Naxos, Delos & Mykonos - July 2006

We barely had time to unpack from our Kefalonia weekend trip to get ready for our next weekend trip.  For this one I took off Monday, July 3, and we used the long four-day weekend for a trip to the island of Naxos, largest of the Cyclades Islands in the Aegean Sea.  We departed early Saturday morning on the Hellenic Seaways ferry that took about six hours to reach Naxos with a stop first in the port of Paroikia on the island of Paros.  We were met at the ferry by Dimitris Lianos, who with his sister, Nicolette, run the very nice Grotta Hotel where we stayed.  Since Rita and I are not diehard beach people, we booked a hotel on the quiet side of the main village, Chora (sometime spelled Hora), that was away from the beach and with nice views of Chora and the Temple of Apollo. 



It was as hot in Chora as it was back in Athens (in the 90s) and we were tired so we first turned on the air conditioning and rested for an hour or so.  We walked into the old town of Chora which is on a rise where the Venetians built a castle when they ruled from 1207.  The Venetians captured Naxos during the Fourth Crusade and kept the island mainly Catholic until it was captured by the Turkish pirate Barbarossa in 1566.  Not much remains of the castle today but there is still evidence of old city walls, a few towers, and many winding alleyways. 



One of the ancient Greek legends has Theseus stopping at Naxos on his way home to Athens with Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete.  Theseus killed the Minotaur rescuing Ariadne who he planned to marry.  She met Dionysus on Naxos and ran away with him to Theseus’ chagrin.  Theseus sailed home heartbroken and forgot to change his sail from black to white.  His father saw the black sail on his ship, which was a signal that Theseus had died, so his father killed himself.  A real Greek tragedy. 



We continued to the town’s main square, Evripeou Square, which has a large number of restaurants and tourists to fill them.  Naxos is popular with Scandinavians, British, and Germans and since the World Cup was in the quarter-finals, many sidewalk tavernas had large-screen televisions with the game of the day being broadcast to a group of loud, half-drunk viewers.  We walked to Escoba bar and were waited on by a Brazilian who was more interested in the game than waiting on us.  We had a beer and quesadilla there then walked a short distance to the Picasso Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner.  It was not Tex-Mex as we know it but it was fresh and not too bad.  I had a Cadillac margarita and enchilada while Rita had a frozen margarita and burrito.  We survived everything. 



After dinner we walked to the ruins of the Temple of Apollo jutting out on a strip of land off the harbor.  We were among a group of tourists who gathered to watch the sunset and take photographs of the sun through the remaining portals of the temple.  It was a very nice end of the day.



Sunday we had breakfast in our hotel and were on the waterfront to catch our boat, “Naxos Star” for a day trip to the sacred island of Delos (sometime spelled Dilos) with lunch on the island of Mykonos.  We sailed at 9:15 am and took about an hour to reach Delos.  Delos and Delphi were considered two of the most sacred shrines in the ancient Greek world.  There are no hotels on Delos and the only people living there are the museum guides and archeologists.  We were given three hours to explore the island and we could have used another hour or two to see it all.



According to legend, Leto, whom Zeus had seduced and then abandoned, wandered around the world pursued by the anger of Hera, who had forbidden anyone to receive the pregnant goddess.  Leto finally found sanctuary on Delos and gave birth to twins, Apollo and Artemis, where the sacred lake is located (filled in because of malaria in the late 1800s).  There is plenty to read about on Delos if you are interested – just Google Delos on the Internet. 



After our three enjoyable hours on Delos we sailed for a short distance to Mykonos where we had lunch at the Antonini Taverna.  After lunch we walked the back streets to the famous windmills of Mykonos and then back again, stopping for cake and coffee before boarding our boat once more.  We sailed to the island of Paros to let some of our group disembark and then back to Naxos which was the end of the line.  We had a nice dinner at the Old Inn, a German restaurant with fairly good schnitzel.  After dinner we walked the harbor waterfront where there are numerous seafood tavernas.  The streets were crowded with hundreds of tourists, the air was cool, the skies were bright with a crescent moon, and the old town was lit up nicely.



Monday we rented a car through our hotel and after a nice sleep-in and leisurely breakfast we headed out of town and into the countryside.  We stopped to walk through a temple of Demeter in a pretty setting in the Potamia Valley.  We saw many old Venetian towers alongside the road and stopped in the pretty town of Chalki (or Halki).  There we found nice, but expensive, pottery shops and one of the island’s distilleries that brews ouzo and the island’s liqueur known as Kitron – made from the leaves of citrus trees.  We continued through the town of Filoti and over the mountains to the village of Aperanthos, built on the side of a hill with narrow streets, which are really steps, made of marble.  It was very scenic and we walked around town photographing some of the interesting men on the streets. 



We continued on a zigzag, narrow road through barren mountains past the pretty villages of Koronos, Skado, and Koronida and down to the north point of the island to the pretty little port of Apollonas.  We stopped here for lunch and had a delicious meal at the Venetio Taverna.  I had fresh fish while Rita had a Greek salad.  Our table was on the beach in this pretty little town and we hated to get back into the car and leave.  But we headed back to Chora along the curvy coast road with close up views of the Venetian Agias Tower.



In the afternoon we got together with Ioanna and her boyfriend, Spiros, who were on Naxos for the whole week.  Ioanna works for me, sort of my right-hand in the office.  She was called my secretary when I arrived but she is much more than a secretary and we’ve changed her title to something a bit more exalted and promoted her.  She’s a kind, helpful person besides being extremely efficient.  Spiros is from Naxos and the two are building a house here with plans to marry and settle on Naxos in a few years.  At any rate, they took us to the Temple of Dionysus in Iria but it was closed.  So we drove along Plaka Beach then returned to St. Georges Beach where we had a very nice dinner at Taverna Nissaki located on the beach.



On July 4 we readied to sail back to Athens/Piraeus.  The weather had changed dramatically with a cool, strong breeze blowing.  While Rita packed and got ready, I ran back into Chora old town and did a quick walk-through of the Archeology Museum and a very nice antique shop that is located in a building where 2500 year old Corinthian columns hold up the wood ceiling.  The Venetians built their castle and town where ancient Greek temples and houses used to sit.



Dimitris took us to the harbor and we caught our ferry back home.  Well, because of strong winds and high seas our ferry was an hour late and then had to go slower so we arrived home about two hours late.  The sea was very choppy and many people around us were seasick.  We just read our books, ate a small sandwich at our seats, and neither of us suffered seasickness.  More Greek islands notched on our travel stick.