Tag: Greek Islands

Europe · Greece

A Visit to the Mountain Villages of Naxos, Greece – Europe Travels October 2022

twosnatravels3 Comments

Upon our arrival in Naxos, our AirBnb host sat us down, unfolded a map, and drew all over it as she showed us all the varied things we could see in the mountain villages behind Naxos. It looked great! But how do we get there? Naxos is not Santorini, so the possibility of an ATV was quickly discarded. The distances are greater, the roads mountainous and tangled.

I turned once again to researching day tours. As I’ve already reported, Naxos in the middle of October was winding down their season. There wasn’t a lot to choose from except for a regular big bus tour. There were enough of us tourists left in Naxos to fill up that bus.

We headed out into the countryside. Olive and cypress trees dot the rolling landscape which is bordered by low stone walls. Old buildings in various states of decay can be seen here and there, and, up on distant mountaintops, ruins of Venetian castles. The valley is fertile and, besides olives, produces potatoes, fruit, wine, honey, and cheese. Small wonder, then, that the god that the ancient Greeks worshipped here was Demeter, god of harvest.

Our first stop was to see Demeter’s temple, built in 530 BC. It’s quite a story: as Greek civilization declined, a Byzantine church was built over the old temple. Arabic pirates destroyed the church in the sixth century AD, but it was rebuilt in 1977. After the discovery of the Greek temple, an archaeological excavation began, and the temple was rebuilt.

To allow for excavation and the subsequent build of the temple, the old Byzantine church had to be disassembled, moved to the side, and reassembled. It has its place in history, too.

One of our fellow tourists asked the guide why the temple wasn’t completely rebuilt. The answer is that under Greek law, buildings cannot be restored to a greater proportion than the ruins that were found.

Onward, then, to a 150-year-old olive press. Our guide demonstrated its use and the making of olive oil in the old days.

I wrote in my journal one thing I learned about the making of olive oil: that cold-pressed olive oil is best. I looked at both of my olive bottles in my pantry, and nothing is written anywhere on them about the oil being cold-pressed.

On to a little pottery shop, where the potter demonstrated his craft on a wheel. As he works, he throws excess bits of clay on the wall- his “wall art” is at left.

The potter’s studio

Then: off to the village of Halkio, to visit the 125-year-old Vallindras citron distillery. I enjoyed the little walk through the streets of town to get to it.

Citron is a fruit that grows on Naxos. It has a thick rind and the fruit is slightly bitter. The zest is what is mainly used. You may be familiar with candied citron. I remember it being packaged in small tubs in the grocery store, although I haven’t shopped for it in a very long time. My mother used to put it in the German lebkuchen cookies and stollen bread that she made at Christmas time. I like lebkuchen, but I only like stollen in small amounts and not enough to make it myself. In the few years that I made lebkuchen myself, I never considered what citron really was.

At the distillery, the citron is shown on the table below. Yellow yields the sweetest liqueur, but they also use the green variety and the leaves of the tree for production of the liqueur. It has 30-40% alcohol content. There was yellow, green and clear colored liqueur, and one little sample of the yellow liqueur kind was enough for me. The proprietors explained how they have made the citron through the years, and they used a little room containing the oldest equipment to demonstrate.

We were deep in the mountains by now, and I was in awe of our driver. The roads are mostly one-lane, full of hairpin turns, and not made for big buses. We would round a curve or ascend a hill, and find a car coming directly toward us. The driver of the car was obliged to back up and pull into whatever kind of roadway was closest in order for us to pass. Many times I would look out my window and notice that we were just a hair’s distance from a sign, a building, or a car mirror.

Just as I’d get comfortable looking out the window at the varied scenery, we would make another stop. This one was to Panagia Drosiani, another Byzantine church and the oldest church on Naxos. It was built at the end of the 6th century A.D. The front facade may be newer.

The inside of it was cave-like and dark. 

There are many priceless faded frescoes painted directly on to the walls. A dark side-chapel really did feel like entering a cave, and we could only go one person at a time into it. Visiting a church that had been built this early in Christianity’s very existence gave me a bit of goosebumps.

While waiting for others to go through it, I walked around to the back, and found an amazing sight. Here, the original construction of the church can be seen.

