Island Hopping: Naxos

Sorry for the delay in writing more, but since we've come back from the trip, it's been go-go-go in the lab and on weekends, and the stories have taken the hit. But I made a promise and I will tell you all about our travels.

I will spend more time on Athens later, but the first "real" destination that we had decided on in Greece was the island Naxos. Naxos is one of the islands in the group called the Cyclades which tend to be more mountainous than most of the islands with the exception of the two volcanic islands in this archipelago. We spent three nights in Naxos and we don't regret it. Although we laughed when we read that these were supposed to be some of the best beaches in Greece and yet the sand paled in comparison to my beloved San Diego. But, we were determined to explore and see things and experience Greece- regardless if the beaches were lacking.

The first thing that we did when we arrived after settling in and going for a swim on the famous St. George's beach was that we went for a walk downtown and to see the Sanctuary of Apollo (see below). We went first in late afternoon but decided that pictures at sunset would be terrific, so we went and had a drink at a bar that had happy hour that was 12 hours long and then trekked back up for more photos. The pictures turned out wonderfully, thank you David! Here's some of what we saw:








Day 2 we rented Big Red. That little jeep took us all over the place. Literally. We went clear across a HUGE island on little dirt roads and through the towns where most of the people who live on Naxos live. (Side note- 85% of the population lives inland because there used to be a big pirate problem, so nobody wanted to live on the coast!) OK, back to the stories. So Dave really wanted to go and see Zeus's cave/mountain. He thought that we would climb the whole mountain in the middle of the day in full heat wearing Teva's. When I found out that it was a 3 hour hike up to the top and I was expected to climb Mt.Crazy, I veto'd the request and we hiked only the 30 minutes up to the cave. I love him, but you should have seen this mountain. It's so ridiculous that there isn't really a good trail that goes to the top. Not exactly a Michelle excursion. But here's some pictures from our hike and the famous cave.






The drive to the opposite end of the island was amazing and we ended up at a little beach with crystal blue water and almost nobody there except us and another car of expedition-ers determined to get their money's worth. We drove a lot of crazy roads, but saw some pretty cool sights:














We spent Day 3 exploring the West Coast of Naxos... more fun!







Stay tuned for my next posts about Santorini!