Naxos
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2008
1
41
69
Trip End
Ongoing
Naxos,
Cyclades,
Greece
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Naxos is the postcard picture of a Greek Island, white houses with blue shutters and window sills with flowers growing up the side. Small windy streets that just seem to get more and more narrow. Small restaurants line the dock with the view of the boats and the clear aquamarine colour water.
The ferry
We have spent our time wandering the streets eating out and sampling Greek beer and drinking ouzo on the balcony. Dave has been feeling sick and still fighting off a cold and managed to get his ears blocked whilst swimming so he still can't hear anything...We hired a car on Monday and did our own tour of the island. Having been in right hand traffic for the last 4 months driving was not a problem for me, or so I thought. The traffic and narrow streets in the main town were extremely stressful to navigate and the windy roads through the mountains just seemed to get narrower and narrower, at some points only wide enough for only one car. With a sleep drop off one side these roads rivaled some of the scarier roads I was on in South America.. and this time I was the driver... eek. We stopped off at some little towns up in the mountains. Visited a distillery that makes Naxos' famous drink citron, or kitron or however it's spelt. It's made from the leaves of a tree with a fruit resembling a lemon but much bigger. We drove right up to the north coast to another village where we had lunch and then drove back along the west coast.
Tuesday Dave still couldn't hear anything so we paid a visit to the local hospital which was an interesting experience.... He only had to pay 3 euro to see a doctor who told him what we already knew, that his ears were blocked up with wax (ewww) and that he needed to put drops in them for four days and then come back to see a specialist who would clean them out...
We spent the rest of the day trying to work out where to go next.. turns out that Athens is quite hard to get out of, expensive plane fares and being surrounded by such counties as Albania and Macedonia train travel was not as simple as I had assumed. After much deliberation we jumped on a packed ferry Wednesday morning and headed back to the big smoke. Unfortunately we were not so lucky this time, no comfortable couch. We were up on deck which was fine except for the fact that pretty much every Greek smokes and smoking seems to allowed everywhere.. even inside the bus terminal which is where I am sitting at the moment.. it's disgusting and it's making me feel sick!! We are about to board an overnight bus to Corfu where will continue on to Italy via ferry. (hopefully.. if all goes to plan.. which hasn't really been happening lately!)
Comments
Aww Bless!
Ohh I wish I was in the Greek Island right now instead of sitting here at work wasting my Friday afternoon away on Travelpod and Facebook.
Good luck with sorting out the rest of your travels!
xx