Caught the ferry from Folegandros to Naxos, via Sikinos and Ios.
We had about a week on Naxos, staying in Naxos Town which is also called Hora. Our villa was just a little south of the town centre, on Agios Georgios beach.
This was basically the last destination in our three month trip and we’d chosen it carefully, wanting a place where we could relax but not get restless. The island did not disappoint.
We spent a few days chilling out and moving no further than villa to beach to taverna and back again.
Then took a boat trip to the island of Ancient Delos with a stop at Mykonos. After that we hired a car for a couple of days to explore the Tragaea region in the centre of the island which turned out to be very interesting and enjoyable.
In the end we were sad to leave the beautiful island of Naxos.
Hora is a lovely town in itself.
In 1207, after the Fourth Crusade, a Venetian Duke named Marco Sanudo seized the island of Naxos and lay the foundations for creating his Duchy of the Archipelago, which basically included all of the Cyclades. He built a new capital called Kastro on Naxos. Remnants of the old Kastro remain to this day and it’s a lovely place to wander.
The other main attraction in Hora is the Temple of Apollo , known as ‘The Potara’ (doorway), which dates from 530 BC. It sits on the islet of Palatia and is accessed via a causeway. It’s a popular spot at sundown.
One day we took a boat trip to Ancient Delos with a stop in Mykonos on the way home.
According to Greek mythology, Apollo was born on the tiny island of Delos in the middle of the Cyclades archipelago. It is considered to be ‘the most sacred of all islands’ and is a World Heritage site. There’s been a sanctuary here since the Mycenaen period (1,400 BC) and Homer’s Odyssey places it as a religous centre of the Ionians around 700 BC. There is no permanent population on the island so you must come and go within the day. Disembarking onto a tiny, barren island with a high concentration of buildings reflecting this long history is a remarkable experience. We spent several hours walking the whole site and visiting the excellent museum.
The boat trip stopped at Mykonos on the way back. We’re not attracted to the ‘party islands’ of Greece, though it was pleasant enough to walk around the waterfront and wander the backstreets and lanes for a while. It was a windy day and we could see why windmills had been a popular source of energy in the old days. Perhaps they’ll make a comeback..
Naxos is quite a big island by Greek standards, the largest in the Cyclades. On the last couple of days we hired a car to explore the central region of Tragaea where there are heaps of interesting things to see. It was fantastic.
We’d seen a number of Kouros statues in museums in Greece, but had never really thought about how they were made. Naxos provides a fascinating insight into this process.
In Flerio, near the modern town of Mili, you can see two partly sculpted Kouroi from 7-600 BC that were abandoned in situ because they were broken or did not pass quality control.
You come to understand that these huge statues, which are about 5.5 metres in length, were mostly carved in the quarries then transported to their destinations for finishing. Ancient grooves in the rocks indicate how they were moved.
It’s remarkable to think that in the Archaic period of Greek history there was such a surplus of productivity within society that very significant resources could be dedicated to the purely aesthetic activity of statue making.
It was also quite poignant to see a modern marble quarry still operating nearby.
Our next stop was Panagia Drosiani, which is one of the oldest churches in the Balkans. It has multiple chapels dating back to the 6th C, the 8th C and the 13th C. In one version of events, the name comes from an icon of the Virgin that perspires when in danger and cools to perform miracles. The other version, much more mundane, is that the church is built on a location called Drossia. Either way, this ancient building has a substance that we found very affecting.
From here we headed to the gorgeous village of Chalki. It was clearly a prosperous place in its day, and the look of faded glory is very alluring. We had a great lunch in the central square then wandered out to the Church of Georgios Diasorites to walk it off.
The inland region of Tragaea is a plain covered in olive groves, surrounded by peaks, and dotted with villages and churches. Mt Zeus (or Mt Zas) is the highest point on Naxos at just over 1,000 m, and the village of Filoti sprawls at its feet.
