Wander More Work Less

The alarm at 1 a.m. confirmed that the ferry was on its way. Strangely, I managed to get back to sleep and slept fairly well. But 2:45 a.m. came around way too quickly. Up we got and off we went—not very far at all down to the port. We probably should have waited at the apartment longer rather than waiting there. The wind was still blowing and, although it was a warm wind, it was the first time in months that I could have worn my sweatshirt. But it was packed away, and I wasn’t going to bother getting it out. It was 3:50 a.m. when the ferry finally arrived, and we boarded with a small group of others. The ferry was very full. It was a big Blue Star Ferries boat. We struggled to find a nice seat with a table like we had ex-Santorini on a similar boat. In the end, we found two airline-style seats and settled in. Next stop: Mykonos. I decided to dig my sweatshirt out of my pack, as it was cool inside the boat—good air conditioning. It didn’t seem like we had been going for very long when ...

Our ferry isn’t until 6:30 pm, so there was no need to rush this morning. We enjoyed a relaxed breakfast on the terrace before packing our bags and checking out in time to catch the 11 am bus into town. The apartment manager suggested there would be high winds tonight, which might impact ferry sailings. It is noticeably windier today, but it’s not Cook Strait windy. We got off the bus and headed into the main town square, thinking it would be a good place to find a shady seat to wait out the afternoon. We found one, and then I noticed a text on my phone. We can receive texts but not send them without incurring crazy roaming charges. It was from the ferry company: departure delayed until 3:35 am! Bother. That meant we’d need to find somewhere to sleep tonight. 🤔 I was about to start searching when Jenny and Stephen walked by. How small is this place? Their sailing at 11 am to Tinos was also delayed until tomorrow. They had managed a cash deal at their hotel for another night. It was st...

Next day but, "Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel"! Same bus into Ermoupouli! We headed straight to the second barber shop we’d seen when we got off the bus yesterday. He seemed like the nicest man from our brief interaction, and he said he had time at 10 a.m. That worked fine for us, as long as we didn’t climb any hills or steps beforehand. We wandered into the inner town, where the streets were literally paved with marble slabs. Not in an over-the-top fancy way, but in a “this is what we do here” kind of way. The streets were beautiful, and the little side alleys equally so — more authentic and natural than Santorini. We found the main town square, with the massive Town Hall taking up most of the longest side of its rectangular shape. It was an impressive building for what feels like a small town. Next stop was the Apollo Theater, which of course wasn’t open in the morning. There isn’t much to see from the outside, but I’m assuming it’s beautiful inside...

Up and out the door in time to catch the 8 am (ish) bus into the capital of Syros. It’s called Ermoupoli, not Chora—perhaps because it’s also the administrative capital for the whole Cyclades group of Greek islands. There are 31 islands in the group, including Naxos and Santorini. The bus doesn’t stop at as many places on this morning’s journey, but once in town it takes a different route than yesterday to drop some children at school. We still take about 40 minutes to get in. I’d found two barbers online not far from the bus stop, both opening at 9 am. We stopped by both—open, yes, but no free time today for a haircut. Good grief, my hair is getting quite long now. ☹️ Giving up on the haircut idea, we started climbing the hill to see the church that had looked like a castle that we saw yesterday when we were on the bus to Finikas. Hmmm… now we could see there were actually two different hills with two different churches perched on top. I offered Sarah the option of taking the bus up a...

Usually on the first day in a new location we like to do a morning walk to explore the local area and get our bearings. Today was no exception.  We stuck to the more minor roads and tracks as we walked to Poseidonia village. It was immediately obvious that this place was very different to Naxos and Santorini. It was typically Greek Island feeling like Naxos but felt wealthy like Santorini. The houses were big here and the area has a lot of well set out olive groves that looked cared for. You'll see photos below of a few places we came across that are massive old homes some of which look like they would hold multiple apartments but we are pretty sure they are just single homes. The back roads made for slightly challenging navigation. A road clearly showing on Google maps would appear more like a driveway but once you walked further it would bypass the house and was in fact a road. Then there were roads that simply did not exist and instead there were alleyways or dirt tr...

It's time to move on from our lovely seaside place. Don't worry—we’re heading to another one. Just after 9am we set out to catch the bus. Our ferry was at 11:30am, but after seeing the buses full on Saturday we wanted to allow plenty of time. We walked past our usual stop and into the village, hoping for a better chance since we’d noticed lots of people waiting there on previous days. Expecting a 9:30am bus, we were anxious when it still hadn’t arrived by 9:45am. At least 12 people were waiting, many with luggage like us. When it finally did arrive it was quite empty, which helped the stress levels recede. We hopped off at the port, and I went to the bakery to grab something for lunch on the ferry. Then we found a small taverna that didn’t look open and asked the owner if he minded us waiting in the shade. He wasn’t opening until 6pm, but he was fine with us using his table and chairs. The ferry we booked was a fast catamaran—expensive at €60 each, but we didn’t have much choic...

It’s our last day in Agios Prokopios. It has been a great place to visit and stay, but all good things come to an end. The last day might not be the best, as we woke up to big clouds and strong winds. It’s definitely cooler—the forecast high is only 25°C. Good walking weather though, so we headed back to Agia Anna, as that had been a nice walk the other morning. There were a couple of geocaches along the way too. I hadn’t checked the map the previous day. We opted not to look for one for fear of ticks in the trees, the second was missing, but we did find the third. It was at the little church on the headland. That also meant walking past the clothes-optional part of the beach again. Bad idea! 😱🤮 Other than having our eyesight permanently damaged, the walk was great. 😂 We stopped at a different bakery to buy something for lunch and picked up more water from the supermarket. Buying water is such a faff. We’re looking forward to just turning on the tap again at ...