2019 Chios Part 2 - Vessa & Volissos

2019 Chios - Vessa & Volissos

And so we leave the south of the island and head for the middle and the north!  Vessa turned out to be a lot closer than we thought and so we arrived earlier than anticipated or expected so parked up and had a stroll through the village to find the accommodation.  5 mins later we had done that and found the house that would be our home for the next 3 days. Vessa is tiny and consists of a fair number of houses and 2 tavernas...that's it. The house itself was lovely, as was our room but the advertised breakfast was somewhat lacking!!!

Bedroom ceiling

Bedroom

Kitchen

Breakfast!

While we were in Vessa we visited the monastery of Nea Moni.  This is is possibly the most prominent medieval monument in Chios. It was established in the mid 11th century with a grant from a Byzantine emperor. During the massacre of Chios it was a refuge to several hundred women and children. Unfortunately the invaders did not take any notice of this and slaughtered them anyway.

Massacre of Chios

Victims of the Chios massacre

Nea Moni

We also visited the village of Anavatos where the villagers gathered and threw themselves from the highest point rather than getting slaughtered by the Turks or taken to be slaves.

Church at Anavatos

We also visited the village of Avganyma but it appeared to be shut!

We enjoyed our time in Vessa and managed to adopt a couple of cats, surprise surprise, then it was on to our next stop, Volissos,

 Our next village is the largest in the north of the island, Volissos.  First impressions are good.  It has a few tavernas, a bar and a cafe, whoop whoop!!  Everyone is very friendly and the apartment is lovely.  We took a stroll down to a couple of the beaches and there is a small harbour with 2 more tavernas and a couple of bars.  It also has a castle on the hill and apparently a bakery...which try as we might, we cannot find!
The lady at Fabrika's taverna thinks we are lovely and said so on our bill.  We are always friendly to people and it is obviously appreciated as we had tea, coffee and cake on the house.  The food was ok but nothing special and is all grill at this time of the year.  The following time we ate we were greeted like long lost friends and also received mastic liquer and a bag of oranges!!

One evening we went down to the small harbour and had a lovely dinner on the waterfront.  Sea bream for me and mackerel for Paul.  We have also taken the opportunity to go across to the other side of the island to visit Langkada and Kardamila.  Langkada was lovely with a beautiful harbour front with cafes and tavernas.  We got chatting to a lovely couple, Tony and Victoria.  She is Greek Australian and he is from Chios.  When we started chatting about Alonissos it turned out that he has friends living there but they have never been.

2019 Chios - Part 1 South of the Island

2019 - Chios Agia Ermioni & Kambos

Well we're off on our travels again. This time we thought we would go to Chios in May before heading back to Alonissos in June for our stint of dog sitting.

Aegean airlines have once again decided to schedule the flights from Manchester at the ridiculous hour of 00:15 so we had a 5 hour wait in Athens before our connecting flight to Chios.  Our first accommodation is in the village of Agia Ermioni which according to Trip Advisor has around 20 tavernas.  This turned out to be complete rubbish so goodness knows which island it it actually referencing as it definitely isn't Chios! We have one taverna about a 10 min walk and another a little further down the road, along with a cafe bar and a Souvlaki place!
We are staying in Maria Rooms and Maria herself is lovely. Very welcoming and had even juggled the rooms so that we have a fantastic full sea view over to Turkey! She showed us around the village and then disappeared for a while to return with homemade orangeade from their own oranges, strawberry tea and homemade orange and lemon cake...now that's hospitality!

View from our balcony in Agia Ermioni

Day 1 - We travelled on the local bus to Chios town which was very picturesque and not too busy being out of season.  We have booked a car for 12 days from Sunday from someone I found on the internet, Petros Vassilikis, €200 euro in cash, no deposit, no credit card required, pay when you return the car or when we deliver it, up to you!!!
The castle was interesting but we missed most of it so may return.  Inside the walls are some lovely cafes and it is a quiet area away from the bustle of the main street.

