Naxos at a glance....

Well, it's been a few days since I have written, and I didn't think we had done too much, but as I look back at all my pictures I realize we haven't been idle.

So the weather here hasn't always been the best for going to the beach. The breeze, while nice when walking and exploring, is a bit too cool to lay out most of the day. We have still managed to lay out once, during the hot part of the day, which is actually perfect beach temperature. We even got warm enough to get in the water, which was a lot of fun. The beach itself is nice, but Brandon did some research and found out that Plaka beach is an unofficial nudist beach..... Which when I first heard it didn't bother me, because I thought, "everyone here is old, and probably classy, so no one will be stripping down..." wrong wrong wrong. I haven't seen much, but only because any body that looks remotely unclothed and I am quickly running in the other direction. Brandon laughs at me for getting all awkward. He remains eerily calm during all this... but that might be because he knows if he were to strut his stuff he would be the hottest guy in a 2 mile stretch. Or maybe he's just better at keeping a level head.

So the next day we decided to head into Naxos City. It's relatively big, and there is a lot to explore.

Here is some of the fresh catch of the day. I assume they are drying, but I'm not exactly sure why they need to.

More of the catch of the day! It might be slightly difficult to see, but these fish are seasoned! I don't know what they are, but don't look too bad!

The gate to Apollo's temple! It's the first thing you see when sailing into Naxos City. Construction began during the reign of Lygdamis, around 530 BC, but it was never finished by the time he was overthrown in 506 BC. Then the Christians moved in, and they took the marble to be used on other buildings, churches I think. They left the doorway because the marble pieces were too big to dismember. You can see the three pieces that make up the top and sides, which are very large.

We stopped for lunch at a place overlooking the harbor, which was really nice. Brandon got the moussaka, and I got the pork souvlaki. To be completely honest, a lot of the reason I get it is because of the tzadziki.

The harbor! There are a lot of fishing boats, sail boats, and touring boats here. Brandon and I also noticed they don't use docks... just tie the boats up next to each other. It makes for a better picture, at least.

We decided to go to the archaeological museum at 1430, and after we paid found out it closed at 1500... great. Well we weren't planning on staying too long. How interesting could a small island museum be? It turns out it was really cool. They have a ton of artifacts (sculptures, pottery, weapons, statues, jewelry, etc.). They were nice enough to let us stay a little over, but I think it was mostly because the receptionist was talking with a friend and didn't mind sitting there an extra 10 minutes. This disk, I have no idea what is really is, but you can see the swirl pattern that you will see ALL over Greece. It's one the most popular jewelry designs, so it was neat to see some examples of it's use to them.

These statues were by far the most popular Cycladic figurine. They probably had a few hundred of them, so I decided they were important enough to get a picture of. Don't the heads look like the Easter Island heads?

This is a piece of pottery from a later civilization, and you can see how detailed they could get with their depictions.

Look at all this glass! It's from the Roman period. I hadn't realized how crafty they had gotten with glass at this point in time.

I guess this the castle. We weren't able to go inside, but this is one of the massive walls, and I think the main door.

We just kept wandering around the streets. Most of them are small, windy, and quaint.

It actually got a little warm, and we started the day out in jeans. We stopped to get a frappe, a milkshake, and played some backgammon on our new set for about two hours. It was a nice way to cool off.

Today we decided to head back to Naxos City and visit the ancient site of Naxos, which was closed by the time we got to that area yesterday. These are banquet slabs that are build over top of the graves of the ancestors.

Here is a piece of pottery on one of the slabs. I liked this one because you can see another one of the most popular designs in Greek jewelry.

After we got done at the site (and I have plenty more pictures, but I refrain to hopefully make this easier to read), we decided to walk around a little more. This little cafe had such cute tables I had to get a picture.

Brandon and I are still wandering around. Some places are a little small for Brandon, but I don't have to duck at all!

Stopping to eat, that's why he's so happy! Not really. Well sort of. He was happy to be getting food, but we just had a good day.

We don't normally order appetizers, but we wanted to try some of the Naxos's famous cheese. This is a soft cheese in some banana peppers. It wasn't too bad, and hopefully we'll try a few more cheeses before we leave.

I forget what this is called, but it's a pasta dish of some sort. Looks yummy, huh? It was.

I got the souvlaki again... I should branch out, but as soon as the waiter said tzadziki I caved.....

We got the rental car while we were in town, so we decided to drive out to Demeter's temple. And I swear the signs and roads are so much worse here than any other place we've been too. I was a little tired by the time we made it. But it was really cool. It's actually only 1/3 Demeter's temple, then 1/3 Christian church, and 1/3 Christian basilica. It's kind of cool how they did the reconstruction of it, so you can sort of see what all three looked like. But to be honest, the church really only added walls, and kept it a big room. It was the basilica that changed a lot of the temples structure.

I guess reconstruction on it has ceased, but it looks to me like they have all the stones lined up to work on it some more....

Dinner tonight. Brandon and I got some chicken, and he slow cooked it with onion, pepper, tomato, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was sooo good!

Tomorrow Brandon and I are thinking about just driving and stopping at every site we see a sign for. Hopefully the signs are relatively accurate, and we don't spends hours driving and not seeing anything. We might walk up the mountain, and we also might try and lay out at the beach. We have lots of options, so we'll just play it by ear.

Until again!