Corinne CrawfordThank goodness for the AirTag I put in my suitcase. We got excited because upon checking my location app on my phone, it looked like our bags were on the runway in Athens at 9am, just as the agent at the airport had told us the day before. When it hit 10am, I checked again and now it was showing up at the airport in Paros. Thank goodness. I called the baggage claim number that the agent had given me the previous day and asked about delivery and she said she would get a driver right away to meet us at the taxi stand near the port with our bags. Less than an hour later, we were reunited with our things and rolled them along the rough pedestrian streets to our apartment. We all took much needed showers and put on some clean clothes and then had lots of laundry to do. The wind was something else on Paros. Pretty sustained and then lots of powerful gusts. Would make the drying of the laundry pretty speedy as long as we could make sure it was very secure on the lines. We wandered about the town the second half of the day and decided we would rent a car for the next two days to explore the island and some beaches. We were told that the beaches on the south side of the island were protected from the wind and the water was still warm. We would find out this was inaccurate the following day but we stopped into a few rental car places and found that most places had the same price of 30€ per day. So the next morning, we all optimistically donned our swimsuits under our clothes and packed our beach things and then headed to the car rental place. We had a similar easy experience renting the car here has we did on Crete and with one of the beaches our host had recommended programmed into my phone with Jodi navigating, we headed out. It was just under 30 minutes to get to what appeared to be the turn off to the beach. According to the map that the car rental agent gave us of the island, there were many small beaches right after another along the southern coast but we found it strange that very few of the little dirt roads offered any guidance as to how to actually drive down to the beaches. So we tried several only to find either private roads, dead end roads and then finally we found what looked to be the beach road we were seeking but when we parked the car and walked the path leading first to the beach bar, we found it was fenced off and a worker told us it was closed. I suppose that is the only way to get to that particular beach so in essence, that beach was closed. We tried again and again and finally found a dirt road to another beach but this particular one was quite windy and it seemed everyone else knew this as there was not another soul around. So we gave up on beach day and said we would try again tomorrow and instead we headed to the tiny village of Lefkes, which again was recommended by our host as a nice place to visit and described as the most “authentic” village on the island, whatever that means. We found a small dirt car park right outside the town and ate the sandwiches we packed there in the car before heading into the village. This village was more hilly and even windier and narrower and maze-like than Parikia. As with most older villages and towns we have visited, most of the town is vehicle free and the “streets” meander up and down, winding around with houses and shops on all sides so it is hard to get your bearings and easy to get lost. But what a place to get lost.
The highest point in the town held the old church and although it was not open, the architecture was beautiful and there was a sloping cemetery at the back with family mausoleums holding what looked to be ammo boxes of the various family members, I am assuming ashes or bones.
We wandered our way back and stopped for refreshments at the edge of the village before walking back to our car. We then continued on the road back to Parikia, our home base, and I wanted to stop at the ancient marble quarries. It turns out that Paros was “the” place to get your marble back in the day and much of the temples at the Acropolis were made with Paros marble. We were even told that the sculpture, Venus de Milo, is made from Paros marble. We saw directional signs for it and pulled off only to be a bit confused as it was just a dirt road and there didn’t really seem to be anything to see. So we drove down the dirt road a while only to find a dead end so we turned the car around and left the same way we went in. The only thing I can figure out is I did see one comment that said the area was now fenced off but I wasn’t even sure what we were looking for that was now fenced off. We drove back to Parikia and tried to find a parking space as we were keeping the car for the next day as well. There was parking all along the beach front road near the port and our host had said it was free parking, but a sign there said that parking was prohibited from 7pm to 7am. It seemed strange because we thought we had seen cars there past 7pm, but we didn’t want to risk it and found a place a few blocks away to park the car. That night we decided to find a nice restaurant for seafood and we ended up at Mira, again on the waterfront. We watched the sun go down over the sea behind one of the many islands as we sat down.
All three of us ordered the special- the dorado- and we split a Greek salad as we almost always do now at every meal. The fish was delicious and we finished it off with gelato from the shop a few doors down before heading home to bed to try to find a beach the next day.
