here called St. George’s–sandy, clean, shallow. I traveled without ID/credit cards and just put my money in a swimming container. The only thing in danger is the camera, but what can you do? I placed buried in a bag near 2 German women. It turns out topless women when they turned around–but they took good care of it.
Lunch was light as I planned to swim, so I went to one Meze2 on the harbor for dinner and had local fried shrimp and a delicious baked potato tureen with tomatoes, cheese and parsley. I had never heard of Naxos potatoes, but heard that they are exported to Germany and Austria. They tasted less starchy than the Idaho ones and I am now a fan.
I have a bazillion pictures and should have some time to manage these before I leave Naxos on Friday morning.
