EXPLORING THE ISLAND

Monday, November 12^th, 2007 Drove to Parikia….the port….

Washed my hair which may have been a mistake as the cold seems to have settled in my chest overnight; lots of coughing today and here I thought I was over it by now. Back to the Greek liquid medicine I purchased in Athens and rubbing the cream on the chest and on my feet per instructions from my friend Patti via email.

We were up early as sleeping in has not been a luxury we’ve enjoyed recently. Found a partial box of oatmeal, some honey that was going to sugar, our bread and juice and instant coffee that we’d purchased at the store yesterday, made a great breakfast. We hung some of our laundry on the clothes line outside before heading down the hill for today’s adventure.

We headed north along the coast towards the main port town of Parikia. There we checked on boat schedules for Mykonos. Opps, we learned that we have to sail first to the Island of Syros; that ferry leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday only at either 7:30 pm or 4:45 pm depending on the day. Then we must stay overnight and the next day catch a different ferry to Mykonos. Another overnight stay and then return to Syros; stay overnight and then return to Paros. It’s called the winter schedules I think! So we’ve decided to stay on Paros until the 20^th, then go to Syros, from there to Mykonos and then back to Syros and the following day go to Athens (we hope). Everything depends on the weather. Island hopping is best done in the summer! Hot but predictable weather!

Today we drove around the city of Parikia before heading south to Pounda and the short ferry boat ride to Antiparos (sometimes spelled Andiparos). This is the island that the movie stars have started building homes on. Originally it was part of Paros until about five hundred years before Christ when an earthquake split it off. The sea is so shallow between the two islands that large ferry boats are required to sail around on the other side of Antiparos.

The ferry left every half hour in the morning and we arrived just as the noon boat was leaving. Half hour later it was back and we drove aboard for the fifteen minute ride in our car. The fee was only 6 euro for the car and 1 euro for each of us. Very reasonable and then we had the car to drive around the island. We found an open restaurant called Romvi in the port and enjoyed a nice meal before heading up the road to find “the cave” that is the tourist site of this island. Found the cave, but it was closed, maybe for the day, maybe for the season or maybe for repairs; bottom line we were only able to take photos of the entrance. Started to rain as we dashed down the hill to the car and it continued to rain for the rest of the day. Back on the ferry boat and home to Paros; we thought that the grocery store would be open by 4 pm but when we arrived in Drios, it didn’t open until 5 pm. Figured we had enough to eat this evening so we returned home in the rain and found the laundry had flown off of the clothesline (hanging hangers on the clothesline was not the swiftest thing we did today) so it was back in the washing machine for those pieces. We left it there overnight and hung it up this morning. Fortunately we’d only hung a few heavy pieces on the line before we left for town.

We enjoyed our tomato soup and bread that we’d purchased yesterday and also found an open jar of Skippy’s Peanut Butter that added to our little supper. Lost power a few times but overall enjoyed the evening watching CNN and CNBC for Jim and I finished reading my novel before going to bed about 9 pm.