The 17th C fortified monastery of Timios Stavros is now called the Bazeos Tower, renamed by the family that has refurbished it and turned it into a centre for cultural events including the annual Naxos Festival.
Ruined windmills dot the skyline around Ano Sangri.
Our last stop was the the Temple of Demeter, dating from 600BC.
What a day…
On our last day we drove to the mountain village of Apiranthos which is populated by the descendents of refugees from Crete, and has a strongly independent feel to it. It’s a rugged place, seemingly built entirely of marble carved out of and reattached to the slopes of Mt Fanari.
There was a funeral being held in the village on the day we visited and it was interesting to watch the rituals unfold from a respectful distance.
Drove back to Hora in the glow of early evening, dropped off the hire car and enjoyed our last island taverna dinner of this trip.
Caught the ferry to Athens next morning. We rode on the Hellenic Seaways ‘Highspeed 3’, built by Austal shipbuilders in Perth, Western Australia.
From the port of Piraeus we took the metro to our hotel in Athens. Had a lovely wander around the Acropolis and Agora in the golden light of early evening.
This was a short stop at the end of a wonderful 3 month trip and we didn’t have a heavy sightseeing agenda. Mainly shopping for gifts and getting ready for the long journey home to Hobart.
The new Acropolis Museum was nearing completion and we went to have a look at the building. We were allowed inside on the ground floor while they were still working on the exhibition spaces on other floors. It’s a great facility that has been built on top of old ruins, thoughtfully designed and positioned in relationship to the ancient Acropolis. We made a pact to get back to Greece and check it out some time in the future.
The Benaki Museum is open till midnight on Thursdays so we visited late afternoon and had dinner in their excellent terrace restaurant. It was a great last evening. The Benaki Museum was founded by Antonis Benakis who was a member of a pre-eminent Greek family in Alexandria (Egypt). It’s a beautiful little museum dedicated to Greek art and Greek history from the neolithic age to the twentieth century.
First ever long haul flight for Julie, and first one I’d done for ten years. So that was a ‘novelty’. We got to our hotel in Athens about 15:00 local time. It was on Mitropoleos square opposite the cathedral. One of the attractions was a rooftop terrace with uninterrupted views of the Acropolis. We’d both seen so many images of the Acropolis in our lifetimes. Our first reaction was ‘it’s really looks like that’.
Did the classic Athens World Heritage wander on our first full day. Walked up to the Acropolis from the north side and looked down on the Theatre of Herodicus Atticus. Then walked through the Propylaea (monumental gateway) and around the Parthenon, and the Erecthion with its porch of Caryatids (sculpted female figures). Then headed around the south side of the Acropolis to the Theatre of Dionysos. Powered on past the Monument of Lysicrates and on to the Agora (central public space), finishing up at the Kerameikos (ancient cemetery). We found it exhilarating.
Spent much of the next day at the National Archaeological Museum. Thought we’d school ourselves in Greek history before setting off. Visited Hadrian’s Arch, the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Olympic Stadium in the late afternoon.
It’s fair to say we hit the ground running on this trip.
We flew from Athens to the island of Rhodes, staying in the old part of Rhodes Town for five nights.
The World Heritage medieval city was a main attraction. It became the headquarters of a catholic military order known as the Knights Hopitaller in 1310, and remained so until 1522 (when they moved to Malta). This is gothic, crusader-era architecture and it was built to last. We had a lovely time getting lost in the winding streets and lanes, walking the walls, and visiting the Palace of the Grand Master. The red-domed Mosque of Suleyman speaks to the subsequent Ottoman-era of the city’s history.
We walked around the harbour where the Colossus of Rhodes may or may not have stood, and had a swim at the Town Beach. Caught the bus down to Kalithea Thermi, an art deco spa built in 1929 and sometimes used as a movie set.
One day we caught the ferry south to Lindos to see the ancient acropolis and wander its effortlessly pretty streets and lanes.
