On to Naxos

It was good to get a full night’s sleep with the ship securely docked. Sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. we slipped away from Paros on our way to Naxos, but I didn’t really realize we were underway until I got up and looked out the window.

View on our hike on Naxos.

The day began with an optional “hike,” so we got onto the bus to drive to the trail head. We walked through farm fields, seeing orange, lemon, olive and fig trees, as well as goat enclosures. We also passed a number of homes to which there is no access other than on foot or by donkey, and learned that everything from the construction materials to build them, to major appliances, to groceries, all has to come to them the same way.

Greek guide explaining iconostasis

We also saw an irrigation system based on a 2,500 year old aqueduct, and stopped at an “iconostasis,” or shrine along the path, built and maintained by a local family.

Incomplete kourous lays broken in the quarry.

Finally, we visited a “kourous,” a statue of a young man, roughly three meters high, that had been rough-cut in the marble quarry at the top of the mountain, then abandoned laying on its back part way down the hill. Possibly the leg was broken somehow in the transit down the mountain and it was left where it lay as useless. In any case, it provides important information about the process that was used to produce marble statues in antiquity.

Ruins of the Temple of Apollo, Naxos

In ancient times, this port was dominated by a great temple to Apollo, of which only the entrance gateway remains standing. Mary and I walked to the ruin, which would have been neat, but the wind had come up to near gale force and we could barely stand up on the hill!

Our first meal in a Greek home.

This evening we had an island dinner on shore, in the home of a local family. We were divided into three groups. The other two groups reported going to farm families in the village near where we had hiked this morning.

Walls of the Venetian fortress.

Our group was let off along the way at a beautiful and spacious modern home. It looked like something from Martha Stewart inside! The man was a contractor, the woman a journalist. We guessed that he doesn’t have much work these days, in the current Greek economy.

Note the coat of arms above the door.

Naxos was ruled by Venice from the time of the 4th Crusade, and we walked up hill to the Venetian fortress. The walls are still intact, there is a Roman Catholic church (all white marble, of course) and most of the homes in this area have family crests above the doors representing the Venetian knights and nobles who built them. Some are still occupied the by the descendants of these.