NAXOS ISLAND, CYCLADES, GREECE
Naxos was the perfect place to start my Island Hopping adventure, I just wish I would have been a bit more diligent with updating the blog so I don’t forget anyhting. I am currently on Island 3, don’t worry I plan on recapping all of them, but the internet has been really spotty here so I haven’t been able to do much! So, let’s talk Naxos!
Day 1:
The ferry landed (OK, since they never take-off they don’t land… what exactly do they do, ported???) in Naxos around 12:30. Immediately after checking into my hotel – and having some of the homade wine from “papi”, the owners grandfather I head off on the days adventure. I was told St. George beach was very nice and the closest to port (which is where my hotel was) so off I went…
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| I had to rent a chair at the beach since I was so excited to be on a beach that I failed to think about buying a towel, or a beach mat, or well anyhting for that matter... Although I did pick up some sunscrean - gotta perfect the tan! To get a beach chair you had to buy a drink so I figured what better time than now to try out a new Greek Beer - let's just say this was my first and last fix! |
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| A view from my lounger of St George Beach. The water was AMAZINGLY blue and the sand smooth and white, but it reminded of of Mexico... NOt what I came to greece for. It was a busy, busy beach with bars and umbrellas everyhwere. Not much quiet time in this place. I wasnt overly thrilled with it, but knew that there were some more options elsewhere, ust none within waking distance. After describing my "problem" (ha, huge problem, poor poor me!) to a local they told em to rent a scotter and check out the other beaches the next day. Now this sounded liek a great plan, until you think of me and scooter... |
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| Pizza break for dinner, delivered to the beach, I didnt want to leave so it worked. Also two more attempts at greek beer, even the Organic stuff, EPIC FAIL! Although the pizza was darn tasty! |
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Example of how clear the water was... Visibility was about 20M... 60ft! Notice toe-nail color, this will come up later :) |
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| View of St George Beach |
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| Sunset of St George Beach... I did not want to leave! |
Day 2
Begin the adventures of my ATV (4x4). I decided I did not want to be stuck with St George beach (souch an awful predicament to be in!), so after researching that it was nearly impossible to get lost on the 4 roads on the island, and figuring how much damage can I do to myself on something with 4 wheels (HA, think rental car = hawaii!) I rented a ATV for the remaining 2 days!
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| If I ever owned a house on a greek island, this is exactly what I would want it to look like, mabe a few more bogavilla (I think thats what it is??) flowing over the walls, probably purple! |
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| Adorbly cute hotel on adoribly cute beach - for anyone intrested (lynnae...) the name of the hotel is Lianos Village, It just reminded me of what I pictured a Greek Island to be! |
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| Looking down on my next stop - Agios Propokis |
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| My beach for the day - Agios Propokis, quieter than St George, with the MOST AMAZING water I have EVER seen (even now on Island 3, I have to give the water award to Naxos!) |
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| Looking the other direction, planted myself about 1/3 of the way down the beach. |
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| The attempt of this picture is to show how blue the water is, it matched my electric blue toe-nail polish! |
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| My campng place for the day... Notice, towel and my awesome new beach hat :) I was going to explore more but this water sucked me in, I couldnt leave! |
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| Lunch destination, perfect spot to cool off at the end of the beach! The pictue on the top of this page is from lunch here - AMAZING VIEW! I learned very quickly that grilled fish is a tad different in Greece than it is in America - were talking the WHOLE FISH - no filets for this girl! I learned the hard way hwen I order the catch of the day, which came out in the form of 6 mini fishies, their eyes staring at me and smelling like, well I wont go into that much detail. I couldnt send it back since it was what I ordered, but luckly a nice Irish couple at the table next to me remarked how good it looked so I gladly handed it off to them. I then attempt to explain what a "fillet" of fish was, and eventualy got a GREAT piece of dorado (sordfish - really sad it was cathc and release in Mexico, that bad boy woulda been so good!) togo wiht my greek salad - which is UH AWESOME in Greece (doh?). |
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| Another cute Greek home, perfectly placed on the water... Becuase of the view I think I will take this one instead ;) |
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Heading back to Port, my hotel is the yellow one- Hotel Grotto, the best service I have ever recieved. All of the "hotels" here are just small family oned establishments that have PERFECT service! I capped off day 3 with a relaly really good mexican meal - maybe it was so good becuase I had been craving Mexican food for about, oh 40 days - but the Margrita was awesome and the Gauc had a great kick to it. |
Day 3:
Scuba, and more adventuring!
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My Awesome Dive for the day - A sunken WWII Fighter ( According to Craiggers The aircraft I dove on was a Bristol Beaufighter. It was used by the British during the war I n the Mediterranean as maritime recon and interdiction.) It had been sunk by the Germans (right Criag???) and landed PERFECTLY on its belly at about 30m (99ft). The conditions were great, 20m visibility, we dove with 5mil Full wetsuit and hood (which I found a little bit excessive!) |
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| Courtsey of Craigers - the plane in action. I kept wishing I could show Grandpa Bosley these pictures - I knew he would have a story for me, heck he probaly knew the pilot ;) |
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| The left prop (look at me using, what I think is, proper auernotical termonology!) was shot off, causing the ultimate demise of the plane. You could see the bullet holes in the side of the plane! |
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| not me... but still neat Pix of the front of the plane |
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| The tail, it was neat to see the "interior" construction... what was under the outer layer of metal |
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| ME and my plane! It was crazy, noone on the island believed me that it was there! When I showed the pictures to my hotel lady she asked me to email them to her, she wanted to print them out and put this one in a frame on the front desk so people could see it! She had lived on the island her whole life and didnt know about it! |
A nice part about this dive was that it was right off shore and only 1 take so we were out an back in about an hour, which left me more beach time on my last day of Naxos!
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| I found myself a secluded beach! I couldnt see anyone for about half a mile, it was awesome! This was about 4 km past Plaka (a name you wll hear a lot, it seems to be EVERYWHERE!) where the dive took off from |
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My ride around the island - i got pretty good at it after a while! It would only go up to 50km, but it got me around. It was much more fun than a car, and I got a tan while going! |
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A pretty good end to a fun day! The Margratias were AMAZING, and it was rather refreshing to have something other than greek salads (as good as they are) The Guac was awesome too, had a good kick to it... OK I am repeating what i said above - they had a resturant in town and one on the beach in Plaka. This is where I left my Ipad for about 2 hours, I knew where it was the whole time ;) |
