Naxos is the biggest island in the Cyclades, which is the cluster of islands we went to. I just looked it up, and apparently it’s 166 square miles—way bigger than I thought it was. (I am the WORST at estimation. Ask me to guess your age and I’ll be off by approximately ten years.) Since there was so much of Naxos to be seen, Britt and I bought tickets for a bus tour through the interior of the island. There were some weather difficulties, technical difficulties, and near-death experiences, but it was absolutely worth it.
Most of our fellow passengers on the tour were elderly German folks, so we fit right in. Alright, not entirely—but luckily the tour guide, Christina, spoke both German and English so we didn’t miss out on any of the important details. Our trip took us up into the mountains in the center of Naxos—the land of the zorbas/shepherds/serpents we’d danced with the night before. It was beautiful. I’ve developed some affection for the ocean since my trip, but the mountains will always feel like home to me.
Our first stop was a traditional little town where we visited an oldschool olive press. I couldn’t get very many picture of it, since it was dark inside. It was very cool, though.
Just down the road was a traditional pottery shop—another awesome place that I couldn’t get any good pictures of. It looks like this person managed it, though.
Oh internet, how I love you so.
The man holding the pot is the potter and Christina, our tour guide, is standing next to him—the blond woman with her hands folded. The pot that he is holding is a traditional Naxos wine vessel that is only found on this island. It’s a very interesting little vessel because there’s no lid and no hole in the top that you can pour something into. There’s just a little spout at the very top. So how do you get the wine in? The handle is hollow, so you put one end of a reed or a tube into the handle and the other end into the wine. Then you put your mouth over the spout at the top and you suck the wine up through the handle and into the vessel. It uses some principal of something or other that I’m sure I learned about in science and then completely forgot. Very cool, though! I would have loved to bring one of those home, but I couldn’t figure out how to transport it without it breaking. Alas. It was a very cool place, though. I’ve never seen anyone make pottery on a pottery wheel before, and it’s kind of hypnotic.
After the pottery shop, we got back into the bus and drove to another little town. The main attraction in this town was a distillery where they made the liqueurs that Nico had served at his sunset concert the night before. They explained to us how the liqueur is made and then let us wander around and look at the distillery. We had some time to ourselves in the town, so Britt and I wandered a bit. We found a little textile shop run by an older woman who made all of the wares by hand on her loom.
I bought some gifts for my parents there. The woman was very sweet and gave us candies before we left. I loved this little town.
We walked around the whole thing in maybe five minutes. The best part about it, though was the smell. I wish I could have taken a picture of that alone. There were orange groves and mimosa trees and I cannot even describe how heavenly it smelled. Most of Naxos smelled like a dream. I wish I could have bottled it up and taken it home with me.
After a little snack, the bus drove us higher into the mountains to a fifth-century Byzantine church called the Panagia Drossiani, which means to “Our Lady of Refreshment.” Christina told us that the reason it was called this is because many years ago there was a drought in Naxos. Seeking relief, the people from the town near the Panagia Drossiani took an icon from the church and brought it down to the sea and dipped it into the water. As they were coming back to the church with the icon, it started to rain, so the church was renamed in honor of the miracle.
It’s disrespectful to take pictures of the interior of churches in Greece, so unfortunately I have no pictures of the amazing frescoes inside this church. They were amazingly well preserved, considering that they came from the seventh century. There was a fresco of St. George and the dragon and another of Mary holding a painting of Christ as a young man. There was a double fresco of Christ in the dome above the main part of the church and we got to see the icon that was brought down to the sea. It was amazing to be able to walk into the church and look around. It was beautiful. I wish I had taken pictures of the exterior.
There was also a small graveyard with a little underground area that Christina described as being full of bone boxes. In Greece, like in much of Europe, people are only buried in cemeteries for a limited time. Then their bones are placed into boxes and stored and another body is buried in the spot they vacated. I, being the morbid creature I am, went down into the bone cellar while Britt stayed above. It was, alas, very neat and orderly with little metal file boxes stacked onto shelves. Which is how it should be, I suppose, but come on! I couldn't get cobwebs and a hand sticking creepily out of a box?
