Posted on by Mitch&Katy

You guessed it! Naxos Beach Hopping

If you’re getting sick of our beach blogs now is probably the time to look away. We spent yet another day of sunlight exploring the east coast where the majority of the organised beaches are. My thoughts on Naxos very much reflect the things I had read about it before we arrived. It is a very large mountainous island that is utilised for various types of farming and growing. Because we have driven basically everywhere on this island, we have seen (and smelt) each and every one of these. We had passed tobacco farms, vineyards, vegetable and fruit farms along with animal farms such as goat and cows (lovely scent driving by 🤮). We could even smell a certain popular illicit green plant as we drove through the most deserted parts of the island but that particular plantation was obviously out of the public eye. This might seem weird but some parts of these islands remind me of outback Australia when it comes to the look of things. See picture below.

The eucalyptus trees (whose presence surprised me) combined with very dry brown flora just seemed a little country Australia but that’s just my opinion.

First stop today was the furthest beach on the east coast Aliko Beach, which was approx 30min drive on our beastly quad bike. There were two beaches as we arrived, one on each side of a very large peninsula, we had been told by the locals that you pick which side depending on which way the winds blowing. As this island is known for being very windy you have to pick your beaches wisely. We picked the beach sheltered from the wind and parked up to set up camp. This was an unorganised beach meaning no bars, restaurants or shade umbrellas. We didn’t mind but couldn’t stay too long as we were exposed directly under the Aegean sun and Katy and I don’t particularly have the strongest melanin of all. The water here was an amazing colour and we wish we could’ve stayed all day, it was honestly like swimming in a backyard pool it was sooo clear.

Next we drove through a few more unorganised beaches that were a little windy so we only stopped for a few pictures. There was only about 5min drive between them all so it was nice to zip around the dirt tracks and check them all out.

Finally we decided on a beach the other side of Mikri Vilgla that we visited yesterday. It shares the same name so I suppose it’s the same beach on the other side of the breakwater/cliff face. Once again the side we attended was the sheltered side and had a small restaurant with sun beds so we had a small lunch and spent the next few hours laying in the sun chilling out with the occasional swim to cool us down.

We stayed here until about 6pm. We were very comfortable and would’ve stayed longer if the North-westerly wind hadn’t picked up and forced us off the beach. We rode our quad home, this time beating the sunset (learnt that lesson yesterday 😂). We showered and Katy did some of her washing and then headed into the old town for dinner. We are on a bit of a money saving period so went to a chain that does healthy salads on the cheap. We bought some salads and some baguette rolls- total price: €8.60. On the way home we stopped at a bakery as Katy wanted something sweet for desert. We took everything back to our room and enjoyed it on our balcony in the warm summer breeze whilst watching Netflix and sharing a cheap bottle of red we bought a few days earlier. Tonight was very relaxing and we were in bed nice and early which is unusual for Greece as everything here happens so late.

Tomorrow is our last full day on Naxos which we are both sad about as well have thoroughly enjoyed our time here. Next on the agenda is Mykonos for a second visit, we’re hoping it doesn’t hurt the wallet too much.

Kalispera

M 🤘🏼

Posted on by Mitch&Katy · 4 Comments

Central and East Naxos

Right everyone, let’s get straight into since this was a very long day.

We got up, ate and got ready. We walked into town to a rental shop we’d been in yesterday. Quads are are between €5-15 cheaper than a car so it’s personal preference what you choose to drive. We like the quad because it’s easy enough to zip about on and the main attraction is you can park it almost anywhere. After being on a 50cc quad on the other islands we knew we wanted something with more power. Our options were 150 or 300 and the price difference was negligible so we opted for the 300 considering Naxos is the biggest island and has a lot of hills. Unfortunately they were out of the 300cc so they offered us 400 for the same price! This seemed like a great idea until the woman behind the desk put the fear of god into me about not going too fast in case we tip it or get caught by the police and fined €2000.

So thoroughly quaking in my Birkenstock’s we set off to some of the villages in the center of the island.

Moni

We drove half an hour to get to this village specifically to see Panagia Drosiani Church. It’s the oldest church on Naxos and is a recommended must see while on the island. The church is very old (about 6th century) and still has some of the original artwork. You’re not allowed to take photos inside the church. Outside there was a lady who was selling her textile work that she hand crafts on a loom. She didn’t speak any English so her granddaughter translated for her; we bought some as gifts.

After this we drove onwards towards a village called Chalkio. On the way we passed an open cut mine. We think they’re mining stone or marble judging by the shape.