Hired a car for a day and and toured the middle of the island, stopping at Kastellos, Monolithos, Siana, Embonas, Platanio and finishing the day with a refreshing swim at Tsambika Beach.
Rhodes was our first Greek island experience and we loved it.
Rhodes was our first stop in an island-hop through the Dodecanese. We’d planned stays on Tilos and Lipsi with a bit of flexibility around the edges.
Caught the ‘Dodecanese Express’ ferry from Rhodes to the island of Tilos where we spent four nights in the port town of Livadia. We passed through Symi on the way and decided to backtrack and spend a night there before going on to Lipsi.
This was our first taste of ferry travel in the Greek islands and we enjoyed the whole experience. There’s the sun, the wind, the waves and the swell. There’s the scenery as you cruise across the Aegean and adjacent seas. Then there’s the drama of getting into and out of the ports, which are often quite beautifully located. And the Greeks do drama very well.
We got talking to a guy called Dimitrios on the ferry. He was driving a meat van, making deliveries across the islands. We chatted about where he was going and where we were going. Towards the end of the conversation he said that Greek people don’t have ‘the program’. He said the English, Germans, Scandanavians all have ‘the program’. They come to Greece to get some sun, swim, eat, drink, dance, then go back home to work. For Greek people this is ‘everyday life’. I think he thought we might have been on ‘the program’…
On Tilos we walked around the coastal paths, walked through Potami Gorge to the abandoned village to Megalo Horio which has been re-invented as a nightclub venue, and hired a car to tour the north of the island including Plaka Beach. We found the standard of food in the tavernas of Tilos to be particularly good.
Caught the ferry back (i.e. south) to Symi and overnighted at the port town of Gialos, in a lovely room overlooking the harbour. We climbed up and up from the port to the hilltop village of Horio, stopping for lunch, admiring various churches and windmill towers along the way, then listening to a medley of church bells ring out one after the other in the early evening. Wandered back down for dinner on the waterfront to end a perfect day. Symi is a gem.
Next day we caught ferries to Lipsi via Kos, Kalymnos, Leros and Patmos. It was a lovely trip and at times you could almost touch the coast of Turkey. We spent a few pleasant hours in Patmos, waiting for the final connection to Lipsi.
A week on the island of Lipsi was a centrepiece of this trip. We wanted to slow down and experience life on a small Greek island. Lipsi (population 700) is the home island of many in the Hobart Greek community so it seemed like a good choice.
By way of perspective, Lipsi is only 8km long, end-to-end. There’s not a whole lot to do which was the point of going there. Over the week we tried out all the beaches, walked the ridge road, ate at the tavernas, talked with the locals about their Hobart connections, and visited a family chapel.
One day we caught a ferry to the island of Patmos, getting off at the port town of Skala to visit the World Heritage city centre (Chora) and Monastery of St John. It was in a cave above Skala that St John is said to have had his vision of the apocalypse ending up as the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament. Regardless of belief systems we found our visit to the cave, called the Monastery of the Apocalypse, to be quite spiritual. It had something. In 1088 a massive fortified monastery was built in honour of St John called the Monastery of St John the Theologian (don’t confuse the two). It’s located further up the hill at Hora. Hora is a beautiful place and we were very happy wandering its streets and lanes later in the day. We didn’t have time to linger in Patmos on this trip, but it seemed like an impressive place. The Easter celebrations are apparently something to behold.
On the last day (Saturday) we did a lovely boat trip, visiting five small islands around Lipsi – Makronisi, Asponisi, Tiganakia, Arki (stopped for a drink) and Marathi (stopped for lunch). It was a blissful day and a great way to end the week.
From our apartment in Lipsi we could see a large, pink house that has a very interesting history.
In response to the Greek military junta of 1967-74, a revolutionary organisation called November 17 (N17) was formed in 1975 under the leadership of a man called Alexandros Giotopoulos. They were a deadly urban guerrilla group who mounted a campaign against the Greek state, banks, businesses, and foreign targets, killing 23 people between 1975 and 2002.
