Greece Trip - Day 13

8 July 2009, Paros to Naxos

We went for a tour of the archaeological museum first thing in the morning as we had to leave in a few hours to go to Naxos. The museum was small but really interesting as it explained the mythological beliefs of the Greeks and the importance these figures had on the people at the time. One description caught my attention in particular, about the Sphinx: "According to Greek Mythology, the Sphinx was a terrible monster with a woman’s head, body of a lion and wings of a bird. She was daughter of Typhon and Echidna (or Orthros or Chimaira). Seated on a rock, on Mount Phikio in Thebes, she asked the following riddle of anyone who went near her: What being on earth has four feet, two feet, or three feet, is the only one of all the beings that move on earth, in the air and in the sea , that can change its form and moves most slowly when it has most feet? She then killed those who gave the wrong answer. Her victims were innumerable, because nobody could solve this riddle. Only Oedipus gave the correct answer, that the riddle referred to man in the three stages of life, who as a baby crawls on hands and feet, when he grows up he walks on two feet and in old age he uses a stick for walking. The Sphinx after the solution of the riddle jumped from the rocks and was killed."

This morning was a hot one – it was already 34 degrees and humid at 9:30am – while we were standing at the port waiting for our ferry. By the time the ferry got to Paros it was already quite full and we had trouble finding seats in the shade. We eventually found some seats on the very upper level in a room with no air conditioning or breeze, but it was at least out of the sun and it was only a short trip. When we got to Naxos, the two brothers that run the hotel were at the port with a van to load our luggage and drive us to the hotel. The brother that drove us was very friendly and told us about the island and also drove us along a sand track to show us where we would walk to get to the beach, town and supermarket. We had a pool again!! Yee hah!! We were all so hot that as soon as we had our bags in the rooms we all headed to the pool and that was where we spent the rest of our day. The pool area was brand new and had a bar that served both drinks and snack food. The pool had jets along the seat like a spa and a fountain up out of the water on the side of the pool.

When we were all having showers getting ready to go out for dinner late in the afternoon, we had a power surge – the lights had gone out and the plumbing was live. I was washing some clothes in the basin (standing in a pool of water on the floor) and when I went to turn off the tap I got an electric shock from the tap, it went in one arm and out the other. I had to leave the tap running and went out to see if anyone else had been zapped. Jo and another lady were in the shower when it happened and both got shocked when they reached for the hand-held shower jet. So that was our afternoon entertainment, and unfortunately a few of the group didn’t get to have showers before dinner.

We went for a walk through town and out to Apollo’s Gate – the Portara, which sits on a point out from the port. The gate was built in the 6th century BC and was going to be a temple to Apollo, but war broke out and the temple was never finished, and it is only the gate and a few marble stones that remain. It was the perfect time to visit Apollo’s gate, as the sun was just starting to set and you could capture the sun behind the gate in photographs. We had an easy dinner that night and then continued our walk through the old parts of the town. Donnal and I ended up losing the group when stopped to take some photos of a castle, so we just took an easy stroll through the cute streets of the old town. Some of the shops we found were so adorable, they had local made crafts and my favourite shop had painted ornaments that looked like ancient artefacts.