It started raining when we left the church. It had been sprinkling off and on, but it started raining a bit more seriously then. The rain had eased up a little by the time we got to the next town, which is where we were stopping for lunch. We stopped by a little museum first, then made our way down to the restaurant that Christina recommended. It was chilly up in the mountains and by the time we’d ordered and were waiting for our meal, a serious thunderstorm had started. For some unclear reason, the bells of the church were ringing like crazy—a wedding or a funeral or something like that, I’m sure. They kept ringing during most of the thunderstorm, and it was kind of surreal—thunder would rumble, and then the bells would answer, and then thunder would have something else to say.
The power went out at the restaurant before they could get everyone’s meal ready. The power went out all over the island, apparently. Luckily they’d brought us the hot chocolate we’d ordered before the power went out, so we got something warm, at least. (It was very good hot chocolate, too, though I’m not sure whether that’s because it was actually tasty or because we were a little cold and miserable.)
Adventures! We're having them!
After eating, we inched our way down the slippery marble street to where the bus was supposed to be waiting. But… no bus. People were hiding from the rain in doorways and in the church (whose bells had finally stopped ringing), and Britt and I took shelter under a tree. Luckily I had brought my umbrella with me, so we weren’t completely soaked by the time the bus came back and we could climb on.
This is where the death-defying part comes in. We were on a tour bus, driving through the mountains on a very narrow, very windy road in the pouring down rain. And our windshield wipers didn’t work.
Yeeeaaah.
We were supposed to go see a giant kouros that was laying on the ground. I would have loved to see this, but when a few of us brave souls hopped off he bus in the pouring down rain to go hike to the kouros, this is what we ran into.
No kouros for us.
That was the end of the tour for us, though I don’t know if it would have gone on longer than that had it not been for the pouring rain. Christina, baffled, explained to us that this never happened, not even in the rainy winter season. Lucky us!
The walk from the pier, where we were dropped off, back to our hostel in a miserable drizzle was not incredibly amazing. We got changed and hid under blankets for a while until the weather had proven that it wasn’t going to start pouring rain again. Then we ventured forth to Scirocco for dinner and more hot chocolate, which once again proved the amazing transformative powers of warm, good food.
Most of our fellow passengers on the tour were elderly German folks, so we fit right in. Alright, not entirely—but luckily the tour guide, Christina, spoke both German and English so we didn’t miss out on any of the important details. Our trip took us up into the mountains in the center of Naxos—the land of the zorbas/shepherds/serpents we’d danced with the night before. It was beautiful. I’ve developed some affection for the ocean since my trip, but the mountains will always feel like home to me.
Our first stop was a traditional little town where we visited an oldschool olive press. I couldn’t get very many picture of it, since it was dark inside. It was very cool, though.
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| the olive press and elderly german folks. |
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| from Britt |
Just down the road was a traditional pottery shop—another awesome place that I couldn’t get any good pictures of. It looks like this person managed it, though.
Oh internet, how I love you so.
The man holding the pot is the potter and Christina, our tour guide, is standing next to him—the blond woman with her hands folded. The pot that he is holding is a traditional Naxos wine vessel that is only found on this island. It’s a very interesting little vessel because there’s no lid and no hole in the top that you can pour something into. There’s just a little spout at the very top. So how do you get the wine in? The handle is hollow, so you put one end of a reed or a tube into the handle and the other end into the wine. Then you put your mouth over the spout at the top and you suck the wine up through the handle and into the vessel. It uses some principal of something or other that I’m sure I learned about in science and then completely forgot. Very cool, though! I would have loved to bring one of those home, but I couldn’t figure out how to transport it without it breaking. Alas. It was a very cool place, though. I’ve never seen anyone make pottery on a pottery wheel before, and it’s kind of hypnotic.
