daily life in Apollonas on Naxos

(Lilly walking, outside of our apartment, at Flora's, in Apollonas, July 30)

By now, we’ve gotten really nicely settled into Flora’s apartment in Apollonas and the slow village living here in general. “Flora’s apartments” is actually a complex of seven apartments, managed by Flora’s son, Steljos, who’s from here, and his wife, Christina, who’s from the mainland. Flora and her husband live here throughout the year, taking care of the garden in the winter, and then Steljos and Christina, with their dog, Dick (who’s become good friends with Lilly; she’ll crawl after him and pet him), come out in the summer to run the business. They are so friendly and good to us. Christina brings us tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers from her garden, local wine and grapes from their friends, tells us to help ourselves to the lemons from the lemon trees, and I’m sure we’ll get to taste the pears and figs soon too, when they’re ripe. In addition to their lush vegetable garden, they keep a beautiful flower garden with roses and more, emitting the sweetest scents.


(Flora's apartments, our apartment is the one on the corner, the first one in the picture, with the blue awning)

In order to get to Apollonas, we had to take a bus from Naxos town (Chora). It takes two hours when it goes through the mountain villages, one when it goes along the coast. We’re surrounded by magnificent tall mountains and have a beautiful view to the ocean. Whereas in Drios we had vine groves between us and the beach, we now have a field with some goats in front of us. In the morning, we can see the farmer milk them by hand. We’ve been able to buy some of the locally made soft goat cheese (mizithra) from Sofia, who also runs a little tourist shop in the summer, and the hard goat cheese (kefaloytiri) from Giorgio, the local butcher. We’ve also bought some pork from Giorgio (he only sells the meat and cheese from his own animals) and some fish caught by Adonis, the local fisher man who goes out to fish whenever it’s calm enough (we’re having strong seasonal winds now, feels really good and cool, but the waves farther out are too big for his boat). In the winter, only about 80 people live here in Apollonas. In the summer, it grows to about 2000, mainly with Greeks who're from here but who live on the mainland now and only come out here in the summer to do business on the tourists, and then the tourists (most come just for the day). There’s Katarina and her husband who run a mini-market (closed in the winter), a couple of restaurants on the beach, and a couple slightly off, a couple of cafes, a couple of snack bars, a couple of tourist shops, and a couple of hotels (there really are two of each! And they really are all only open in the summer). The beach here has really fine sand, a little sticky, but very soft.


(Apollonas)

Lilly loves playing on the beach and in the water, in particular when she gets to play with other children. She prefers boys, slightly older than her. She’s started walking down here, took her first steps on Sifnos, in Kamares, June 26, then didn’t walk again until we got settled in Drios, on Paros, July 4, and then gradually more and more. Yesterday in the afternoon she started to do all walking and today she seems she’s done with crawling, it’s all about the walking now. I’ll upload a little video I took of her walking on our deck this morning next time I’m online (time’s running out; we only get very limited Internet access in this village, at one of the local village hotels). For now, I’ve uploaded some more photos to our “Greece album.” She’s also become a big eater (tomatoes, bread, spaghetti, pork, and ham in particular, also some cheese, some yoghurt, squid, and fish when we have that).

Leighton and I have started taking turns having an hour in the morning to work. Leighton’s busy reading articles and taking notes for his Master thesis. I’ve been reading through what I’ve written on my book, taking mental notes on how to edit and expand. This morning, Leighton worked while Lilly and I had a nice stroll around the village, up to the Kouros (a statue of Dionysos) and an ancient marble quarry, with a spectacular view.


(Kouros)

Last Wednesday (July 29) was Leighton’s birthday. We rented a car and drove around the island, saw the beautiful white beaches south of Chora (including Ag. Prokopis, Ag. Anna, Plaka, Mikri Vigla, Kastraki, Aliko), then drove inland, saw the ruins of Dimitra’s temple, and then some of the villages inland (Chalki, Filoti), and on the east coast, south of where we live, Moutsouna, with its spectacular drive up and down. We had dinner in the village of Aperanthos where, unfortunately, somebody stole all our cash (145 Euro). Luckily, we have travelers insurance, which covers up to 1,000 NOK of stolen cash, which reduces our loss to about 35 Euro.


(Leighton and Lilly at Kastraki, July 29)

onwards to Naxos

(I wrote this on Friday July 17, while we were still in Drios on Paros, and meant to upload this post before we left, but didn't get to Internet till today, Sunday July 19: yesterday we arrived in Apollonas on Naxos, now settling in here. We'll upload more photos to our new Greece album soon).