It was time for lunch, so for that we went into the village of Apiranthos. It is a village where the streets and archways are constructed from marble. We had a delicious lunch on a simple patio overlooking the valley while my feet were planted on a marble floor. A local cat placed herself there as well, looking at me hopefully during the entire time I ate my meal. Her wait was not in vain. She and I dined on a meal of roasted pork, spaghetti with a tomato gravy, and a salad with a local soft goat cheese called xinomizithra.

The reason for all the marble is that there are marble quarries in abundance on Naxos. It was simply the construction material that they had available to use. I was glad we had some time to wander around this pretty town on our own.

As with anywhere you go in Greece, ruins from earlier eras can still be seen.

Apiranthos’s setting in the mountains also makes it a beautiful place to be.

We rode north through the mountains for a long while, finally finding the north side of the island and the sea at Apollonas. I suspect that in the summer time this would have been a beach visit because we were given a lot of time to do not much. It was dubbed a “coffee stop”. There were a handful of gift shops and some places to eat. It was beautiful there, though.

We had just one stop left; a brief one, to the Apollonas Kouros. It is a massive 34-foot unfinished statue from the 5th or 6th century BC of Dionysus, the god of drink. It lays in the marble quarry where it was carved.

Why was this project abandoned? No one knows. Perhaps, our guide said, a war came. Times change. But another theory, one that I think makes most sense, was that they realized they would have difficulty getting such a colossal statue out of there. They would have had to get it down a steep hill without smashing it and then have an ocean-going vessel large enough for transport.

We returned to Naxos via the north coast with sweeping ocean views on one side and high cliffs on another. It had been a great day, although a little bittersweet because it was one of our last of the trip.

How were we feeling at the end of a three month trip? Cal had his moments when he felt that our adventure was too long and wanted to go back to his RV. Looking back on it, though, he says he enjoyed the sights and was glad we went. What made it fun for him was all the great food we had and being able to dine outside much of the time. I loved all the amazing places we visited. The trip truly did not have any down times for me and I think I would have been happy to keep on traveling. I missed the grandkids, but to put it in perspective, three months is really not that long a time and I was so happy to see them again when we returned.

For however long you have been with me on this journey, I humbly thank you for reading. I did not expect to be recording it for this long. And now, I am happy to report that my blogs will be returning to our RV life. The summer of ’23 was also epic, and we did do some more outside-the-RV travel both in the US and internationally, but perhaps those will be written at a later time.

Next time – enjoying the sun in Arizona

Europe · Greece

The Last Stop: Naxos, Greece – Europe Travels October 2022

twosnatravels6 Comments

Choosing a Greek island to visit is a lot like going to a buffet and knowing you can only have two dishes. Which one….? It’s hard to pick when you have never been there. There are so many, and they are large and small. Some may be known for great night life, the best beaches, or excellent cuisine.

After visiting Santorini, I knew I wanted to look for an island where the cruise ships did not stop. Naxos has those pretty whitewashed buildings, narrow streets and passageways to explore, and beaches. There are places of interest to visit. There is farming, and much of its food is grown on the island. It’s less touristy than Santorini, although Naxos Town has its share of shops. Sounds good to me!

Like Santorini, Naxos is in the Cyclades group of islands, so our ferry ride from there was only an hour and a half long. We rode a Sea Jets ship, was supposed to be faster. For some inexplicable reason, though, it was running late.

Our apartment in Naxos was situated in a residential neighborhood. There were several ways to walk everywhere, and on our first afternoon we took too many turns and got totally lost coming back. GPS did not work. Two heads are better than one: we worked it out, and in the process learned better which way we should go in the future.

Not our neighborhood, since we were up and behind this view, but this area was on one of our walks to town.

One of Naxos’s most striking sights welcomes everyone arriving to the island. It is the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, called the Portara. I took this picture from the ferry.

The walk over to the ruins has a trick sidewalk. It takes careful timing so as not to get hit by the waves.

We waited for a big wave to pass, dove across…and still got wet. No matter, the October winds were already blowing and dried us off quickly.

The temple of Apollo was never finished, even in its own day. It dates back to 506 BC, and construction had commenced at the direction of a tyrant leader who was overthrown before completion.

The ancient and the modern…a partially obstructed view of the Blue Delos ferry from the Temple of Apollo gate
A natural view of Naxos from the Temple of Apollo. The waves were kicking up!

