Naxos, Day 3

Our 3rd day on Naxos...

We decided to get an early start because we were going to explore the interior of the island today. We were going to visit a bunch of old churches, some natural features of the island, make our way over the the east coast for some lunch before heading back to the Chora.


Once again- Pictures & Words

We struck out across the island, passing through Chalki and then Filoti heading to Mount Zeus, the highest point on the island.

Thus began the day we referred to a the Naxos X-Games Day...
The first event- Off-road Scooter Enduro.
Along the way we saw a sign indicating Apano Castle (Kastro) up on a small hardpack road and thought we'd take a look...
Hardpack turned to a rutted dirt road, which after a couple kilometers became a dirt path, then a series of indistinct goat paths up the side of the mountain...
The scooters handled it well; The Woman had no problems zipping along...
Yours Truly's scooter, however, had some issues handling both a marginal surface (dirt/rocky stone paths on a 40 degree angle) and the fact it was valiantly trying to push my not-inconsiderate mass up the side of the mountain.

The path got higher, steeper, and more indistinct and we finally abandon the effort at reaching the summit. The Woman and her mount, "The Flash" zipped down to our origin point where we left the road in record time. Yours Truly and "Old Reliable" took a little longer, even with the gravity assist...


See the castle, waaaaay up there?
And can you see the sign?


Here it is, clearly marking the goat path to the summit...

We passed through several tiny Naxoan villages- this is Ano Potamia.

Count the churches in this picture... there are eleven of them.

We took another detour after seeing a sign for a 8th-century cemetery...


Nice sign...

We parked our scooters and hiked up the indicated path.
And walked, and walked...and walked some more.


It might be up there somewhere... but I doubt it.
We never did find it...

It seems like the Tourism Department has some funny ideas about signage.
They will put up a roadside sign for an attraction, but leave out details like how far away it is.
Another problem is that they will put up a sign indicating a site, but then will not put a sign at the actual location. More on this in a bit.

Some interesting attractions they fail to label at all...
For instance-

Here is the fabled Graveyard of the Dead Volkswagens.

Funny thing about dead cars on Naxos, when they die (or commit suicide) people just leave them where they drop...

This is one that slipped off the road near the "parking area" for the trail to Zeus' Cave.

"Oh well.. Guess we'll have to walk back to town."

There was another one we saw later on the road to Moutsouna...

This one took a beating after it fell off the road.
Hope the driver was wearing his/her seat belt...the ride down must have been like riding in a Cuisinart.

The second X-Games event was the Broken Ground Speed Hike to Zeus' Cave...


Again, the trail started out pretty easy, and was well maintained.

Later- not so much.

Well-maintained trail became dirt path, then smooth, slippery inclined marble, and then a field of boulders with no discernible path at all.
(We figured "up" was a reasonable direction...)


Higher up the mountain there we some bizarre flora growing...
I thought it might be a bizarre corn-triffid-bodysnatcher-pod hybrid. I thought it best to steer clear of these little mutants...


Beware the Triffids.

The Woman, being it much better shape than Yours Truly reached the cave far ahead of me...

Notice the well-marked trail?


Yours Truly inside the cave...


The Woman, Underground.

We made it back to our trusty steeds without incident...
One thing about the flora in Naxos-
Everything has spines or thorns.
Everything.
If you try to go off-piste, you will wind up bleeding.


Thorns and spines...


Spines and thorns...

Moral of that story: Stay on the path.

For the Naxos X-Games Broken Ground Speed Hike to Zeus' Cave- The Woman beat me up to the cave, but I made it back down faster. (That whole gravity assist thing...)

We also visited several churches along the road...


Scouting out the churches.


A rustic Byzantine church, Panagia Drossiani.


A monastery near Filoti.


A tiny church/shrine atop a tall hill...Αγίος Ιωάυυης

You pretty much can't swing a rat on a string anywhere in Greece without hitting a church...

I got a kick out of this one...


Look closely... Do you see it?


Yep. A satellite dish.

Here's another one...


Oh, they are just full up with religiousity here...



We headed off to Moutsouna for lunch...
The trip was, for lack of a better word, and adventure.
This road was only a lane and a half wide in most places, and most of the road had no guardrail.


See the road waaay over on the left side, snaking down the mountain ridge?

This road had more twists and turns than a James Patterson novel...

15 Kilometers of bad road... That sucking noise that you were hearing was me pulling the seat cushion up my ass as I was trying to keep my scooter from heading down the side off the cliff.

We finally made it out to Moutsouna, a tiny little fishing village on the east coast.
Lunch was had at a little place called Το δίχτυ, "The Net", a beachfront restaurant.


The Woman enjoying the View from our table.


Lunch! Tzatziki with fried zucchini, Dakos (bread with tomatoes, soft feta, and olives) and pickled grilled octopus. Tasty tasty...

We toyed with trying to find the "Prehistoric Acropolae" that we had seen a sign for back in Aperathos as we hit the road to Moutsouna... It indicated it should be somewhere along the way, assuming there is any accuracy in this particular sign.

Alas, it was not to be.
After examining a map, our guidebook and rolling the bones it seems like the sign was 35 kilometers from the site of the ruins, 20 more km down the coast from Moutsouna near a town called Panermos. We bailed on the attempt.

We headed back to Naxos Chora...

Once again, the afternoon's X-Games competition, the 50km Endurance Road Rally was a push...
Whatever time I could make up in the S-curves on the road, The Woman would regain when the roads flattened out... Oh well...

We dined at a restaurant called The Flamingo...
The Woman had a Souvlaki pork, chicken and lamb combination, while I had Moussaka/Lamb/dolmas mixed grill dish.
Live Greek music, dancing waiters...

Woo hoo.

Next up: Day 4- Beach Day, wherein we meet the Mayor of Ambram Beach.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE