Naxos

 Hello from Naxos

 I know that different people have different ideas of what constitutes an adventurous vacation. For some it's scuba diving, hang gliding, cliff diving. Those types of things are not really my cup of Java. There is enough danger in every day life without adding to it when I'm on vacation. Now you might think that driving in these European countries with the narrow roads and crazy drivers (foreign and domestic) belies that statement, but honestly I have very rarely felt in any more peril driving over here than I feel every morning on my 401 commute to work. So with that said, I'll tell you what I think of as an adventurous vacation.

 I love coming to these other countries in South America, Australia, Europe and even Asia, and getting off the beaten path. Not just following the tourist trail. Again I'll say, I'm lucky that Joani not only goes along with me on these diversionary treks but also seems to enjoy them very much.

 This morning we woke up in Naxos in a farmer's cottage in the middle of nowhere!

We are 10 kilometres outside of the main town of Chora which is the capital of Naxos. The owner of our farmer's cottage has built a newer house where he and his family live on the same property but he isn't even here! He had a friend greet us when we arrived as he has taken his family on a mini vacation, so the ten acre spread is ours. It's a mini farm with grapes, peppers, tomatoes, and other vegetables we can't even identify and our back yard is overlooking the Aegean  Sea.

We had breakfast this morning to the sound of crickets and birds with a cross harmony of waves hitting the beach.  Oh yes, and the owner asked, if we had time, could we water some of his vegetables.  I feel like I'm share-cropping on a farm in the Greek Islands, and I'm in my glory!

 Naxos part 2

 Spent the day driving around Naxos. Little bit better roads than Santorini but still very interesting. Passing through small towns you quite often come to sections where you encounter a driver coming in the other direction and what happens usually is that someone has to back up until you come to a wide enough portion to get two abreast. If you both get stubborn, the stalemate can last a little bit. Being as we have a rental and don't want to screw up our insurance we seem to give away 60 to 70 % of the time but I'm in no rush.

  Anyway besides that Naxos is quite beautiful but in a very different way from Santorini. It's much bigger with large patchs of farmland interspersed with the occasional small town. Besides the main town of Chora they really seem to be oblivious to the concept of tourism which is okay by me.

 As we were driving through the countryside what remained similar to Santorini was the fact that there were very few destination signs on some very twisty roads, so getting lost was an easy process, but finding out where you were was not. Two or three times we stopped at service stations to ask directions. These stations would have one attendant, usually an elderly male attendant but once a female. None of these attendants spoke English, so I would take out my road map and point to where I wanted to go and then wouldn't understand a word they would say back to me. I'm sure every time they were trying to be helpful but have you ever heard the expression? " It's all Greek to me"........ Come on folks, there's a punch line in there.

 Anyway we spent half a day wondering around the main part of old Chora and a half a day lost in the countryside where we did find the temple of Demeter but couldn't find the temple of Dionysyus.  Nevertheless we had tons of fun and will head back out tomorrow for more of the same.

 So if you haven't nodded off and are still reading this I'll tell you about the photos. The first two are of our lodgings I spoke about. Inside and outside. I did mention that it was a farmer's cottage and before you ask, yes we do share our bedroom with casks of wine and those casks do have freshly made wine in them.

 Two shots taken during our daily travels, one of Joani in old Chora

and one of me taken at the temple of Demeter.

The last shot is one of the other things that I forgot to mention might crop up when you drive in the Greek Islands. This old fella was leading his donkey down the middle of the main street in one of the towns we were driving through and it was quite a process between me, him, and the oncoming traffic figuring out the right of way.

 Reporting on live traffic congestion in the Greek islands.

 Garry