If you have been reading my blogs as far back as our time in Venice, I wrote about Venice’s “Golden Age”. It stretched back as far as the 8th century for a millenium, until Napoleon finally ended things. They had great maritime might and power. The remains of Venetian castles and fortresses dot the Mediteranean, and Naxos is no exception.

There really is no “castle” to see here, except the outside walls. There are four levels and it has a round shape, but the city of Chora (also called Naxos Town) is built right up and around it. Inside the “Kastro” is a Catholic cathedral and an archaeological museum, formerly a girls school. Mansions once housed Venetian ruling families, and some are now shops and cafes.

Part of the fun of walking up to it is trying to find it from the picturesque old market place to an old Venetian maze of passageways. We figured that as long as we were going upward, we were good.

We did get a view of the castle walls as we walked. From what I read, the tower will be a Byzantine museum when reconstruction is finished.

I visited the small archaeological museum inside the castle area.

In the year 1207, Venetians built their castle on the foundations of an old Greek acropolis, and used the building materials from it and also from the Portara for construction. Here, a wall was built right around the acropolis column.

A little dwelling place I found while walking in this area:

The ceiling is a hodgepodge of sticks and timbers.

On another of our walks was a cemetery. Walking through, we noted that a number of the caskets were open and empty. What’s up with this? Later we found out that the city wants to move the cemetery elsewhere. The lucky deceased who still have living relatives have had their coffins removed elsewhere. It seems a little macabre!

One of our most memorable church visits was to a Greek Orthodox church near our apartment. Cal is still talking about this one. There weren’t a lot of spaces in it that are left unpainted.

In my blogs from our visit to the UK, I usually closed with a photo of a breakfast we’d had. I haven’t done this since for a simple reason: as we traveled further south, breakfast became less of a big deal in the countries we visited. In both Italy and Greece, people tend to rise later and snatch a quick cup of expresso or cappucino, perhaps with a croissant. I think maybe it is because they like to dine later in the evening and so aren’t really hungry first thing in the morning, but that’s pure speculation on my part. Of course, exceptions can be found in all the tourist hotels.

I’m generalizing here, but Greeks do seem to like omelets. Or maybe it’s because they know we travelers like omelets. When we walked in a certain direction, we’d see a little cafe advertising a Greek breakfast, so one morning we stopped by. It was exciting to not be eating a bowl of cereal in our apartment for once.

My Greek breakfast:

The omelet contains potatoes, onions, and cheese. It was not overly stuffed with any of these three ingredients, and the cheese seemed like a cross between cream cheese and goat cheese. It came with toasted bread, a salad, and a strawberry smoothie. Delicious!

More typically, though, if the Greeks have anything with their coffee other than a croissant, it might be a bougatsa. I had one of these for lunch a time or two and it was delicious.

Another favorite all over Greece for any meal is a Gyro-in-hand. This is a gyro with french fries sticking out of it. It’s an entire compact meal which I often saw people munching on while they were walking down the street.

Earlier I mentioned the October winds. Naxos shuts down earlier than Santorini does, on October 15, for this reason. As our visit here progressed, we noticed stores starting to close for the season. The wind was not bad during the day, but it would become gusty later on and would become downright chilly. The darkness in the evenings plus the chill meant that I was digging out my jacket for the first time since Germany when we’d go out for dinner. The day before we left Naxos, the wind miraculously slowed and the clouds disappeared. Beach time!

Agios Georgios beach was not far from our apartment. Cal and I walked down the beach together–

and then Cal settled in to a chaise lounger under an umbrella. He likes the beach, but he does not enjoy the sun. Meanwhile, I walked further down the beach and found a sheltered cove with many windsurfers. The wind on Naxos makes for some great windsurfing.

We were feeling the end of the trip. Our pattern for life in Naxos was often to go out and explore for awhile, maybe have lunch or pick something up from a bakery, and come back to the apartment. There were several days here. It was a relaxing time and Naxos lends itself to that. I was trying hard to finish a cross-stitch Christmas stocking for my granddaughter that I’d been carrying all over Europe. We watched a bit of TV, but Wheel of Fortune is just a little different in Greek.

We had one last day trip on Naxos, though. One last tour. That will be in my next post!

Next time – exploring the mountain villages of Naxos

Europe · Greece

ATVing in Santorini, Greece – Europe Travels October 2022

twosnatravels2 Comments

In my previous blog, I wrote that our apartment in Santorini was “neither here nor there”. I knew that going in, but thought we could use the bus system. Upon our arrival we were told that buses were unreliable. Seeing tourists waiting patiently at each bus stop reinforced that opinion for us. In hindsight, I think we should have given it a try at least once.

So on our first evening in Santorini and not knowing where else to go, we walked up the hill to Imerovigli for dinner. It was a little distance along a winding road and the shoulder was rocky and narrow. Traffic zoomed by, and that included many folks on ATVs. Our dinner conversation centered around a new idea: if we rented an ATV while in Santorini? Of course, Cal would be the driver. He has driven many types of motorized vehicles, although he had only operated an ATV once before. He was game for the plan, and Margarita in our apartment office arranged everything for us. We took delivery the very next morning.

Of course, there was a lengthy introduction to our ATV when it arrived, including a test drive. Here is Cal heading out on to the road for the very first time.

At first, he just tooled around on the roads around us, and to Oia. The ATV was very handy for getting to and from Fira. I couldn’t take pictures of what I was seeing, though, because I needed to hang on! I was afraid that we’d hit a bump and then the phone would go flying.

One morning, though, we cajoled Margarita (procurer of all things in our apartment office) into bringing our breakfast earlier than usual, and set off for the south side of the island. We knew it would be a bit of a ride, but after a while I felt that we were climbing. It was getting darker, foggier, and starting to sprinkle. Cal had inadvertently headed up toward the east, and we were in the mountains. It was hard to talk to him over the noise of the ATV, but after awhile I gave him a poke, and he stopped. “Hmmm, are we going in the right direction, do you think?” It remains one of the funniest stories of our trip.

GPS didn’t work well in Santorini, and I had a sketchy little map ripped out of a brochure. We finally found the sunshine again and figured out our location, and most of the day proceeded without incident.

These windmills were once a familiar sight around Santorini. They were used to grind grain for flour. Today, many of them have been renovated into villas. This one was next to a restaurant.

Now, which way should we go?

In the sweeping landscape of this portion of the island, we could see the pumice layer left by the volcano 3,600 years ago.

Santorini has its very own version of Italy’s Pompeii in the form of an archaeological site named Akrotiri, and we stopped at this place for awhile. The island at that time was called not Santorini, but Thera. There was a thriving town here back in 1620 B.C. It had earlier been hit by two earthquakes which made the resident Minoans more determined to build back better before the volcano finally wiped it out completely. Their buildings contained the treasures of their advanced civilization. I could compare this to the city ruins found in Thessaloniki and under the Parthenon Museum in Athens, but these were mind-blowingly 1300 years older!

These urns were found in the “Pithoi Storeroom” – so named because of the large number of “pithoi”, or storage jars, found here.

An then, most impressive to me, an actual town square.

The building in the front of this picture is still unexcavated, as is about 70% of the city. The picture below shows how the building on the top left would have looked like before the volcano hit.

During the volcano event, a huge mudflow filled up Akroteri. This preserved not only the treasures inside the homes but also many of their wall paintings. The paintings were the symbol of a resident’s wealth and status.

The next day, I visited the Archaeological Museum of Prehistoric Thera, which contains not only many artifacts from Akroteri but also the wall paintings which have been meticulously removed and preserved. I love the “Blue Monkeys” particularly.

There have never been indigenous monkeys in Santorini. The monkeys in this painting are indigenous to Ethiopia. Crete is in sight of Santorini, sixty miles away. It is thought that monkeys were traded there and brought to ancient Thera, or else sailors picked them up on their voyages around the Mediterranean. I love to imagine how these blue monkeys looked when the paint was fresh.

OK, back to our explorations. Besides Akroteri, I’d heard there was a red sand beach, and in a short time we were there. We’d visited a red sand beach in Hawaii so I wanted to check this out. It was a short drive away, and luckily easy to find, but quite a walk just from the parking lot. As usual, there were plenty of diversions along the way.

A couple getting married were having their picture taken in front of a pretty little church:

and a violinist was playing lively Greek folk music which we could hear from a distance away.

The hike to the beach began to get serious, and involved a little rock scrambling.

The beach is made up of fine red pebbles, which I do not think I would like to lay or sit on for long. When I shucked my shoes, it was felt sharp under my feet. Volcanic matter has iron in it, and that is what turns the pebbles red.

This is one of best that Santorini has in the way of beaches and from what I’ve read, other islands have better ones. Especially with its high volcanic cliffs, beaches are not the reason to come here. Red Beach scores points for beauty, though.

What remains in my memory is the sound of the receding waves moving all of the rocks around under the water. It was like nothing I’ve ever heard before, like soft thunder.

It wasn’t quite lunch time yet but there was a cute restaurant at the end of the beach. To be able have a front row seat on their porch and take a break, I ordered a plate of mussels saganaki, delicously sprinkled with feta cheese.

From our table, we could not possibly be too much closer to the water. I could have sat there all day, but unfortunately, the proprietor might have frowned on that.

We had one more stop at the very tip of the island, Faros Lighthouse, also called the Lighthouse of Akrotiri. Built in 1892, it is one of the oldest lighthouses in Greece.

Looking at it from the parking lot, you’d wonder how it could possibly do its job, since the building is short. Hiking on the rocks below it, though, one sees its vantage point at the top of a cliff. This is what the lighthouse sees, although from considerably higher than I was at this point:

In the distance, Fira could be seen:

The ATV rental was a complete success.

Santorini left us with a lot of great island memories. Saying goodbye to Margarita, she told us that she was very happy; a vacation was coming soon. She had been in the office every single day we’d been there. Santorini officially shuts down November 15. The workers, who mostly come to the island from Athens, then leave and get a four month break. She said they work every day with no time off for eight months before that vacation. After telling us that, I really had to appreciate all of her hard work.

Our talkative driver on the way back through the island and down the precipitous cliffs also had the same sort of story to tell. Thanks to Margarita’s advice, we arrived much too early for the ferry. An entertaining server at the ferry restaurant plied us with warm croissants from the oven. From start to finish, Santorini shone, and I was sorry to leave.

Next time – Naxos, another Greek island

Europe · Greece

Sunny Santorini – Europe Travels October 2022

twosnatravels2 Comments

As the calendar flipped over to October, our travels were winding down. We figured that the best way to celebrate the last two weeks of an epic journey was by visiting a couple of Greek islands.

I could not ignore Santorini. It’s another one of those places that has a reputation for being overcrowded with tourists. But how I could go to the islands and not go there?

The sun hadn’t yet come up when we left our hotel in Athens, got on the subway, and found the Blue Star Delos at the Piraeus docks with a depart time of 7:25 AM. The ferry isn’t terribly expensive when all things are considered, so we upped our fare to Business Class. For that, we had a table, comfortable chairs, and an attentive server who would come by now and again to see if we needed drinks or food. We could look out the front of the ship, and of course we would go round and explore it at times. Views of other beautiful island towns were thrown in when stops were made at various ports. We were very pleased with our do-it-yourself cruise, which took about seven hours.

One of the island stops while on the ferry

Santorini is one of a chain of islands called the Cyclades in the Aegean sea. The main feature of these islands is that they were all formed by a volcano.

We received our first look at the island from our ship.

Somehow, we ended up at the front of the line upon disembarking. We still have not forgotten the sight of all of these drivers waiting for their passengers. It was crazy! Amazingly, we readily found the guy holding our name on his board, and we were off.

It’s tempting to call the biggest town “Santorini”, but that’s the name of the whole island; its name is really “Fira”.

On our first afternoon, we did some wandering around in Fira. It was lovely – at first. We had lunch, and wandered down some of the labyrinthine streets and paths.

Soon enough, we got caught in a tourist river – a steady stream of people filling up the path from side to side, moving in one direction. People dodged in and out of the tiny shops. It was hard to get out of and really not enjoyable. Afternoon, as we discovered, is not a great time to explore Fira. Do you see the two cruise ships out in the harbor in my top picture? They hold lots of people. A driver that later took us back to the ferry told us that in July there could be as many as seven cruise ships in the harbor at one time. I cannot imagine all those people filling the little passageways of Fira.