Day 2 - We hopped back on the bus to explore the area of Kambos.  This is where all the houses of the wealthy families lived back in the 1800's.  Many are being left to go to rack and ruin but a few have been restored and are lived in or have been made into guest houses or hotels.  We got chatting to a man who had a hotel across the road and offered to show us around.  He also gave us orange juice from his orchard and a tour of his guest house. There are only 3 rooms but it is beautiful. Lots of dark wood, high ceilings and with a romantic feel,  His dog was very friendly and the cat was very pregnant.  Greek hospitality shown again.

Mouzaliko Hotel

Gardens of the hotel

Water wheel which is in every house

My godmother was married briefly to a greek and his family name was Mavrogodato. As it turns out, this is the name of one of the wealthy families of the area with many of them either in shipping or banking. Apparently Prue's husbands father was in banking in Constantinople and then London. The picture below shows where the Chios families dispersed around the globe and that the Mavrogodatos were in Finsbury Park!

Mavrogadato family in Finsbury Park

Now a guest house

Estate belonging nowadays to the municipality of Chios known as the estate, Mavrokordatiko. It used to belong to the family of Mavrogordato Vitella the last heir Ioannis donated the estate to Chios. There is a wonderful courtyard and many original features. It is now run as a guesthouse.

Unfortunately I have no idea where all the money went!!

A mavrogodato house as was

Mavrogodato Lakana 

This is now the estate of Esat Efenti "The Turkish" as it is known. It once belonged to Mavrogodato Lakana and then to a painter Ioan Mytarakis. There are wonderful features in the courtyard. Unfortunately although a wealthy man still owns it, he does not live there or maintain it but lives in Paris and has 21 ships!

We also visited the Citrus Museum which gave the history of the area and the families as well as orange groves and a small cafe.  All in all a lovely day walking around a beautiful area which is nothing like anything else on any other greek island we have visited so far.

2019 Chios - Beach and Music night!

We had a day on the beach at Karfas on Saturday, which is about a 30 minute walk from our accommodation. It was forecast hot with no wind but who trusts the weather! The wind picked up and it was rather cool so although it was hot out of the wind, it was actually rather cool when the wind blew. Lovely people at the Oasis cafe bar rent out free sunbeds if you have a drink or lunch (which we did) and then I stayed at the table with my kindle as it was out of the wind....they even brought me a glass of water.
That night the taverna down the coast (Agyra) was having live greek music so we duly went along. We picked up a stray dog along the way who followed us all the way there and was pathetically grateful for the scraps of meat that I had in my bag that I had intended to give to a little cat that I had found.  You could hear the band half way down the road and it was ear splitting once we got inside. There were lots of big tables of greeks already having a good time and dancing. It was a 5 piece band and every time someone asked for a tune to dance to, they put money down for the band...in the space of an hour we saw at least €100 and they were playing from 5pm - 2am. Now there's a money spinner!  They were very good and it lead to us drinking rather more ouzo than originally intended...surprise, surprise!  Luckily we are intending to have a quiet day on Sunday as our hire car is being delivered.We came out of the taverna to find the dog still sat outside waiting for us! Thankfully she got distracted by someone else and we managed to get home without her,

2019 Chios - Pyrgi, Mastic museum and Mavro Volia beach

Well we are throwing ourselves into exploring the area and have now picked up our hire car, I say picked up, it was delivered to our accommodation and will be collected when we have finished our tour of the island in 12 days time. The car is from Vassilikis Car Hire and they are very nice people. Non of this credit card stuff, we paid cash with 'pay when we deliver it or when we collect, up to you'!! It's bright green so at least I won't lose it when I park it somewhere.
Monday we headed for Pyrgi and the Mastic Museum.  Pyrgi is unique on the island for being a town of 'painted' houses.  These are actually designs scratched out of the coating they put on the houses and are all black and white.  It is an art that has almost died out as it is incredibly costly and time consuming and apparently the prettier your house, the more tax you will pay...crazy!  These towns rely on the tourists coming to see the different aspects of the villages and if their identity is removed, the tourists won't come....useless Greek bureaucracy (a shop keepers words, not mine). We bought a carved plaque that was hand made by his brother and he has written his name (Manos) and address on it and has demanded a photo of our house with his plaque.  He was very proud of his heritage and was especially pleased that we were interested in the history rather than just the ouzo/mastic.

