Corinne CrawfordWe had another day of clouds and rain so we took it easy and counted on the weather forecast predicting that the following day, our last day, would give way to better weather. In the meantime, I started getting a pretty intense toothache in my far left back bottom molar to the point where I couldn’t really even bite down on that side. I took advantage of a down day and while Jodi and Debbie each went out shopping for jewelry and sweatpants, I looked up local English speaking dentists and decided to just show up and hope someone could look at my tooth. I got lucky and the second one I tried immediately was able to put me in a chair, take a look and even take an X-ray. She said that she was not the type of dentist that worked on that sort of tooth thing (she was a gum health specialist) but she could see that something was wrong (no infection, fortunately) and she suspected a cracked root, which would require a root canal or extraction. She gave me a few referrals for both Paros, our next destination and Athens. Great. The instant exam and X-ray cost me 20€- no paperwork. I love Europe for this. When I returned to the apartment, I emailed the two referrals and waited for the response after stopping to get the Ibuprofen she recommended from the pharmacy. I got 20 600mg pills for 1.75€. I love Europe for this.
We had decided to take advantage of the good weather predicted for the next day and planned on getting up early and going to one of the local car rental offices to rent a car for the day to go to the other side of the island to what is called one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe- Elafonisis Beach. The next morning, we put on our suits and positive attitudes and walked the 10 minutes to one of the rental company’s offices right when they opened at 9am. We had to wait for the family in front of us to finish up their paperwork and then inquired about a car. We were in luck, they had one automatic left and we could have it. We filled out one piece of paper, did not have to show our passport or international drivers license, got two drivers listed with full insurance and paid 30€ cash. I love Europe for this. We took off and 2.5 hours later, we pulled off the main road to make our way down a dirt road towards the beach. It was the first sunny day in a week after the large storm so we did not have the place to ourselves even though it was towards the end of the tourist season, but it wasn’t super crowded either. They still had the lounge chairs and umbrellas you could rent along a few areas of the beach and we made ourselves at home with the few beers and sandwiches we brought with us. This beach.
I don’t even know how to describe it but the water was a crystal clear turquoise blue as you can get, there was a whole protected area that during low tide was between ankle and waist high, and an almost unlimited amount of coast line due to the way the beach was situated with a high sandbar spit separating the sea and the small island across the way. It was an Instagrammers dream. (Yes, you can see more pics on my instagram). It is obvious why they call this one of Europe’s most beautiful beaches. We drove back to Rethymno the way we came and dropped the car off at the rental company with nothing more elaborate than handing the keys over and walking away. We were getting on a plane the next day to fly back to Athens and transfer to another small plane to take us to the island of Paros.
