Island Paradise and Ghost Towns (With Pictures)

November 28th-December 1st--While not much can be said about the internet facilities on the Greek island of Naxos, it was a fantastic place to relax for a couple days, as well as a bizarre look at the tourist off-season.

Life is simple in Naxos in the offseason, even ghostly. The port city of Chora is almost entirely focused on tourism, with restaurants, hotels, and rent-a-car places dominating the landscape. The first night I was there, I was the only person in the hotel, and maybe the only person in several hotels.

On Thursday I focused on Chora, walking around and exploring, eventually climbing up to the hillside above to get a good view of the sunset.

The temple of Apollo ruins that Naxos is famous for.

It was really windy. This picture doubles as the "The Beard Stays" picture.

Later that night, I met a recent arrival to the hotel, Keiran. He's 19, just out of high school, and has been traveling around Ireland (with family) and the Mediterranean (mostly alone) since August. He had just been to Crete and introduced me to their local liqour, raki. It's a clear, highly alcoholic drink with a great provincal taste to it--it's made from grapes.

Naxos is a large island, and while there are bus tours, I thought I'd rent a car and see what I could. I went to a rental place (while they're everywhere, most were closed, so it took me a while) and for only 25 Euro secured the services of a wonderfully crappy little Suzuki. What I had dimly thought of before but disregarded was that almost all cars in Europe are manual, and I hadn't driven a manual in probably 5 years.

Exciting times followed as I got out of the narrow, windy, crazy streets of Chora and into the countryside. I made that car produce some absolutely awful noises, too...

The Road Warrior

The first stop was what the rental car guy called "the best beaches in the Mediterranean" so I could finally use my swimsuit for the first time. The water was cold, but beautiful and clear. Also, I was completely alone. There were all kinds of resorts and villas that were closed down, so I ended up changing into my swimsuit in the middle of the road, no problem. Nice in some ways, but also a weird feeling.



Naxos is gorgeous and full of mountains in the middle, and it was pretty fantastic to be able to drive around and make my own route. I visited several villages, one of the oldest surviving Byzantine churches in Europe, and two huge unfinished, abandoned statues from the 6th Century B.C.







When I was walking around one of the abandoned quarries, I started hearing gunshots, which got closer and closer. I had no idea where they were exactly, so I started calling out to make sure that no one confused me for something they'd like to shoot as I tramped through the bushes.

Suddenly, I heard two shots from maybe 50 yards away. After I stood up from ducking, I saw two Greek guys in their late 20's holding shotguns, cigarettes drooping lazily from their mouths. They saw me, smiled, and shrugged, then a burst of swallows came out of the hedges in front of them and they shot again.

Just after sunset I got back into Chora to return the car after a few mildly terrifying close calls on the narrow streets (oh, by the way, Greece has the second highest number of traffic fatalities in Europe, next to Portugal...). I headed back to the hostel to meet Keiran, and then it started to rain.

For about an hour and a half it rained like I haven't seen on the trip so far--pouring, torrential rain that kind of surprised me. Eventually it stopped and we went to dinner, jumping over the rivers flowing through the streets.

The restaurant we picked looked very nice, until we realized we would be the only ones there. It was a huge place, with all the tables set, but there were just two girls sitting by the fire, smoking and talking as we walked in.

They turned out to be the servers, and as we ordered it became clear that they had very little food--many of the things we wanted weren't available. Eventually we found stuff that worked, and it was very good, just a tad surreal.

These are called "Octopus Balls". I have nothing more to add.

Afterwards we went to a couple bars, which seemed to be the only place in the town where there were more than three people congregating. It was a good night, though, and a nice end to my time on Naxos.

Saturday morning I got up at 8:50 to catch the 9:30 ferry back to Athens. Nice timing, huh? I slept most of the way there, and finally got to my hostel at 5:00 after a stop by the market to get some great street vendor food.

The next couple days will be incredibly full of travel. I'll leave Athens for the western port of Patras at noon tomorrow, then get the ferry to Bari, Italy, at 6:00. I'll arrive in Italy at 8:30 AM, then have to wait till noon to catch the train to Naples. Not too much sightseeing there, but it's the best way to get to Italy.

See you there.