Chalkio

Chalkio is tiny. Pretty much just restaurants and cafes interspersed with pottery and textile shops. It’s pretty much just for tourists.

We stayed long enough to wander and see Church of Agios Georgios Diasoritis. It takes about 10 minutes to walk on a little stone path that passes hundreds of olive trees and surprisingly eucalyptus trees. The church dates back to the 11th century and still has many of its original frescos intact. Bonus: we were allowed to take pictures.

Filoti

A quick 5 minute drive to Filoti is where we stopped for lunch. It’s another tiny village nestled in the mountains. The views from the drive are spectacular and make up for the lack of things to do in the villages. We had a club sandwich for lunch and Greek bruschetta which is brown bread, olive paste, olive oil, garlic, feta and tomatoes. So tasty, will be on the search for olive paste when I get home.

Although we had been told by the rental agency that there not much point in going to the East of the island. We ignored this and powered on 45 minutes down some very winding roads to reach Psili Ammos beach. Psili ammos translates as “fine sand” so this beach didn’t disappoint. We swam in the warm water to cool off from the bike and it was bliss! The water is crystal clear it doesn’t even look like sea water.

We were sufficiently topped up with our dose of “vitamin sea” so we started the drive back up the mountains towards home. It’s an hour to go from the very east to the very west for those curious. We ended up stopping at Mikri Vigla purely because we spotted lots of kite sails and I was curious.

Mikri Vigla

This is the beach for windsurfing and kite surfing on the island. We were both a bit transfixed watching all the surfers passing each other at amazing speeds and still manage not to collide or get tangled up. I would love to be able to do it but also think I’d be terrified; although there did seem to be a few beginners wearing helmets so who knows. There does seem to be benefits being harnessed into a parachute as you don’t really fall in the water since the parachute (kite) just pulls you straight back up again.

We finished our day with Mexican food at a place called Picasso. It’s down the coast from us where all of the beaches are. The food was really good and came; no word of a lie; 5 minutes after we ordered. The fun part of this evening came when we went to drive back only to realise that our headlights gave us about a foot of light in front of us and the entire drive back to the city has absolutely no streetlight. So Mitch being the passenger had to pull out his iPhone torch and we used that as headlights. We had a few passing cars which helped a lot but once they passed we were back to 10km/h and only iPhone light.

Lesson learned to be back in the city before sundown – Katy xxx

Posted on by Mitch&Katy

Beach hopping in Milos

Today started as every morning should; with coffee and croissants. We headed to the cafe on the corner of our street to fill us up for the morning so we could get going as we were heading south. There were 3 beaches on our list today; and with the weather acting much nicer today than yesterday; we wanted to see them all.

First stop was a beach called Fyriplaka beach. It’s a typical Greek postcard beach – white sand and pale blue water. What they don’t show you is that to get to the sandy bit you have to get into the water (ankle height) and traverse the rocks. When we arrived just before 11 it was still fairly quiet. This isn’t a fully manned beach so there were a few sun loungers with parasols but mostly people brought their own umbrellas or we saw a few with pop up tents. This brings me to my next point about the lack of shade. There are no trees or businesses on this beach; the beach comes out of the massive rock wall so there’s very minimal shady spots and they’re taken early. The beach gets a lot of sun and – thankfully today – not much wind. We managed to find a hole in the wall (this is a legitimate description) where I tucked my towel into so I could keep my top half covered. Mitch hopped on a free sun lounger. We chilled on the beach for a bit and headed into the water when we got too hot. The water is perfect, not as clear as some of the other beaches we’ve visited but the dreamiest colour. A must see if you’ve got some sturdy shoes to go over the rocks with.

We left after a few hours so we could hit up our next stop – Tsigrado beach.

Word to the wise. Don’t bother going to this beach if you are scared of heights, not particularly agile or don’t have a baseline level of fitness. There’s a warning at the top that says “do this at your own risk”.

The views from the top of the hill are STUNNING. It’s another beach that kind of emerges from the rock wall again. However to get down to the beach is a semi workout in itself. It involves a version of unassisted abseiling over the side of the cliff, climbing down 2 wooden ladders and squeezing yourself between the rough rock face (I have the scratches to prove this). Plus all the sand makes even the flattish bits slippy. The girl in front of us was so scared I thought she was never going to get to the bottom – I assume all the shouting she was doing in Greek was blaming her boyfriend for bringing her there. She caused a bit of a traffic jam on the way down so it definitely can get busy.

