Paros, Greece
Our drive around the island stops at a 17th-century monastery and the town of Naousa, with attractive shops and a large harbor. We continue on to see a gorgeous windmill, have lunch with a view, and nearly get our car hopelessly stuck in a tiny village.
For our first full day in the Cyclades, we decided to take a driving tour of Paros, particularly to explore its second city, Naousa. The morning began bright and sunny, intensified by the whitewashed buildings in Parikia.
Logovarda Monastery
We started north for a few miles, then turned up a smaller, winding road that climbed past four tiny churches before reaching Logovarda Monastery, built in 1638 by Christoforos Paleologos, a monk and a Naousa native. I parked, and Marianne and I walked up to the heavy wooden doors, painted deep sea green with orange crosses.
A monk opened the door. He was older, his beard mostly gray. He moved about gently. The monk pulled the door wide to let me in, then motioned to Marianne. We had completely forgotten: no women allowed! I stepped into the courtyard and shrugged apologetically to Marianne as the door closed between us.
We walked up to the chapel, and he led me inside. It was thickly decorated with frescoes and golden chandeliers, and exuded the weight of the centuries.
I turned to find the monk reading, the main light in the chapel streaming in just above his head. The scene looked like a Renaissance painting.
With Marianne still outside, I did not take much more of the monk’s time. He guided me back out the front door, then asked in a wispy voice, “Where are you from?”
“Oh, uh, California.”
“American,” he said, then asked me to wait. A minute later, he appeared with a blanket, and we walked just outside the door to a low wall. He spread the blanket on the wall and invited us to sit, then handed me an English-language pamphlet about the monastery. A moment later, the monk brought a tray with ouzo in plastic cups, accompanied by a selection of loukoumi, the Greek version of Turkish delights. The day was off to a great start.
We left the monastery on a different road and — ouzo enlivening our morning — marveled at the pastoral scenery.
Naousa
Naousa is a fishing village at the northern tip of the island with a population of about 2,900. It has a large, protected harbor that was used as a Russian naval base from 1770 to 1775, during the Russo-Turkish War, when Russians sided with Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire.
Like Parikia, Naousa features a classy set of shops on its winding walkways, and we sampled several. In one, we found the woman managing the store in tears as she spoke on the phone. We began to retreat, but she put down the phone and motioned for us to come in. “It’s OK,” she said. But as we looked about the store, quietly collecting gifts for people back home, she continued to sob, pausing every minute or so to apologize to us. We gave her our sympathy, telling her that whatever had happened — a breakup, an illness? — things were bound to get better. But her wound was still fresh, and our language barrier was too vast. We paid for our purchases and gave the grieving woman some peace.
We stepped inside several small churches on our path through the city, each hundreds of years old, with crumbling mosaics still faithfully projecting their ancient stories.
Marianne and I reached the harbor and paused for a few minutes to take in the sea air wafting towards us, the ceaseless rhythm of the waves enhancing our meditations.
We made our way back through town, coming across a few more of the 450 churches (the actual number) on the island.
As we approached our car, we passed a playground with a hotly contested soccer match in progress on a basketball court.
Around Paros
We continued our journey south to the little village of Marmara, surrounded by family farms. We came to see one of the prettiest windmills in Greece, standing in the center of town. Marmara is known for having bits of marble scattered about, giving the village its name (“marbles” in Greek).
Just west of Marmara is another little village, Podromos. We drove cautiously through its narrow streets, which became increasingly narrow as we went. I had the sense of getting deeper and deeper into trouble as we rolled slowly on, praying that we would not encounter a car coming our way. We turned a corner, hoping it would be the way out, but things got even tighter. I pushed the car forward one inch at a time, claustrophobia closing in. Marianne got out to try to guide me through a particularly slim gap, and I imagined I heard the crunch of bumper against stone. It was no use. We weren’t going to make it and had to retreat, using equal care in reverse. Another wrong turn and about 15 minutes later, we finally extricated ourselves from the tiny village.
A little flustered and very relieved, we continued west to Lefkes, a town of about 500 inhabitants at the end of a verdant valley of pine and olive trees. We stopped at Restaurant Flora, which overlooks Lefkes from a perch fronted by a garden of citrus trees. Marianne had the chicken souvlaki, while I tried a tasty slow-cooked lamb in lemon sauce. The meals were accompanied by constant growling as a motley collection of feral cats squabbled angrily for the right to beg for food near the patrons.
We drove next to the eastern shore of the island at Molos Beach, a simple strip of uninhabited sand facing the island of Naxos, our destination the next day. A string of beaches extends south from here, all around the southern tip of Paros, with a steady collection of hotels and rental properties along the way. But it was getting late in the day, and the cocktail hour called us to return to the hotel.
Sunset
Back at the quiet Sunset View Hotel, we enjoyed another dazzling sunset view to end the day.