Greek Islands - Paros

The ferry from Milos was a bit of a mission. It arrived two hours late, it arrived in three hours late and in between the sea was miserably rough. I think the only saving grace was that we were pretty much the only people on the boat, so we were able to lie down on the seats and just go with it. It was horrible but we made it. We found accommodation pretty easily this time, there were a few people waiting at the port with rooms available so we just ran with it - it was after midnight and we were feeling pretty rugged.

Wednesday morning was nice, we walked to downtown Parikia and explored around. It is a cute old town with narrow streets and stone paths. We stopped of at the Panayia Ekatondapiliani Cathedral which was actually quite stunning. We've seen heaps of Churches on this trip and we were pleasantly surprised by this one. It had an outer wall and a garden courtyard which led into the main building which had enough gold and artwork that it put many of the others we saw in Europe to shame.

Inside the Panayia Ekatondapiliani Cathedral

From the Cathedral we took a look through some more of the back streets. There were quite a few interesting shops here, more so than Santorini. In a place like Santorini you feel like all the shops are selling the same stuff or stuff that you see pretty much anywhere. Where as the shops here seem very unique and the fact that they are still open at this time of the year suggests that they aren't just appealing to the tourist market (because in November there really isn't one). We stopped off for coffee and cat time at the gorgeous cafe which served the best croissants I've had since Barcelona - which is interesting because we did the French a good shot!!!

In the old town

Lots of cats

After our coffee we checked out the Paros Archaeological Museum. It was small and there was only a small entry fee but we saw some of the oldest relics of anywhere we've been on this trip. There were statues and parts of buildings that date back past the 5th Century B.C. It was quite interesting to see how things look after two and a half thousand years. We were quite surprised that most of the displays were just out in the open without protective glass. In fact some of the items were outside, we concluded that after surviving outside for so long a little bit more wind and rain probably wont do much.

Inside the Archaeological Museum

The weather forecast suggested that the afternoon was going to be miserable with wind and rain but it looked like it was going to hold out. So we headed down to the nearest beach. This lasted for all of five minutes as the weather soon turned and we abandoned it for a souvlaki restaurant for a rather late lunch. The afternoon turned out to be a complete write off as the rain really did come in, which I guess was a good thing because I have been sick with a cold since Paris and it gave me a good chance to rest for an afternoon, while Sam did a bit of work.

A windy beach we didn't stay at for long

Thursday morning the weather was much better than the previous evening. We escaped our room around 8am went out for a walk. This time heading down past the downtown area and out the other side, just to see what was there - not much it turns out, but it was nice to get out in the sunshine.  We made a bit more of a plan for the following days and decided that we would rent a car. We did a bit of shopping and haggling and eventually drove away in a little yellow zipper that we have named Sunny.

The main street downtown Parikia

With our new found freedom we drove out of Parikia and made for the historic village of Lefkes. It was a scenic drive that took us about 20 minutes and provided us really interesting views of the terraced hillsides and olive groves. The town itself was rather cute too, much like downtown Parikia but on a hill with winding stairs and narrow streets. We strolled the streets talking to the cats and generally being nosey. While it is a bit of a tourist attraction around 500 people actually live in the village. One of the attractions at Lefkes is an old foot path dating back the byzantine era, which takes you out from the town and down the valley around some of the terraced olive groves. It gave us a good chance to take some photos looking back at the town.

Cute little streets in Lefkes

More streets in Lefkes

Walking the Byzintine Road

Looking back at Lefkes

We walked the trail for around an hour and then made our way back to Sunny before heading off to see more of the Island. Our next stop was in a little fishing village called Naoussa. Again, this village was quite a pleasant surprise. From the outskirts it was nothing special, but after being cooped yesterday afternoon we wanted to get out and walk around, so we parked up and footed in. There were more interesting shops and windy paved streets that you could only walk down. What was really pretty was the wharf, it was surrounded by the traditional white buildings and stocked fully of little boats and yachts. There were plenty of cute store, restaurants and cafes to poke around too.

The fishing village of Naoussa

It was about then that the weather started to turn again - so we jumped in Sunny and cruised off again back to Parikia for a late lunch. The weather looked to write off another afternoon so Sam went for a hair cut - his second since he pretty much cut it all off just before we left New York - gosh that boys hair can grow. We ended up having head back to the room for a while to avoid the torrents which was okay, I guess. The weather did pick up again a couple of hours later so we jumped into Sunny and went looking for the Marathi Marble Quarries, which were supposed to be quite impressive but weren't - either that or we didn't find them properly and the real mines were somewhere else. I didn't matter really, we just wanted to get outside and it didn't last long, the rain rolled in again an hour later.

Yesterday the rain cleared out. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were going to make the most of it. We got out of the room by about 8.30 an hit the road. We decided first up to do a bit of a tiki tour (Canadians see here) around the Island. We started by heading south and ended up eventually in the North. The drive was very scenic with views of the surrounding islands. Paros is much bigger than Milos and the drive actually took quite a while given that we were stopping every now and again. Truth is the roads here in on the Greek Islands haven’t been well marked. Sometimes you aren’t really sure what is a main road and what isn’t, in fact sometimes we aren’t sure if it’s a one way street or not.

We made our first official stop at Santa Monica beach – which according to Trip advisor is the best beach to visit on Paros. However, by this point the wind had really picked up. So we managed to enjoy the beach for the rest of the morning and the afternoon but only at a very specific and wind sheltered point on the beach.

Santa Monica Beach

From Santa Monica we headed back to Naoussa for a light lunch and a couple of games of backgammon at one of the local cafes (score ended up being 1 a piece). After lunch the wind really set in so there was no sense in heading back to the beach. Rather we drove back in to Parikia and went for a walk around the western most tip of the coast line. The walk was really nice despite the wind and it was pretty to get a better view of the main town.

Today was fairly similar day except there was much less wind - which I consider a blessing as today is the last non-travel day of our trip. Given that we will be travelling home for the better part of the next four days we made the most of our time outside. We managed to skype Sam's parents (and Jonny) first thing, which was nice because we hadn't spoken to them at all since we were in New York. After that our day was fairly similar to yesterday, we spent the morning at Santa Monica beach. We stopped for Coffee and Backgammon in Naoussa (Sam won this time - best of three) before heading back into Parikia. We had a lovely late lunch at a beach front cafe. The table we sat at almost had its legs in the water and it was really beautiful. After that we spent some time on the beach in Parikia just making sure we squeezed every last minute of sunshine out of our time here.

Local past-time cafes and backgammon