After the pottery shop, we got back into the bus and drove to another little town. The main attraction in this town was a distillery where they made the liqueurs that Nico had served at his sunset concert the night before. They explained to us how the liqueur is made and then let us wander around and look at the distillery. We had some time to ourselves in the town, so Britt and I wandered a bit. We found a little textile shop run by an older woman who made all of the wares by hand on her loom.
I bought some gifts for my parents there. The woman was very sweet and gave us candies before we left. I loved this little town.
 |
| by Britt |
 |
| by britt |
We walked around the whole thing in maybe five minutes. The best part about it, though was the smell. I wish I could have taken a picture of that alone. There were orange groves and mimosa trees and I cannot even describe how heavenly it smelled. Most of Naxos smelled like a dream. I wish I could have bottled it up and taken it home with me.
After a little snack, the bus drove us higher into the mountains to a fifth-century Byzantine church called the Panagia Drossiani, which means to “Our Lady of Refreshment.” Christina told us that the reason it was called this is because many years ago there was a drought in Naxos. Seeking relief, the people from the town near the Panagia Drossiani took an icon from the church and brought it down to the sea and dipped it into the water. As they were coming back to the church with the icon, it started to rain, so the church was renamed in honor of the miracle.
It’s disrespectful to take pictures of the interior of churches in Greece, so unfortunately I have no pictures of the amazing frescoes inside this church. They were amazingly well preserved, considering that they came from the seventh century. There was a fresco of St. George and the dragon and another of Mary holding a painting of Christ as a young man. There was a double fresco of Christ in the dome above the main part of the church and we got to see the icon that was brought down to the sea. It was amazing to be able to walk into the church and look around. It was beautiful. I wish I had taken pictures of the exterior.
 | ||
| by Britt |
It started raining when we left the church. It had been sprinkling off and on, but it started raining a bit more seriously then. The rain had eased up a little by the time we got to the next town, which is where we were stopping for lunch. We stopped by a little museum first, then made our way down to the restaurant that Christina recommended. It was chilly up in the mountains and by the time we’d ordered and were waiting for our meal, a serious thunderstorm had started. For some unclear reason, the bells of the church were ringing like crazy—a wedding or a funeral or something like that, I’m sure. They kept ringing during most of the thunderstorm, and it was kind of surreal—thunder would rumble, and then the bells would answer, and then thunder would have something else to say.
The power went out at the restaurant before they could get everyone’s meal ready. The power went out all over the island, apparently. Luckily they’d brought us the hot chocolate we’d ordered before the power went out, so we got something warm, at least. (It was very good hot chocolate, too, though I’m not sure whether that’s because it was actually tasty or because we were a little cold and miserable.)
Adventures! We're having them!
After eating, we inched our way down the slippery marble street to where the bus was supposed to be waiting. But… no bus. People were hiding from the rain in doorways and in the church (whose bells had finally stopped ringing), and Britt and I took shelter under a tree. Luckily I had brought my umbrella with me, so we weren’t completely soaked by the time the bus came back and we could climb on.
This is where the death-defying part comes in. We were on a tour bus, driving through the mountains on a very narrow, very windy road in the pouring down rain. And our windshield wipers didn’t work.
Yeeeaaah.
We were supposed to go see a giant kouros that was laying on the ground. I would have loved to see this, but when a few of us brave souls hopped off he bus in the pouring down rain to go hike to the kouros, this is what we ran into.
No kouros for us.
That was the end of the tour for us, though I don’t know if it would have gone on longer than that had it not been for the pouring rain. Christina, baffled, explained to us that this never happened, not even in the rainy winter season. Lucky us!
The walk from the pier, where we were dropped off, back to our hostel in a miserable drizzle was not incredibly amazing. We got changed and hid under blankets for a while until the weather had proven that it wasn’t going to start pouring rain again. Then we ventured forth to Scirocco for dinner and more hot chocolate, which once again proved the amazing transformative powers of warm, good food.
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