Once at the bottom, I’ll be honest there’s very little room. The actual sand isn’t all that spectacular either. However the water, again, is amazing. We kept our water shoes on from the climb down and spent our time in the water jumping from rock to rock. There’s lots of big and small rocks that are submerged which if you have your handy dandy water shoes; you can climb on top with ease and jump straight back off. This beach gets deeper much quicker than the last. One of the bigger rocks I jumped off of, I was surprised I don’t touch the bottom since the water is still that pale blue colour.

We didn’t stay long here since the space was cramped and the ladder back up was free.

Our last beach of the day was Agia Kiriaki beach. There’s one restaurant on the beach and sun loungers available to hire. We opted to get some food first though. The food is nice (maybe a little pricey) and don’t assume that burger automatically means it comes with a bun! By the time we had eaten lunch I thought it would be a waste of money to hire a lounger for a couple hours so we found a shadyish spot under a tree, read our books and enjoyed the afternoon sun. Mitch went for a walk and said the water was warm and the rocks are completely white there.

After a long day in the sun we hopped back on the bike and picked up some snacks and water for the room before showering and heading for dinner. Still doing food on the cheap as we’re tying to be conscious of our money and Greece is turning out to be more expensive than expected.

Until tomorrow! – Katy xxx

Posted on by Mitch&Katy · 1 Comment

Quad biking around Santorini

Ooh look at us being consistent with our posting! I’m actually impressed we’ve managed to keep it up this long.

As I type this we’re on the boat heading to Ios so I have an hour to explain our entire quad biking adventure. We started early at 9:30 with most of our tour group deciding they wanted to tour the island on quad with Stefanos as our guide. This is a popular way to get about as it’s not too expensive and, if you have the little box on the back, you can carry all your essentials for the day.

The tour started with us leaving our hotel and travelling north to Oia [pronounced Ee-yah]. This is the the where the domes with the blue roofs are that everyone gets a picture of. Very typically Greek. We stopped to let everyone re-group; have a look around and get some lunch. Pre-warning that it’s a bit more pricey for lunch here and anything with a view of the sea pushes the prices up even more. It’s a touristy, quaint little spot and also very busy during the summer months. I’ve heard the sunset here is breathtaking but we had to have our bikes back before 9 so we would be pushing time to see the sunset and return the bike.

I, of course, got my insta pic with the blue domes. I considered getting one on the stairs until I realised it was someone’s house.

From here we travelled to see the red beach. It’s a beach made from the compressed ashes that fell on the ground after a nearby volcanic eruption. It’s a really striking colour and we would have loved to stay and swim but the beach didn’t have any sun loungers or parasols; and my fair Scottish skin can’t take that long in the sun. This was the longest solid stretch of biking we had during the day, made much worse by the fact our bike was defective and slowed to a crawl at the mere sight of an incline.

We hopped back on our bikes and headed to a swimming spot that Stefanos recommended. Thankfully it was mostly downhill. It was another black sand beach with slightly choppier water that the others we’ve been to. It was actually really nice to just float in the waves with our friends and talk rubbish.

That was until one lone giant wave wiped me out. I tried to go side on when I realised it was going to be taller than me and subsequently lost my sunglasses in the water. We had a look for them and even asked a wee boy wearing a snorkel if he could see them in the water. I was resigned to the fact that they were gone. Ocean – 2 Ray-bans – 0. I decided to see if they had gotten swept back in when a man in front of me caught my attention waving my lost sunnies! It’s a Santorini miracle! Also lesson learned to stop wearing sunnies in the ocean.

Mitch and I also got to test out our ugly swim shoes and can confirm that while ugly, they are very comfortable and practical for the stoney beaches of Europe. 100% would recommend they be in everyones suitcase if you’re a big beach bunny.

Look mum I’m in the shade!

We were a quick 15 mins from the hotel at this beach so as it got a bit cooler we all split off to head back to the hotel pool for some drinks and a swim.

We got ready and headed for our last dinner as a full group (some of the people on the tour finished here rather than in Ios). Dinner was ok, we weren’t blown away but Stefanos got us up for a bit of traditional Greek dancing which in a tiny restaurant was a great laugh since everyone got involved. We meandered through other guests tables while they clapped us along, we even got some Greek diners up to teach us as well. Wish I had a video but alas I was dancing.

We ended with a drink overlooking the water. Shout out to Angelo and his google phone for this sick last picture.

See you in the next blog post. – Katy xxx