Naxos to Santorini

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 Santorini
This morning when I went down to pay Dina, she insisted that she would drive us to the port in Naxos city. She also insisted that we go early enough to spend some time walking around the town. She's determined that we see more of Naxos. We just wanted to wander the beach from the small village of Agios Prokopios but Dina is disappointed that we haven't seen all that Naxos has to offer.
A little before 11 am, Dina and her daughter drove us into the port. They parked the car there. We left our bags in it and, while Dina and her daughter ran a few errands, we wandered around town.

 Our first stop was the Temple of Apollo on a point jutting into the sea, just outside of the old town.

 The local superstition is that if you walk through the remaining arch of the temple, you will return to Naxos. We walked through together so perhaps we'll return together (hopefully without one of us in a funeral urn). Anyway, it was a nice spot.

 Afterward, we walked up into the Kastro, the old Venetian neighbourhood. The Venetians arrived in Naxos with the 4th Crusade in 1204 and some of them still live here. They designed these narrow streets, as they did in Mykonos, to confuse pirates who might land here.

 Pirates would definitely have to advance one by one.

Because of the Venetian influence, there is a Catholic church up on the Kastro, whereas every other church around is Greek Orthodox.
After we had looked around the old town and the harbor, we met Dina and her daughter by the car. As we got our bags out, Dina gave us a box of cheese, spinach and meat filled pastries that she had bought for us for our trip. She's been wonderful to us.

Our ferry was the Blue Star "Delos", one of the big slow ferries. It's a much calmer day and a much bigger ferry than the catamaran we arrived on so the trip was very smooth. Dina had told us that there is a rating system from 1 to 10 for the wind and high seas. At 9, the big ferries are cancelled. At 8, the catamaran fast ferries are cancelled. The evening we arrived the rating was at 7. That was enough for us.
On the way to Santorini, we made a brief stop at Ios, pictured above. It's a small island with a small town, steep hills and coves with little beaches. That describes most of the Cyclades islands.
When we arrived in Santorini, everyone disembarking gathered on the lower garage deck, waiting for the ramps to open. When they opened, all we could see across a short stretch of pavement was rock cliff. The port is in the caldera of an ancient volcano that blew up around 1613 BC or so. It was a massive explosion which blew the formerly round island apart and sent 24 cubic miles of debris into the atmosphere. Now, the main island is an arc of high cliffs around the former center of the volcano.
We found our hotel van driver who drove us up a number of switchbacks to get to the top of the cliff and the town of Fira. It's a fantastic view.

From our hotel roof terrace, we can see the coast to the southeast. The island isn't very wide. If we wanted a hotel on the cliff edge looking west, it would be much more expensive. Some hotels on the cliff edge cost $2,400 per night. After checking in, we did the usual march to the supermarket for supplies. Our hotel is on a back street, which is good. The main street in Fira is busy although this is not even the busy season yet. We saw 2 cruise ships moored offshore so that always means lots of tourists during the day. Naxos was much quieter.
We were tired so we sipped wine, drank a cold beer and ate some food from the supermarket on our balcony. It's always fun to look down on a narrow old street in these towns and see local life happening. Many times it beats sitting in a busy overpriced restaurant. Tomorrow, we'll walk the cliff edge to the next town, Oia, about 9 km up the island.