(Lunching on local goods, at our home at Alechos' farm in Drios, Paros)

Friday July 17: It’s our last day to enjoy, out here at Alechos’ farm, in Drios on Paros, before we move on to Naxos tomorrow, to a small village called Apollonas, about two hours by bus from Naxos town, through the villages in the mountains. Leighton had a full day, to say the least, this past Monday, checking out places in Naxos. On the one hand, the landscape is amazing. On the other hand, communicating and negotiating with people is exhausting. But he did find a place, Flora’s, in the village recommended by our current hosts, Margarita and George, the daughter and son in law of Alechos. Flora’s apartment is bigger (two rooms) and closer to the beach, for only slightly more than what we pay out here at the farm, which is smaller (one room) and farther away from the beach (even our “own” beach, which we look straight out at, beyond Alechos’ wine groves, but it’s rocky and not so easy to move around on for Lilly). Apollonas, as a village, is more secluded than Drios; two hours by bus from Naxos town, last stop coming through the villages. Leighton and I worry a bit we might feel more stuck and on top of each other eventually, seeing that we are who we are, but on the other hand, we realize that the openness and proximity of villages and settlements here on Paros where we are now (Drios, with Golden Beach, Punda Beach, Logaras, and Piso Livadi next to it along the coast, and then, up in the mountains, Marpissa, Marmara, and then Molos again down on the coast) might make this area kind of overwhelming for us when all the tourists arrive tomorrow for high season. And we are, both Leighton and I, rather fond of our privacy, though we also of course do so love the people in our lives, and Lilly in particular thrives on socializing and meeting new people, more like her mama that way, me thinks. In any case, after, this week, exploring Naxos, and then Paros again more thoroughly, we’ve decided to move on to Naxos tomorrow. We’re excited about a fresh start in a cute place that we can stay in for the rest of our time here (our flight leaves Athens August 31, but we’ll leave Naxos on the 30th and spend the last night in Athens, see Acropolis and have plenty of time to catch our flight to Oslo, where we’ll spend the night in a hotel by the airport before we move on to the US), with the options of renting a car and taking the bus (and on Tuesdays and Thursdays it goes along the coast and takes only an hour to Naxos town…).



We will have spent all of July, up until tomorrow (July 18), here in Paros, after five days in Sifnos, where we arrived June 25, and though it has been stressful at times, in terms of searching for a more permanent place to stay for our two plus months in Greece this summer, it has also been very good. We’ve been with Margarita and her family here in Drios on Paros from July 2, and have been treated in all sorts of way by her and her family, with fresh baked goods (by her), local cheese (by her aunt), fresh fruits and vegetables from her father’s farm (tomatoes, lemons, cucumbers, egg plants, zucchini, green beans, parsley, dill…), as well as wine and olive oil from her father’s farm, sweet wine from her cousin’s farm, chocolates from Thessalonica (where they live during the school year…), and we’ve so enjoyed their company and talking with them, as well as their oldest daughter, who’s Leighton’s age and now here to help out her parents. She has a sister a couple of years younger than her, who will join them all in a few days when she’s completed a summer music seminar in Salzburg. They’re all teachers (Margarita and George are around 60 and have taken out early retirement, Margarita taught kindergarten and George ancient Greek in middle and high school), their two daughters are both music teachers). Margarita grew up here on Paros, in Marpissa, and her father, I think they said he was also a teacher, owned all this land in Drios, for his summer farm, including both the land of the more luxurious apartments run by Margarita and her husband, where we spent our first few nights, and the few more rustic ones up by her father, at his farm. Margarita’s husband, George, is from Thessalonica, hence why they live there during the school year.

postcard from the Cyclades of Greece

We arrived in Kamares, the harbor town of Sifnos, an island in the Cyclades, Thursday June 25. It was a long journey; we left our apartment in Oslo around 4 a.m. and got to our hotel in Kamares around 9 p.m. Lilly was such a trooper throughout it all (airport express bus to Gardermoen, flight to Copenhagen, then Copenhagen-Athens, bus down to Piraeus, ferry over to Sifnos), such a savvy world traveler, even with a two and a half our delay onboard the plane that was supposed to take us to Athens, waiting for take-off because of a strike by the Greek air traffic controllers. We would walk up and down the isle of the airplane, play with the new plastic BRIO cars I got her for the trip, read her book (Sjøvenner), and, most importantly, make lots of new friends. Lilly is quite the social bug, she loves people and people tend to fall in love with her too. This in particular makes life on the road easy, easier, in fact, than at home. She’s never bored with so many people and places and things to explore. Being at the beach is a particular treat, with new people and landscape around, and the water. All those baby-swimming lessons must be paying off, she loves splashing in the water, walking or crawling in and out of it, sitting down to gather small rocks (she loves the white or black in particular). Eating out can be fun too with other people around to connect with, or cats to look at, but it’s definitely a more active eating experience than before, following her as she crawls around or demands one of us to walk with her, unless she’s happy eating on one of our laps, or in a chair next to us, or, sometimes, sleeping. It’s a dirtier experience too… But that’s the nice thing about being here; she can be only in her diaper, or diaper-free, and then quickly clean up in the water again.


