Naxos

After 4 high energy days in Mykonos, we hopped a ferry for the first time to the mellow island of Naxos.

I am not sure why I had pictured the ferries as being tugboat like, when in fact they were full on gigantic cruise ships basically. Like 7 stories of lounges, restaurants, outdoor patios, cars in the basement, the whole nine yards. Pretty sweet.

ferry

Alpha

Naxos is much bigger and has a completely different look than Mykonos. The buildings are a lot more rugged and made of stone and rocks and the area we stayed in on a hill overlooking the ocean and town had a sort of mid-evil labyrinth feel to it. Tiny intersecting alleyways made for a different way home every time. There was also a ton of cats in  town that had attitudes...and they were sorta creepy, darting towards you then sprinting by at the last moment. Beady little eyes too. Yucky.
  

meaner than they look

everyone drives these

our place

one of the bigger churches we saw

The main part of town is fronted by a port filled with sailboats. It is quite tiny, with just a few streets of shops selling Greek embroidered items, handmade jewelery, tavernas and the odd obsession...waffle shops! There was an entire alley of cafes completely devoted to waffles and all of their various toppings. So bizarre, and I must confess we succumbed to the waffles one morning for breakfast. I piled sour cherry ice cream and hard hat chocolate on mine while jimmy chowed down on the strawberry with lemon custard. Keep on piggin!'

Naxos town

sunset cocktails spot

waterfront

Naxos arch

facing town

We slowed our pace down substantially (thankfully!) just watching the soccer games at our favorite ocean front joint and enjoying some delectable dinners of lamb kleftiko (lamb and veggies stewed in paper), fried cheese with honey and sesame seeds, delicious spreads of whipped kalamatas and greek yogurt and mashed chickpeas with herbs, and homemade wines. A lot of the tavernas make their own in-house wine and you order it by the litre and it comes with tiny little glasses a only a bit bigger than a shot glass to sip it with. Very solid wines for being homemade.
 

Jimmy approves

every restaurant had these in front

Rented a car for a couple of days due to the larger size of the island. I made Jimmy drive due to my disastrous try at a stick shift when in Bali. We basically just took our time touring the island...huge terraced cliffs of grape vines, massive olive groves, rugged farm land, and mountain goats that ran so fast down the rocky hillsides every time I tried to pet them.

our sweet ride

oceanfront farmland

olive groves

roadside church

bougainvillea everywhere

tiny flowers

he totally posed for me

realizing I took too many church pics

Billy

this is a succulent!!!

Visited several villages and in one of them we ducked into an old distillery that has been around since the late 1800's. The distillery was making ouzo that day but it is also known for its kitron liquor. Kitron is similar to that of a lemon but it is quite stronger. We got to taste all of the 3 types of kitron and of course bought a bottle of our fave. The ouzo this distillery makes was the best we tasted the entire trip and now that we are home we are sad it is not distributed here in the states...

village home

distillery

village street

We also stumbled upon several of the nude beaches and decided what the hell and had a great time frolicking around the beach and ocean in our birthday suits! It was absolutely necessary we do so to get rid of our 16 different tan lines ;P

most northern point of Naxos

solitude

Naxos was a great opportunity for us to recharge our batteries and see the more rugged side of Greece. Next up, fine dining and killer views in Santorini!