Greece Trip - Day 11

6 July, 2009 – Ios

We went for an early morning walk up through the steep, narrow streets of the town of Chora where we stopped and chatted to a group of older locals who were sitting around outside a church enjoying an early morning chat over coffee. We then walked to the outskirts of the town, out past the windmills and up a hill to an old amphitheatre. At the amphitheatre, we had an awesome view of the island - one direction looked back over the town and out to the port and in the other direction we could see the party beach, Mylopotas. We continued walking up a track towards an old church where Donnal & I got to ring the church bells! It was still quite early, mid-morning, but it had already heated up and it was very humid, so we walked back down through the town and back to the hotel to get the bikes and explore some more of the island and find some more beaches. We went to the very bottom of the island and along a very windy road that in the long run took us to the beach called Manganari - the beach with five coves.

The beach was like a lagoon, each section was protected by the coves and the water was a perfect temperature. We stayed in the water until our fingers went wrinkly and our stomachs told us we were hungry. For lunch I had a huge bowl of fruit salad with local honey drizzled over the top – it was delicious. Scattered all over the island we have seen bee hives – little wooden boxes painted in blue and white just like their houses, and the honey I have had here is divine, very delicious. Another thing I noticed as we were riding along the windy roads of the island was the rosemary. There were large mounds of rosemary all along the roadside and because we were not in a car and in the open air, I could smell the rosemary as we drove past them.

After this beach we tackled going back up the hill and performed the usual drop off and pick up routine with the bikes and then went back to the first one we visited, Agia Theodoti, as it was the nicest beach we found. I picked up a few small marble pebbles from the beach to take home with me as a keepsake too. We again stayed in the water until we went wrinkly and it got a bit late. We decided to head back to the hotel and go for a swim in the pool and catch up with the rest of the group.