Have you ever seen the iconic blue dome pictures of Santorini? That is what I was looking for. I don’t know why I was so fixated on finding that particular view. Later, I looked on a postcard I’d picked up, and I saw some lettering to the side – “Firostefani”. Now that I’d been here a couple of days, I knew that Firostefani is a village that bumps up right next to Fira. On the morning of our last full day, we headed down to Fira to run an errand or two. And then we split up. He wanted nothing more to do with my blue dome fixation – smart man!

Here it was that I found the magic of Santorini. Crowds were light, the whitewashed buildings shone in the bright sunshine, and the water sparkled in the harbor. It was a fine walk to Firostefani. I worked my way up to a dizzying walkway along the cliffs.

The round building used to be a windmill; it looks like it has been repurposed to be a home.

I walked along, enjoying the fine views so much that I was ready to give up my blue dome search. I stopped to look at an ornate gate in front of a church. It was as I was studying the gate that I saw it on the right of it – a picture of the blue dome, and directions on how to find it! It belongs to this church, the Catholic Church of Koimisi Tis Theotoku. A little walk back up the path and behind, and I was there. Eureka!

Ah….so beautiful. I took photos of other tourists when they asked, and of course they offered to take pictures of me.

From here, I could see to the opposite side of the island. In places, Santorini is so narrow that you can do that.

When I found Cal again, he was entertained by watching tourists taking selfies and group shots in front of a colorful plastic-looking donkey in the main square. He had spent most of his time in a coffee shop overlooking the harbor, enjoying the view, and had thoroughly enjoyed himself. His mode of travel is a lot less intense than mine.

I’d found our lodgings through AirBnb, but the place was more like one of a handful of villas in a family-owned bed and breakfast. They brought us breakfast every morning on a tray. By Santorini standards, it was inexpensive, probably because it was neither here nor there – it lay just outside of tiny Imerovigli on the road between Fira and Santorini’s other main village, Oia. When booking, I thought maybe we could hike to Oia on a little footpath, and with one more day, we may have. The view from our place wasn’t totally amazing, but not bad either. The villas are on the sunrise side.

Taking a walk from our place, we found another church with a blue dome. The reason for white buildings and blue domes is simple – they are the colors of the Greek flag.

Down and across the road from us a bit, we found tiny little Taverna Tasos that we loved so much that we ate there two out of the four nights that we were in Santorini. The Oia-Fira path was behind it, and also the “sunset” side of the island, so we would walk there after dinner for a sunset view.

The path follows the low brick wall in the bottom right of the above picture, and you can just barely see it as it winds around on top of the cliffs. It ends at the town of Oia, which is not seen in this picture and would be on the far left.

Santorini was already occupied back in the 16th century BC when a volcano erupted that totally reshaped the island and formed a caldera. The island is crescent shaped and the landscape is rugged. Today, the villages are built a thousand feet above sea level, right on top of the steep walls of the caldera, half of which is submerged under the Aegean Sea. The island is only five miles from the active underwater volcano Kolumbo.

No better place to get a look at it than from a sunset dinner cruise.

In early times, there was little building material to be found in Santorini. Residences were dug right out of the cliffs, because the top layer of the caldera is a chalky substance called pumice. These cave dwellings were cool in the summer and warm in winter. All of the white you see on top is not only whitewash, which also reflects heat, but pumice.

The cruise gave us an entirely different view of the island. We could view all of the little towns way up high, and could see close-up the walls of the caldera.

In the below picture, the volcanic rock and dirt can clearly be seen on a nearby uninhabited island.

And then the sun went down – plop! – just like that.

As with other tourist-heavy places that we visited, there is gold (or white chalk) under the surface of Santorini. It is so much more than just those beautiful white buildings and blue domes spilling down the caldera. All one has to do is to take the path, or time of day, less traveled. Avoiding the shops, especially in the afternoon, helps. It seems sometimes that everyone’s main function is to shop and go.

We were sitting near the footpath one evening, waiting for sunset, when we struck up a conversation with a British couple. “I’m seeing so many American tourists here,” the gentleman commented. “Why is that?”

I had to give this a lot of thought before I answered him, because I think there are several reasons and maybe not just one. I said something about Santorini being heavily promoted as a romantic destination in the United States. But just maybe it is simply this – that Santorini has a magic all its own, which draws people here.

Or maybe it’s the view of that blue-domed church over the Aegean sea.

Next time – ATV’ing in Santorini