Destination – Greece (Part IV) –
Syros,
Amorgos,
Naxos,
Mykonos,
Delos and
Kos – it’s time to get brown and lazy!!! (Don't forget to click on the links above for info on all the islands...)
Our first stop, after a 9 hour ferry trip, is the island of
Syros already one the Cyclades Island group. After checking in at the nice Diana Studios we
explore the gorgeous island and have another lovely meal. Syros was once the
old capital of Greece and it is also distinctive for being the only catholic
island in Greece, a strongly orthodox country.
Well, at least half of the island is Catholic
anyway. We enjoy our short time in Syros
and even plan to come back in the future. We get up and jump on another 3 hour
ferry, clocking more boat time than a Greek sailor, this time to our beloved
Naxos. Our hearts jump with joy when we
arrive on Naxos, one of our favourite places, where we spent two months exactly
two summers ago. It is impossible not to
love it here. When we get to the port it
really feels like home when we see Nikos, our “landlord”. He is so excited to see us it makes it hard for
us to tell him we are off to Amorgos for a few days first, before we come back
to Naxos “for good”.
And so we jump on yet another ferry, yeah I know, this time
for four hours, to the island of Amorgos.
We have that instant feeling Amorgos is our kind of place. Amorgos is famous for being where the movie
“The Big Blue” was filmed and features the amazing monastery stuck to the side
of a vertical cliff with amazingly blue clear waters hundreds of metres
below. Paul was here 20 years ago and
always promised to bring me here. And
so, 19 years later, here we are, better late than never that’s for sure. After
the usual assortment of accommodation being offered at the port, we end up
checking in at the lovely “Pension Titika”, on the edge of the most amazing
blue sea. This island is just fabulous,
all you would expect from a small Greek island and more. It is so photogenic I’m starting to behave
like a frantic Japanese tourist, taking 384 photos in one day (really), almost
melting our little camera. We spend a
few days on Amorgos and of course, we rent a scooter to zip around the island. At the end of our island tour we reach the
conclusion that Amorgos is one of the most amazing places on earth. I don’t remember ever seeing so much beauty in
the same place and yeah, we got fabulous photos to prove it. After a few days we start feeling a bit
restless and we know it is Naxos time.
We take the “Skopelitos”, a small ferry servicing the small Cyclades
islands, and in four hours we arrive back on Naxos. We get a very warm welcome
from Nikos and Angela, our “landlords” at Stratos Studios and their lovely family,
sweet. We also go back to Maro’s, our
favourite restaurant, and it is still the best “fun-value for money – buy one
get one free wine – warm welcome back” place. And their prices are the same as they were two
years ago, awesome! Their servings are so huge, it’s not funny. We’ve learnt to
order a ½ salad and one main between us and we still can’t finish it all. We can see shock on people’s faces when they
get their meal, that’s how big they are. Of course we go back, almost every
night. We rent a bike for a couple of
days and zip around the island and though we have seen most of the sites, it’s
all so nice we do it all over again. We
work hard on our suntan and allow ourselves to get happily brown and lazy. Obviously
time, 5 weeks, flies and we are once again kicking and screaming having to say
goodbye to Naxos, to Greece (and in a few more days)and to the EU. But before our 90 days are up, we still need
to check out Mykonos, Delos and Kos.
We take a 3 hour ferry ride to Mykonos and we are picked up
at the port by a lady who takes us to a “studio very far, far away”, like 2 -3
kms uphill, not happy. She drops us off near town and we walk around looking
for a place. It’s all full as it is high
season and it is Sunday. The Old Town is very beautiful, small winding alleyways (classic Greece). Paul goes to a travel agency and gets us a room that
sleeps four people. Nasty, expensive and noisy, definitely not how we roll. We
go out to eat and all the ATMs are out of cash, really, so we buy 2 gyros and a
bottle of wine with whatever we have left, walk around a bit and go back to
sleep. Or so we think as besides the
expected pumping music, there’s a group of very loud Italian guys and a couple
of English chicks who thought they could score a free room and were not happy when
they have to pay the “highest price” to their Greek landlord at the end of the
night, smooth!! Oh, the joys of high season travelling! Next morning, after finding
another room at the Magas Hotel, cheaper and much nicer, we go back to the room
to pack and decide to make as much noise as possible by talking loud, banging
doors, etc, driving the Italian guys and the English bitches crazy. What a
feeling, mission accomplished!!
It
is time for sightseeing. The island is really beautiful and the sunset makes
for the best people watching we’ve ever seen. We also visit the island of Delos to see the
amazing 1300BC archeological site. On
the way back the ocean is so choppy, a young Asian guy falls so sick he leaves
the boat on an ambulance, after being carted off by two huge Greek sailors. Ok, if the guy wasn’t straight and had with
his wife and mother with him, you would think it was a Mykonos dream coming
true. A young Asian man carried on the shoulders of two huge Greek Sailors…
Yeah, Mykonos is the gayest place on earth and good looking, stylish, pumped
up, shiny waxed guys make the island beautiful, happy and colourful for all of
us. Anyway, it is ferry time again. After
another quick ferry ride to Syros and we take an overnight ferry to the island
of Kos. We check in at the Paritsa
Hotel, will have to do as we are too tired and sleep deprived to keep looking.
Kos is a nice place, similar to Rhodes but smaller and with an awful lot of young
sun burnt tourists. The sightseeing however is great, including a crusader
castle and lots of Greco-Roman ruins. After Athens, Piraeus, Mainland Greece,
Thessaloniki and 11 islands, Kos is also the end of our wonderful “Greek
odyssey”, what an amazing country.