Off to Paros Island
For our next stepping stone towards the west we chose to go to Paros Island and anchored in a small bay in the bay south of the town of Naousa. As was our usual arrival plans, we dropped the dinghy and off we went to investigate our destination. A short walk into town with holiday accommodations everywhere. Once in the village we thought we had best go and visit the Port Police to get a stamp in our transit log. Down at the small marina we found Fiona and John off Catalyst who had moved into the marina to have work done on their watermaker. The port police door was closed so I enquired from the two fellows sitting in deck chairs drinking coffee next door what their opening hours were. Come back at 3pm. Okay, don't you have great working hours with the siesta happening and was told they get very tired.
So off to explore and find somewhere for a coffee to fill in a couple of hours. The usual tavernas and bars around the waterfront and the narrow street shopping has become the norm for us. Back to the Port Police at 3pm to be told by one of the fellows from my previous encounter that if we wanted our transit log stamped forget it as we weren't in the marina and as he was the harbour master he advised the port police of ones arrival and if we weren't in the marina he didn't know us so how could he get the police to stamp our log. Only if you go into a marina apparantly with the over rider of at least once a month. John invited us for sundowners with them but it started to rain and set in once we were back on the boat.
We found a bus timetable and decided to go into the capital the next day. An 8klm trip to Paroikia with our nanna trolleys for some provisioning as well as sightseeing. The same as Naousa, the waterfront was populated by the tavernas and bars. The ferries come in here so the tourist thing is happening. The architecture is typical of the Cyclades (the area of island we are currently in),all the houses, shops and churches are white cubes with bougainvillea and geraniums of all colours draping the walls. The old part is 13th century with the winding alleys, archways we have become used to. Paroikia hosts the finest church in the Aegean, the Katapoliani, supposedly to mean "the church of 100 doors". It is in fact 3 churches under one roof and was well worth the visit as some is original 4th century and some in neo-Byzantine style with wonderful frescos on parts of the ceilings.
Close by we found the archaeological museum which is one of the few museums with original sculptures of the 6th and 5th century BC. One is the Gorgo statue 580BC and the figure of a NIke 480 BC. and a marble sarcophagi for family burial use. with relief figures and inscriptions. In their pottery section they had displayed 2 vases from 7th century BC. Very impressive and pleased that the islands display their own history which is as rich as Athens. We also stumbled on a guided tour at the Frankish castle, built in a style like none we had seen. Round blocks????
Lunch time and why not try their Gyros and beer. Not as good as we have had but we continue to look for them as they are great value for €2 and the 500ml beer another €2. John had told us of a Carrefour supermarket on the way into the town and we took note on the trip in so we could walk there, do the shopping and catch the bus from there. Headed off only to find a while later we were on the wrong road, so back to the starting point and found the supermarket just up the way. Not as big as we have been used to but with enough to fill the nanna trolleys plus a couple of bags. Now doing the dinghy bit with all these goodies will be a challange. Gorgeous Greek bus driver helped with our trolleys ( their buses have the bag boots) and again when we got to where the dinghy was left on the beach. A bit of slop had come up and Gary had decided to take some drinks and have yesterdays sundowners with John and Fi. Once the cold things were packed away we got back in the dinghy and set off only to find they had gone. The trip wasn't a complete waste as Gary got some fuses he was looking for. The weather forecast had a force 5-6 coming in the night so when we got back to the boat we up anchor and motored across the bay to Ormos Ay Ioannou a bay protected by the northerly expected. We settled among 6 other boats one of which was flying the Australian flag. Will be neighbourly tomorrow.