The designs underneath are 'stars' for luck

We had a coffee in the main square overlooked by their beautiful church and look what found us :)

After visiting the town we headed for the Mastic museum.  This is a fairly new initiative built by the Cultural Foundation funded by Piraeus Bank.  We were lucky as that day, they were letting people in for free! It tells you all about the history of mastic and of the island itself having been under various rulers including the Genoese and the Ottaman empire.  It was effectively annexed from the rest of Greece until it liberated and became part of the country again. The trees are 'bled' every autumn by cutting the bark of the tree. They then produce a resin to heal their wounds. This resin forms blobs which are collected by hand and then processed which grades the purity. It is then used to make everything from Mastic liquer to face cream.

Where's Wally....sorry, I mean Paul :)

It was a beautiful day so we head to the coast and to the famous Mavro Volia beach which is made entirely of black stones created by a volcanic explosion.  I had intended to go for a dip but only made it as far as my ankles.....blimey that water was cold!!!

Mavro Volia beach

Me on a rock at the beach

These two villages are both medieval walled villages that are very picturesque with small alleyways and central squares.  Of the two, Mesta is the more famous for it's mastic production but Olympi was the prettier of them for us.  We decided to be energetic and took the hour long trail between the two villages. It was extremely rocky and not terribly well marked but it gave fabulous views across the valley to each place.  We stopped for a coffee in Mesta and Paul tried the local brew, Souma. It is made each October from figs and we were expecting a dark liquer. It is not!  It is clear and basically like Raki or Tsipouro but with more fire :)

We then carried on our explorations of the village and walked back to Olympi.  We thought we would have a light lunch so found the local taverna, Amethystos.  We ordered some baked feta and some giant beans and they brought the usual bread and a bottle of water. This was followed by Hummus on the house, then when the food came a large plate of vegetables with carrots, potatoes and artichokes, on the house!  We were stuffed after all this but when the table was cleared a plate of galaktoboreko and ice cream followed....lovely gesture and I'm very glad we'd already completed our walking for the day!
A local artist has been painting some of the doors around the village so it was lovely to come across them to add a splash of colour to the alleyways.

We ended our time in this part of the island with a follow up trip to Chios town and enjoyed a wander around the back streets and a visit to the Maritime Museum.  Tomorrow we are off to Vessa in the middle of the island to explore that region and to visit the 12th century monastary of Neo Moni.

A trip to Paros

Whilst in Naxos we had planned to do a trip to Amorgos, following the recommendations of some friends from Alonissos. We haven't managed to make that particular trip this time but we have nipped over to the island of Paros for a couple of days.  Being smaller than Naxos we had assumed it would be the more backward sleepy cousin of Naxos, wrong! It appears to appeal to the younger crowd (some of whom were staying at our accommodation and came in at 4am!!). The main town of Parikia is fairly sprawling and doesn't have the same feel as Naxos and it's beach doesn't even come close to that of Naxos town!
Unfortunately although we had checked the weather forecast for the following few days, once we had booked both the ferry and the accommodation, suddenly it turned from sunny with a few clouds, to rain with possible thunderstorms...hey ho! Within seconds of our arrival the heavens opened and we got a thorough soaking on our way to find our room. Not a good start. It did stop after a couple of hours so we ventured out to explore. The following day was much brighter so we headed to the town of Naoussa, said to be one of the prettiest in the Cyclades.
It was a beautiful village with picturesque harbours and wide meandering streets. Obviously we just had to stop for a spot of lunch at one of the waterfront tavernas....lovely!

Naoussa harbour

lunch!

We had a thoroughly enjoyable time in Paros, exploring little back streets and trying to spot the differences between the two islands.  The streets are much wider in Paros and the churches even had green domes rather than the traditional blue.

Naoussa church

After a hard day of exploring, eating and drinking it was time to head back to Parikia for the evening before catching the ferry back to Naxos for the remainder of our time in the Cyclades.

