Frightener on four wheels

So before I set off in the car, I popped into the town to get breakfast and take some photos of this amazing shop, at least two floors, stuffed full of all things Naxos. I bought two presents for my Sifnos friends. Naxos town has real shops. All the ones, we have lost on our high street. For sure we have coffee shops here, but not at the loss of other types of shops, that we all use. I also found the reason about those ‘masks’ on utility poles. They were for the local carnival of course.

My next challenge was to see if I could get into the huge church known as church Saint Nikodimos. I managed to, but the priest was there talking to someone and also a lot of light was streaming  into the church, making taking photos difficult. So I just got a couple. All the walls were painted. It was quite magnificent.

So my travels today had been meticulously planned the night before, checking the place was in Google maps, undertaking the list in a sensible order. What could go wrong? Well I think it’s fair to say Google maps is not ready for prime  time in Greece yet. You really need a human navigator on these islands. So before long, I was in a agricultural area, driving on very narrow roads, meeting agricultural machinery on the move and worse. So the worse was being taken through villages, narrow streets, ninety degrees turns and meeting other vehicles coming the other way. Suffice to say the air was blue in the car, but the car was returned at five today undamaged. The first place I was aiming for were the ruins of a temple known as Sangri. Eventually I got there.

However my troubles were not quite over. As I left a coach turned up. It clearly had a better route to Sangri than me, there is no way it could have navigated what I went through. I hoped we would not meet again… Next on my list was a place called Melanes. I think something went wrong, I got there but the monument I saw was a rather tatty looking, concrete church, with a pretty waterfall nearby and orange trees. But I did see this lovely looking donkey.

On my travels I saw vast swathes of those lovely yellow flowers, under for example olive trees. Some of these trees were clearly really old, but still producing. My last place to visit was a Byzantine chapel Georgios Diasoritis. After more narrow road malarkey, I got there and parked up. Some children were practising drumming outside there school. I followed the path, with lovely running water  in channels by me. I came to the chapel and it was wonderful.

On my travels I also saw a village called Chalkio. It had this lovely old building, disused. But it was something to do with marble, see the amazing disc hanging above one of the doors?

My final village visit was to a very sad looking village called Moni. It seemed to have the biggest proportion of ruined buildings I have encountered so far. I met this old guy, he showed me the house he was born in, and in very broken English he told me all sorts of things. I did not understand most of it I am afraid. But I took the time to listen, until he wandered off. Here is a photo of his village.

My final stop on the road, was to see an ancient marble quarry, there were several things to see, including two statues, both abandoned as they developed cracks in them when being carved. So they were unfinished, both of men. Dated around 650BC. The poignant thing about them was the site they were in, is in shadow of the modern quarry, which is cutting away huge swathes of the mountain.

Finally as the wind has dropped and the sea calm, I crossed the causeway to the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. There is a taverna nearby with a rather tacky huge Apollo by it. There was only one other person viewing it, it does look nice lit up at night and it is beautiful even in it’s ruined state. Paros tomorrow!