Blue... Naxos

At 9:00 we're at the car rental desk to pick up the cars booked from Bologna, and then, since the sky is slightly cloudy, while waiting for it to clear we head toward the village of Vivlos, better known as the village of the windmills. In reality, of the many windmills that characterized Naxos, there are 3 here and they still need restoring, but after strolling through the little streets of the village, visiting the museum of their history, we reach the top of the hill and savor the view, the breeze, and laugh like crazy when Giampa, Fabiano and Marco put on their version of the "changing of the guard at the windmill." For lunch we stop at a taverna with a view over the valley and the sea, where daughter and mother cook just for us since they would only have opened the restaurant in the afternoon.

After lunch, with the sun out, we head straight to one of the most beautiful beaches in Naxos: Plaka. A long, white and deserted beach, crystal-clear sea with every shade of blue... a joy for the eyes, for the body and for the spirit... this is vacation!

6/8 Afternoon

Naturally, in the afternoon we immediately tested the beach near the house, Agio Georgios, the one in Hora, but since we were at the edge of town we found ourselves in the area farthest from the port and therefore, I'd say, in the best part. We enjoy a stunning sunset and also our first aperitif at one of the beach bars and then go to dinner at one of the countless places along the seafront.

8/8

Once again today we continue with the "vacation," so we decide on Agia Anna beach. It's the beach that comes before Plaka, so the sea is always a dream, except that here we notice the beach is narrower than at Plaka and there are more organized areas. It's in fact located in front of the little village of Agia Anna with many residences and studios and quite a few venues, some of which play music with a DJ from 4:00 in the afternoon. We get umbrellas and sunbeds (everywhere, 6 euros for one umbrella and 2 sunbeds) and enjoy the day, waited on hand and foot, with cold drinks brought directly under the umbrella. The day ends with a walk to the Portara, a huge marble gateway 6 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, which is what remains of a temple built around 500 BC.

Here every evening the spectacle of the sunset plays out, and we too watch, captivated by the succession of colors in sky and sea, as the sun disappears on the horizon. Our desire to walk, however, isn't yet exhausted, so after dinner we head toward the Kastro, passing through the Old Market, among narrow paved alleys, intricate and colorful, full of little shops selling local crafts that display their original and unusual products attractively and tastefully, and we reach the entrance gates to the medieval citadel, with its little squares, Venetian-style buildings and the Catholic cathedral. There are also remnants of towers and some museums.

9/8

Today we choose a nearby beach to spend the morning, because then we go back for lunch and pick up the kids who stayed in bed because last night they went to a club and here clubs open at 1:30. Everything is shifted forward by about 2 hours: you have dinner at 10:00 pm, take a stroll at midnight and go to the club at 2:00, and this is an advantage for anyone who wants to enjoy the beach in the morning because until noon the beaches are almost empty! Agios Prokopios beach is another concentration of colors and shades of blue. The sand is a bit coarser than at Plaka or Agia Anna, making the sea an intense blue even near the shore, and here too at 10:30 in the morning there's no one around. At the far end of the beach, some rocks create a nice photo backdrop, and on the little hill beside it a bar/restaurant offers refreshment, shelter and a beautiful view.

After lunch we opt for another beach, Mikri Vigla. After about 15 km and a stretch of unpaved road you reach a beach that is exposed to the wind and frequented only by surfers and kitesurfers, and it's a very photogenic spot, with blue sky and sea and sails of every color in between. Many stop here just to admire the kitesurfers' feats, but in reality beyond the promontory, so exactly on the opposite side from the surfers' beach and also sheltered from the wind, lies the real Mikri Vigla beach, which also has a sea and sky of "Naxos blue." Once we arrive, we enjoy our afternoon of sun and swims in stunning waters and stay until sunset.

10/8

Today we're going around... so we set off for Halki, a village in the mountains not far from Hora that is part of a roughly 7 km walking circuit touching various characteristic villages with Byzantine chapels and towers. We, however, opt for a short walk along this route on a path through the countryside and in about 15 minutes reach the ancient 9th century AD chapel of St. Georgios Diasoritis, a white speck hidden among the trees and rocks. Unfortunately it's all locked up so we can't visit, so we console ourselves by ringing the little bell outside above the entrance. Besides churches and Byzantine towers, Halki is visited because here you find the old Kitron distillery, the citron liqueur typical of the island of Naxos, belonging to the Vallindras family.

We go in and can visit the rooms with the old equipment for distilling but also what is still in use today for producing the liqueur, which we get to taste in its three different alcoholic strengths. In the end we too buy our bottle, but later we'll realize that the same bottle on sale at the Vallindras shop on the Naxos seafront costs less! Continuing our tour, we then decide to stop for a drink or a Nescafè frappè at a beautiful bar with tables in the middle of a little square completely shaded by large trees. Here too we notice how all the more or less characteristic venues on the island are built or furnished with a special taste, with a distinctive or refined touch that never makes them anonymous. The day continues with a visit to the "marble" village of Apiranthos. A little white jewel among the mountains.

