Greece Trip: 05/03/08 (Sat) — Driving ’round Naxos

The breakfast at Hotel Glaros is pretty light. Nice to have the coffee, but happy I brought some South Beach meal bars. I like a decent breakfast.

Alexander hooks Callie up with a car rental place and itinerary, and we’re off exploring in short order. In Greece, road signs aren’t always helpful, so our exploring sometimes involves backtracking to find the turn we missed. Not including those instances here because it gets hard enough to record the important stuff when it’s not written down right away!

As we traveled east through the towns/villages of Kourouochori, Mili, and Kinidaros, we also climbed into mountains — mountains of plentiful marble. Naxos is apparently known for its marble, and we drove by plenty of working quarry operations.

We were getting pretty hungry by Kinidaros, but found no food, so on to Filoti. The locals told us the place to eat was Pephko. This means pine tree (apparently). Sure enough, there were plenty of pine trees at the joint. And sure enough, it WAS the place to eat. The older female Greek proprietor began to explain to use what she had made that day, then proceeded to write it down. That was the menu. Too cool! Except we forgot to bring it back or take a photo. Bad us. Her food was excellent, and her red wine was quite good too!

Sufficiently fueled, we were off in search of the ancient Moni Fotoditi, between Aperanthos and Danakos (by foot, literally). The long hike was some great exercise. The church was being repaired. On the way back, on the mountain across the way, we saw a shepherd tending his (large) flock. Their bells were quite distinctive. We would see many more sheep and goats on this side of the island.

Off to the eastern coast of the island. We ride ridge of crazy turns and spectacular views almost all the way to Moutsouna Bay. The coastal plain on this side of the island is small, and the descent abrupt, but the views across the sea are amazing, as are the tiny beaches we run across as we head south. This part of the island is not touristy and not heavily developed at all. How long will it stay this way?

We cruise through tiny “villages” of Ligaridia, Kanaki, Psili Ammos Bay, and Kleidos Bay. We also cruise by Volaka’s Port (as the signs claimed), apparently used by local fishermen for their small boats. Who knows, fifty years from now it may be a major ferry port!

Finally, we reach the end of the road and wind up at Panormos Bay — a nifty southern-facing beach. It must be tough on the handful of locals to have such a beautiful, barely accessible place.

We eventually made our way back, this time taking a more direct route to Chori beginning at Chalki, crossing through the picturesque villages of Ano Potamia, Mesi Potamia, Kato Potamia, and Galamado as we made our way across the mountains and back to the western coastal plain.

After freshening up a bit, we were off to try the margaritas at nearby Picasso’s. Yes, Mexican food on Naxos. The margaritas (on the rocks) were not bad! I’ve certainly had worse in Houston. We told the owners we were from Texas and enjoyed their margaritas. They must have liked that, because they sent us complimentary frozen margaritas in shot glasses to try. Those were okay too!

Off to the limani, though, for a real meal. Oddly, most of the establishments were pretty empty on the Saturday night (about 9:00 pm, which had been a busy time on Friday). One was not — Meze2 was packed and seemingly with people speaking Greek. We dined there, and it was amazing — especially the fried Cod. Super fresh. MMM. Must go back! They also comped us drinks at the end — shot glasses of a green Citron. This was much better than the other we had, although “good” would still be a stretch. For the quality, the place seemed inexpensive.

We headed back to the hotel, but noticed live Greek music at a bar (Med Bar? I think). A wedding party! They seemed to have a large room to themselves (150-200 people) but we opted for drinks in the actual bar area, and watched. Later, the newlyweds made the rounds of the room — and the bar — greeting the well-wishers. In Greek, Kulla told the groom we were from America visiting and wished him well. He pointed to the buffet and told us to help ourselves. We were way too stuffed and wouldn’t have regardless, but that was so nice! We went back to the hotel and crashed after this excitement.