Naxos

Prepare yourself, this is gonna be a long one :)

Oh what a glorious place! Feeling overwhelmed with how wonderful our time in Naxos has been. We’re currently on a ferry to our next Greek island, Sifnos. We’re glad to know that our time in Greece isn’t over yet.

We traveled from Santorini to Naxos on a ferry, which was definitely the best mode of transportation we’ve been on this trip. What a major step up from flying! 1. We still had to get to the port early, but rather than waiting unpleasantly in an airport, we got to wait in a café, drinking a smoothie and looking out over the beautiful blue sea. 2. Leg space! Lots of it. We bought ‘economy’ tickets, and were originally skeptical we were in the right cabin. Sure enough, we were allowed to sit at any of the lounging couches around a table, next to an outlet and floor to ceiling windows. This brings us to 3. A view! The whole journey we were looking out over the sea, passing by other Greek islands.

Upon arrival in Naxos, we were greeted by a man from our hotel who drove us to Hotel Grotta, just 5 minutes away. When we walked in, the very friendly lady at the reception sat us down to watch the sunset and told us it was tradition at the hotel to welcome us with complimentary drinks of our choice (we chose a delicious red wine). She also brought out little savory pastries for us to munch on. Outstanding hospitality will continue to be a theme of this post.

We spent our first full day in Naxos exploring the Old Town, which is the area right near our hotel (which is in prime location with a beautiful view, as seen above). We started off by walked over to Portara Apollo (Apollo’s Door). This is the main landmark of the island – it’s in the majority of postcards and every travel brochure. Monisha was quite taken aback when we actually got up close. She didn’t really understand why it was so prominently featured everywhere, as she envisioned it being much smaller and less impressive than it really was. In reality, it was huge: each of the three stones that form the door weigh over 20 tons. We ended up coming back at sunset a couple days later. It was a good thing we visited this site early on, because during the last two days there was a Bollywood movie being filmed there, and the whole area was closed off!

Like Porto and the Gothic District in Barcelona, the streets in Naxos are just really pleasant to walk around in.

One cool area in the Old Town is the Kastro area, which is where the Castle of Naxos stands. Over the centuries, people built their houses into the walls of the castle. Now the whole thing is just a neighborhood with especially windy paths and very old walls.

While we were in the area, we visited an archaeological museum filled with beautiful pottery and glasswork found on the island. Some of the pieces were 6000 years old.  One was a pig.

  

We ended up renting a car on the second day which was an excellent decision. It got us to the various towns around the island. You can get to most on a bus, but the schedule is very limited with only one or two buses per day. It’s a good thing Nolan is slightly older, because it turned out you have to be 23 to get insurance for rental cars in Greece. It felt a little bit silly in our situation because Monisha was actually better at driving stick shift at this point, having done more of the driving in Iceland. However, having driven manual for three days in Naxos, Nolan is now a fully confident manual driver as well!

Monisha:

It’s hard to express how much joy I get from interacting with really wonderful, kind people. And in Naxos (and now Sifnos as well), we have met so many people who just make me feel…full. That word isn’t quite the right one, but it captures a little of what I feel.

The staff at Hotel Grotta are the most obvious examples of the people I’m thinking about. At every point in our stay, we felt cared about. They truly went out of their way to make our vacation as wonderful as possible. First, welcoming treats and drinks when we arrived. Every day when they cleaned the room, they left a little sweet treat on the counter. They spent time helping us figure out our travel to Sifnos when we discovered there weren’t any direct ferries from Naxos to Sifnos; they’re busy, but they didn’t even give it a second thought to make a phone call to someone who runs a private boat, look through ferries online, and discuss possibilities with us. The day we checked out, we had about 7 hours after checkout before we needed to go catch our ferry. They said they would give us a ride to the port, and that we were more than welcome to use the facilities (pool, jacuzzi, sauna, hot tub, dining area, shower) until we left – “you are still our guests!” While we were sitting in the dining area, after already having checked out, one of the staff members came over and brought us a snack delicious little fried zucchini balls. It’s inspiring to meet people like those we’ve met here.

We (me especially) came to have quite a soft spot for a restaurant called Meze² (or Meze Meze). More about the food at the end of this post, but for now, about kindness. The thing that really stole my heart at this restaurant was the dessert on the house that they gave us at the end of our meals there: Naxos yogurt with a sweet shredded carrot topping. I liked it so much that one night when I went to explore the town without Nolan, I stopped by on my way back to the hotel and asked if I could just order one of those (even though it wasn’t on the menu). He said of course, of course. Then he talked with another staff member (I think she was the owner), brought me out a to go container of the yogurt with carrot, and said it was a gift from the house, indicating the woman (owner). What?! I hadn’t even eaten there that night! It was taken aback, and walked back with a very full heart.

These aren’t the only interactions in Naxos that left me feeling amazed at human kindness, but were some of the more potent ones. Spending time in Naxos, and now Sifnos, has really increased my faith in humanity. I think this is my favorite thing about the time we’ve spent on the Greek islands, and why it has been one of my favorite parts of our trip.