(Kamares, Sifnos, 30 June)

Lilly took her first four steps by herself our first day in Kamares, at the terrace outside of our hotel room. She’s also gotten another tooth while we’ve been down here, and two more on their way. She’s taken to eating octups, loves peach and nectarines (in fact, she first walked for a bite of nectarine), eats lots of bread, and some yoghurt. Last night she downed a big portion of spaghetti. She prefers her spaghetti, like her bread, plain.

We had reserved a room in Hotel Stavros in Kamares for four-five nights and the plan was to rent a car one day, drive around the island, and find something affordable to rent for our two months here. That proved more difficult than expected; turns out the Cyclades have developed quite a bit since I was here last (island hopping during the summer of 1991…). Back then you could run into an old Greek man and rent a cheap room in his house. These days people tend to use the Internet to make reservation in advance, and the Greeks who have rooms to let in their homes are listed by central tourist agents, all prices are coordinated. We were advised to try the bigger islands, Paros and Naxos, so after five nights we took the ferry over to Paros. We spent the first night in the harbor town, Piraikia, then rented a car the following day and began our hunt.

Paros is more beautiful than I remember; we really like the coastal villages of Drios and Piso Livadi. In Piso Livadi we found a woman, Anna, who has rooms to let on the pier, and who also has a son who owns a house in the village of Marpissa, one kilometer inland, that she told us we could rent for 500 Euro per month. We saw the house and it was agreed we would move in the following day after they had gotten it all ready for us. It was a darling house with a cute courtyard. We spent the night at Anna’s, overlooking the beach, with the buzz of the tavernas on the pier below us. Unfortunately, the next day, Anna’s son changed his mind; problems with girlfriend, he explained, need house himself.

So off we were again, took the bus back to Drios, walked around with all our luggage and Lilly in either the stroller or the babybjorn. We’ve stayed here since, first at Alpha Omega, a really nice place close to the beach, we had an apartment with A/C, super nice but a bit above our budget. It’s run by Margarita and George, retired teachers from Thessaloniki, who come out here in the summer to run this place. The wife, Margarita, grew up here, in Marpissa, and her father, Alechos, has a farm in Drios. After a few nights, we moved in at her father’s farm where they’ve set up a few simple apartments. We love the non-touristy feel of it; only the field of Alechos’ farm is between us and the beach. We are surrounded by his vineyard, lemon and lime trees, an olive grove further down. Margarita brings us tomatoes, cucumber, snap peas, and cilantro from her father's garden. She gave us fresh apricots from her garden before we moved out to the farm, as well as pie she made with them. She also gave us all sorts of other treats, much to our delight, and toys for Lilly, whom she loves. Lilly’s favorite is a set of tennis balls she bounces up and down.

After hotel lodging with plenty of eating out, sampling local Greek fare like chick-pea balls, eggplant salad, stuffed tomatoes and bell peppers, in addition to the typical Greek salad and tzatsiki, it’s been really nice to have more of a home again, here in Drios, where we can make and enjoy our own food, prepared with local ingredients. Unfortunately, we can’t get fresh fish, season doesn’t begin till September, only octopus and squid are in season now, as well as small fish, they call it white bait, picarel or sardines. I love the thick creamy yoghurt they make here, and the feta cheese, as well as the harder sheep and goat cheeses that tastes almost like Gruyère or Parmesan.

We are so happy here in Drios on Paros and wish we could stay longer, but unfortunately we have to move out on July 18th when a bunch of French people are moving in here. Tomorrow Leighton is taking the ferry over to Naxos to explore there for us, it’s an even bigger island and I feel pretty confident we’ll find something there.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to enjoy active and lazy times at the beach, meals on our terrace overlooking the vineyard and the Mediterranean ocean, with Naxos on the other side, sipping chilled cheap local white wine, which actually goes really well with the onion and feta in the salad, and the garlic and cucumber in the tzatsiki, snacking on kalamata olives and yummy cheese. We get why the Greeks dine late, around 10 p.m., because it is very hot till then, even with the seasonal winds that provide some relief during the day.
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Thought I'd add to Anne's post this little video of Lilly walking and taking a big fall. Lilly was OK of course but gave papa a scare. She's tough. She was up and walking again not long after her fall.


(Lilly walking, falling, 4 July)