Naxos was the first to use marble (available from the quarries in the area) in architecture and sculpture, and here we see how it was used to pave all the little streets, alleys and stairways, in a succession of blinding yet extremely photogenic views. We go up and down streets and steps, careful not to slip (especially if you're wearing flip-flops or sandals with leather soles), and apart from a few streets in the more "touristy" central area, the rest of the village is lived-in and authentic; we come across elderly people sitting in the shade of a little church or women at open doorways, through which we can even peek inside.

Once the walk is over we go back to the little square and for very few euros eat Greek salad or fruit salad with yogurt, and then we head home, pick up the kids and return to Agios Prokopios beach to end the day in a relaxed way, so that at sunset the whole group, under the guidance of Roberta (a practicing yoga expert), feeling inspired does the "sun salutation" and entertains the whole beach. The evening ended with another tour of the Old Market and the purchase of souvenirs for friends and relatives.

11/8

Departure for Aliko beach. In reality Aliko is a promontory with a few coves located about 20 km south of Hora, and it's a natural, undeveloped area. We arrive at the top of the promontory in an area marked by the Aliko sign, where the remains of a tourist complex begun and never finished decades ago are found, now used for parking cars in the shade. The cove just below is part of the 4 beaches that make up the Aliko nature area and is called Hawaii. We stopped at this little cove because we liked the fact that it was fairly quiet and not too big, but if we had continued on foot rather than by car along the paths that led through the dunes we would have come out (though from where we were you couldn't see it) onto the larger Aliko beach called S. Georgius.

Anyway, we enjoyed our Hawaii until, around 1:30 pm, the beach filled up with families and groups with umbrellas and cooler bags, so we left our spot to others and stopped along the road for a restorative lunch. We then spent the afternoon at our "home beach" between a book, a game of beach volleyball or beach soccer. For the evening, the choice fell on Agia Anna and we had dinner at a lovely taverna with tables on the beach and our feet in the sand... what a delight! For after dinner we thought there might be a chance to listen to some music on the beach as we had seen in the afternoon a few days earlier, but at the venue they told us that "the party" ended before dinner and that in the evening the place was a normal bar with background music. Oh well! Never mind!

12/8

Today a full day at the beach at Plaka, deciding to walk almost all of it before stopping, arriving in an area where the bars and restaurants are sparser, the beach more deserted and with few organized areas. We're drawn to a little restaurant "da Petrino" that has set up its beach area very originally, with boats beached on the dunes or serving directly as shelter on the beach and two rows of umbrellas on white sand, in front of an intense blue sea... I'd say Naxos blue! We stay here until about 6:30 pm and then on the way back we stop to sip an aperitif at Picasso, the Mexican restaurant, and admire the sunset. Tonight we have dinner at home and then we stay together chatting and playing cards and dice on the large terrace of the kids' room... who of course have gone out to have fun.

13/8

The day's program includes a visit to 2 of the 3 Kouroi found on Naxos and then Kalados beach at the far south of the island. We arrive in the Melanes area, 7-8 km from Hora, and continue following the signs for the Flerio kouros, which is located in the garden of a private villa, though open to the public. The kouroi were monumental statues of young men that were roughly shaped in the quarry and then transported, to be finished, to the place of delivery. For various reasons, including their breaking during transport, they were left on the ground and abandoned, thus surviving to the present day. The Flerio Kouros is a 4.7 m statue dated between 500 and 600 BC. It depicts a young man and is missing its feet. After a walk of about a quarter of an hour climbing the mountain, you reach the second Kouros, even larger: it's 5.5 m and dated to the early 500s BC.

Here the feet are detached but placed alongside, while the face is missing, which they say was removed later. In both cases it makes you think how in such ancient times they were able to create, produce and move such works. Retracing our steps, we head for lunch in the village of Filoti and then continue for another 25 km, crossing the mountains, the tower of Himarou and a few kilometers of unpaved road, arriving after about an hour at Kalados beach. The road we come in on, from the mountains, practically ends at Kalados beach, a wide and quiet bay sheltered from the Meltemi, practically deserted. Besides us, a few other tourists baking in the sun or swimming in the sea. Here too the water is crystal clear, while the sand, due to the emery mines in the area, is a more silvery color, with the shoreline "glittering" in the sun.

Back quite worn out from the heat and the curves, our evening ends celebrating Giampaolo's birthday at the taverna "Sto Ladoxarto," booked a few days earlier on the valuable advice of Carmine, for a mega feast of grilled meat, oven-baked bread and an industrial quantity of French fries. We ate really well, on the terrace overlooking the seafront (the entrance of the place, on the other hand, is on a little street behind, parallel to the seafront), and after a restorative walk and a drink sitting at a bar, we said goodbye to the kids about to start their evening and went to bed.

14/8

Today is our last day of vacation and so we decide to spend the whole day at the beach to enjoy the sun and the stunning waters of this island to the very last. The choice is a forced one on the beach everyone liked best, namely Plaka, and we return to the dune area, to Petrino already tried before, and then we stop for our "last dinner" at Picasso.

15/8

In the morning, after loading the suitcases, we take a group photo with Maria, whom we say goodbye to and thank for the wonderful hospitality, then we return the cars and wait for the ferry to Santorini, from where the Meridiana flight departs that takes us directly back to Bologna. Here waiting for us we find a cloudy sky and a fine drizzle that make us miss "the Naxos blue" even more.