The Greek Islands

After Athens, we were on our way to the Greek Islands. I got up at around 5:30 am to get on the Athens metro and go to Piraeus, the dock where you catch the Island bound ferries. Our ferry left Athens at 7:25 and was supposed to get into Naxos at around 1pm. The ferry was a multi-level boat with a huge parking garage for cars and cargo and then two passenger decks, one mostly inside and the others on an open air deck. I didn't get too sick but the last hour made my tummy feel funny. Finally we landed at Naxos, one of the bigger Islands in the Cyclades.

We arrived at Pension Sofi around 2pm, exhausted and travel weary. Our friendly hotel hosts gave us a plate of tomatoes, olives and cheese as well as glasses of wine that they made in the vineyard across the street. The hotel was quite pretty, full of blue and white furniture, floral fabrics and pastel colored rooms. We then ventured out to the center of Naxos Town, which is on the top of a hill and gives quite a view of the island. There we had wonderful meal at Taverna to Kastro, where we ate grilled fish, lamb stew and other fun dishes and finished it off by sipping cognac and watching the magnificent sunset.

The next day, we rented a Fiat Panda and decided to explore the island by car. The roads were very twisty, high up and on the edge of large cliffs so needless to say I was quite scared. We made it to Halki, where there is a Kitron distillery, or the touristic remains of one. Kitron is a large citrus fruit that they make into a very pungent lemon/lime flavored alcohol. There are three different variations: yellow (the least sugar, the highest alcohol content), the most popular clear (medium sugar), and green (most sugar, least alcohol content). We also sampled some grappa with spices and honey and cognac.

From Halki we got completely lost and ended up- after a series of gut churning hair pin turns on high cliffs- at the little beach town of Lionas. Look it up on Google maps and you can see what I mean by lost. Only one road goes to Lionas. After that we drove back and around the rest of the island getting an incredible view of the hilly, cliffy terrain and great sunset.

The next day we went to the pristine sandy beaches and lounged around, then prepared to take another ferry to Santorini!