Back to Nolan and Monisha:

On our first night at Hotel Grotta we started talking to a young couple from Montreal, Canada. Their names are Marie Jeanne (MJ) and Marco and they’re living in New Hampshire while Marco studies at the Dartmouth business school. They have a seven-month-old daughter named Rose who was delightful!  The following night we talked with them more while swimming in the hotel pool.  Rose had just learned how to splash the water with her hands.  She is a very happy baby and we had a great time playing with her in the pool.  It was fun to see the world through a baby’s eyes; everything is so new and exciting.  Even simple things like the interaction between water and fingers and toes becomes fascinating.  After our swim, they asked if we wanted to join them for dinner! This became our first trip to Meze², when we had the most delicious eggplant dish we’ve had on our trip (and that says a lot!)

We had a lovely time talking with MJ and Marco, sipping wine and enjoying fantastic food.  We talked about all sorts of things, and got to know each other about as well as is possible given our brief time together.  They also recommended a private cooking class they did with Nicolette’s (one of the hotel hosts) cousin.  They spoke so highly of it that we set one up for two days later (more on this in the following post).  Rose was wonderful and slept through the entire dinner.

Since we rented a car, we were able to travel to several of the little towns all over Naxos:

Halki:

Halki is home to a very old distillery where they make Citron.  We were able to take a little tour, and got free samples!  The rest of the town was pretty deserted. Apparently many of the shops aren’t open year round, but rather run only in the summer time for tourist season. Since we’re visiting in October many shops and places were already closed.

  

Filoti:

Filoti is the second largest town on Naxos. We had dinner there one night, and lunch there another day.  Again, not much activity going on here, but certainly saw more people than in Halki. We found this town particularly charming; the main street is lined with restaurants filled with greenery and ivy like plants growing along the walls and ceiling of the outside seatings.

Apeiranthos:

We were told about Apeiranthos several times.  It’s an old traditional village with marble steps and streets.  The streets are crazy here! We got pretty lost in the winding narrow paths and steps.  At one point, Nolan was sure that we had hit a dead end, but Monisha wanted to continue on. Sure enough, after walking across a couple of wooden boards laid across two roofs we were back on a more central looking path.  We had gotten a recommendation to go to an old bakery where they still use only wood fired ovens.  After getting a bit lost, we asked for directions and were rewarded with a loaf of traditional wood fired bread.

After getting our bread, we sat for a while at a café and drank some wine made by our waiter’s father. We also ordered Naxos yogurt with honey…it’s hard to get tired of that stuff ;)

On our way back from Apeiranthos, Nolan spotted a beautiful little pull-off and stopped the car.  The view was fantastic, and it turned out to be right next to a famous windmill that is on a lot of Naxos postcards. We stayed for a while reading our book. 

For our last full day on Naxos we decided to go for a hike.  We enjoyed our hike in Santorini so much, we both wanted more.  On Naxos we decided to climb Mount Zas (Zeus).  We learned later that Mount Zas is the tallest mountain on Naxos as well as the tallest point in all of the Cyclades islands.  Luckily for prospective day hikers, there is a road most of the way up, leaving only a 5km climb up to the summit.  And what a summit it is!

  

  

At the summit, we were sitting enjoying a light snack when Monisha spotted a goat in the distance. While trying to spot the goat Monisha saw, Nolan saw a different goat that was even closer.  Upon closer inspection we realized we could see at least six different goats hanging out on the cliffs.  See how many you can spot!

We spent some time on two different beaches on the island, one of which was practically empty and felt like our own private beach! We spent most of our time on that beach lounging, reading, and singing; we’ve actually discovered a really awesome way to learn to sing two part harmonies together, and have almost completely learned ‘If I Fell.’ We went in the water in the other beach, but it would be more accurate to call it wading than swimming, given that 50 meters out the water was still as waist level. We ended up having a great time doing resistance sprints in the sea :)  However, our favorite swimming spot ended up being a rocky area right next to our hotel. The water was cold, but in a pleasantly refreshing way. The rocks are beautiful, though quite bad for skipping, providing Nolan with a challenge – accepted! The water really is as clear as it’s said to be. Stunning, and amazing to be able to clearly see the rocks on the ocean floor even when it’s 10+ meters down.

FOOD (Monisha)

I can’t say enough about the food here. Greek cuisine has easily made its way into my top three favorite cuisines, and probably my favorite country for food on this trip. First of all, it’s so well balanced! They have delicious options for all of the important food categories in every meal. Fresh vegetables – check: Greek salad are frickin’ delicious. Cooked vegetables – oh gosh yes: so many yummy tomato dishes, peppers, stuffed assorted vegetables, EGGPLANT. Eggplant may be my favorite vegetable, but only if measured by the peak, not average. The problem is that I’ve had a lot of mediocre eggplant. But damn, we’ve had some seriously top notch eggplant dishes in Greece, reminding me of eggplant’s potential. Cheese – heck yeah: feta, baked feta (oh my gosh, unreal), Naxos cheese, soft fresh cheeses, yum yum yum. Meat – yep, they know their meats here. Honestly, I’ve been becoming more and more vegetarian inclined in general: my favorite things are often the vegetable dishes rather than the meat ones. But lamb? I’m still a sucker for that. And the lamb & beef kebabs we got from one restaurant in Naxos (Kozi) had unbelievably delicious flavor and texture. Yogurt – have I mentioned the yogurt here is amazing? ;)  

  

  

  

  

  

  

So yeah, we're enjoying Greece.