Pandas in Naxos?!

Firstly let me explain Panda.  My husband is Paul and I am Amanda, hence the shortening to Panda!

Having had a lovely couple of days in Santorini it was then off to Naxos for a few weeks.  We had planned to come many years ago in the days of Exel Airlines, who went bust so we didn't make it but finally, here we are.  It is a lovely island and we both agree, one we would return to. We have been able to eat out every night on our meagre budget as the prices are very reasonable (for the most part). There are expensive tavernas obviously, but plenty that you can spend less than 25 euro for a meal for two with wine!
We have done lots of walking having caught the local buses up to the hill villages.  We have also tried to follow some printed walks....ha, ha. We gave up with the directions on our first walk from the village of Filoti to Halki and managed to battle our way through various overgrown paths and dry river beds to make it to our destination....eventually!!  The scenery was lovely with ancient churches (10th century) and spectacular views to the neighbouring islands and the taverna at the end was a very welcome sight!

10th century church

A welcome taverna!

Our second walk was slightly more successful with regard to following directions!  We headed to the village of Apeiranthos which was once known as 'the marble village' due to the huge amounts of marble to be found in the area.  There are still some beautiful buildings made with the local marble and tons of it just lying around!

As I said, we did manage to follow the directions for this walk but there was still a sting in the tail.  The walk stated it was an hour there and the same back, maybe if you have the stride of a giraffe or your name is Mo Farrah!!! After the first hour we still had a fair way to go so stopped for a few minutes for a tea break amongst the stunning scenery.

The hills of Apeiranthos

Having had our break we stomped onward to our goal of the church of Agia Kyriaki (9th century). Another 30 mins later we finally made it.  We then made the mistake of not reading the directions to the end as we were led to a path that came to an abrupt end whereby the directions instructed, now go back the way you came! By this time we were walking in the heat of the afternoon and I was beginning to resemble the colour of the rose wine I was looking forward to at the end! So, some 3.5 hrs later, we finally made it back to the village in time for a quick look around, a glass of wine and the bus back to Naxos town!

The marble houses of Apeiranthos

The summer begins!

Another summer and another Greek adventure begins!  We set off on a cold and cloudy English spring day and arrived in Santorini to blue skies and scorching temperatures!  We have decided to spend a few weeks in the Cyclades prior to moving onto Alonissos in the Sporades so spent a couple of days on the beautiful island of Santorini before catching the ferry to Naxos.
We were slightly concerned having read the reviews of our accommodation on Santorini but needn't have worried as the owners were very friendly and our room was lovely with gorgeous views over the Aegean.

It was in a very unusual setting practically within  church. Although it was lovely, the downside was that we were woken by a cacophony of sound from the church bells at 7am, 7.30, 8 and 8.30!!!

The blue dome is the roof to our room!!

Having ensured we were thoroughly awake we took advantage of the fantastic weather and headed downhill to the beach.  We passed several interesting little smallholdings, including one housing 4 ostriches!! I have absolutely no idea what they would have these birds for but hey ho!
On reaching the beach with it's signed promise of food and drink at the end there was of course nothing of the sort as the taverna hadn't opened yet....we should know by now that Greece doesn't open for business until mid May (or June in some cases....Alonissos!).
Now we are used to seeing ducks in the sea in Greece but in this particular harbour we also found a pair of swans! Whether they are resident or just passing through we will never know but they seemed quite happy in their salty home.

We had an equally stunning day the following day so spent a merry few hours exploring the main town of Thira with all it's jewellery shops, expensive bars and equally expensive restaurants.  We did manage to find a couple of gems with good prices and good food both within a few meters of each other, Stanis with fabulous views over the caldera and Dionysus within it's own courtyard setting...perfect. There were a few cruise ships in port too from Celebrity, MSC, and Oceania so all the shops were doing their best to entice the day trippers! Only one thing was missing in Santorini, the famous blue domes of the churches!  They all appeared to have been stripped back to plaster in Thira, hopefully to be re-painted, otherwise there will be a lot of disappointed tourists this summer!