When leaders of the group were finally captured in 2002, Alexandros Giotopoulos was found living on the island of Lipsi with his French wife, Marie-Therese Peignot. In the big pink house.
He had lived on the island for many years under the pseudonym of Michalis Oikonomou and presenting as a retired academic. It is now believed he conducted meetings with Carlos the Jackal on islets around Lipsi in the 1980s.
We asked the locals about Giotopoulos and they said it was a complete shock. He was a nice, bright, funny man and no one had heard any rumours of a dark past. He didn’t get on with the local mayor and painted his house in pink as a protest. (His father was once a secretary of Leon Trotsky and leader of the Greek Trotskyist party so he probably wasn’t a fan of local bureaucracy.) As a result the local council now has a regulation that if you repaint your building it must be in white with blue trim. And as a result, a lot of Lipsians don’t repaint. Or so we were told…
We caught a ferry to the island of Samos, stopping in the port town of Pythagorio for a couple of nights. As the name suggests, Pythagoras came from here. We had a nice enough time getting in some swims and seeing the ancient sites. The World Heritage Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos are split between two locations. We saw some of the Pythagoreion, though as it was a Monday the famous Eupalinos Tunnel was closed. We walked around the ancient walls and ancient theatre, and also visited a monastery with caves and some early Christian tombs. The Heraion is about 5 kms to the west and we didn’t go there.
Pythagorio is a place that clearly caters to English tourists and we struggled to find a decent looking taverna for dinner. After convincing the lady at the hotel that we wanted ‘real’ taverna, she put us in a taxi and sent us 4 kms inland to Chora where we had a fabulous meal sitting under big plane trees in the village square. Clearly we were getting the hang of the Greek way by this stage of the trip.
The next day was a bit of a balls up. Our ferry to Athens left from the port of Vathy, not Pythagorio, so we had to catch a cab across the island but ended up missing the connection. We decided to buy air tickets and fly, so arrived in Athens about on time but a bit poorer though much wiser for the experience.
We had three nights back in Athens at the end of the trip and took the opportunity to do a couple of day trips.
About 50 kms south of Athens is Cape Sounion, site of the ancient Temple of Poseidon. It’s an impressive ruin in a stunning location, and the bus trip there and back (1 hour 15 minutes each way) is pleasant enough. We loved the old grafitti carved into the blocks at the base. Duff Kerrigan ‘woz ere’ from North Shields in 1895.
We were also keen to see some of the islands in the Saronic Gulf that lies to the west of Athens. We thought about ferry hopping for a day, but there seemed to be some decent tours available for the three islands of Poros, Hydra and Aegina. We studied the various offerings and chose one that looked suitable for us. Didn’t know it at the time, but we were about to be schooled in the art of mass tourism, Greek-style.
A nice little tour bus picked us up from the hotel and we were feeling very exclusive on our way to the port. Then all the little tour buses pulled up at the same, very large ferry and we were exclusive no more. Hundreds and hundreds of people were funneled onto said ferry, greeted by couples in traditional Greek costume offering photos, at a price. It got worse. Lunch included that famous Greek delicacy, the brussel sprout. Anyway, we had no choice but to go with the flow and get out of it what we could. The stops in Poros and Hydra were enjoyable and we carved out a spot on the deck to take in some sun and watch the scenery go by. We were a bit over it by Aegina where they dropped us on one side of the island then wanted us to pay an extra charge to be bussed to the other side of the island to see its famous temple. We declined, opting to wander the local fish market and have a drink where we were. We put that one down to experience.
In the time we had left in Athens we walked out to Filopappou Hill to see the Monument of Filopappos, Shrine of the Muses and Socrates’ prison. There are good views back to the Acropolis and down to Piraeus. The latter reminds you that Athens is a coastal city.
And we spent a bit of time hanging out in the squares, watching the Athenians go about their business, and plotting ways to get back and see more of Greece some time in the future.
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