We had to check out today but we still had almost a full day in Paros. We didn't really know what we wanted to do with the day so we meandered our way to the bus station to find we had just missed the bus to Golden Beach which was one of the main attractions. I really didn't know what else do to, and eventually we settled on getting a bus to Naoussa but that wasn't leaving for over an hour.
We wandered through the white washed streets of Parikia trying to get lost and see what we could see, occasionally popping out on the waterfront and diving back in again. With time still to spare before the bus left, we got a frozen yoghurt each - we are in Greece after all! Must have yoghurt. I got natural yoghurt with fresh banana, chocolates sauce and crunchy bits, and Dan got toppings of sour cherry, chocolate and strawberry flakes.
We could see people gathering around a bus so we headed over there. There were people already on the bus but a lot of people standing outside too. We stood outside for a while not sure if we could get on, under the guise of "enjoying the sunshine". One person jumped on so we followed - the rest of the bus crowd following us also. The man came up he aisle to check our tickets and we were away.
The drive to Naoussa only took about 20ish minutes which was good as the only bus back was at 4.30pm, so that left us plenty of time to get our luggage and go to the foreshore.
When we arrived in Naoussa we got off a stop early with everyone else but it was the right stop right on the water front. We started wandering leisurely and as we went to cross the road, two giant geese were just sauntering down the road ahead of us. No one seemed to pay any attention to this other than us.
There was a small bridge that wasn't really necessary and didn't really lead anywhere - I think it was a throwback to an old castle - and so we went over to it to cross it because I like bridges.
Underneath I noticed more geese, some with very very strange colourings (they were huge with bright red on their noses - very ugly) and also some ducks - also with very odd colouring. In the shallow water beneath the bridge there were also a lot of little fish - the birdies dream! There was a short pier so we walked across that, thinking there might be a nice view to the buildings and boats on the waterfront.
Suddenly we hear a smacking sound, and see a man smacking a fish against the bricked fence next to the boats. That's a bit violent. Then we realise it wasn't a fish, but an octopus. And he kept slamming it and smacking it into the fence - the staccato sound seating through our brains each time as we knew exactly what was happening even we weren't watching. It was pretty awful. It seemed the octopus got longer as a result - maybe tenderising it? It was brutal. We kept walking the other way along the pier and eventually the sound stopped, and we sighed with relief.
We could now walk back the other direction past the octopus beating corner and along the foreshore. This is a fishing town to all along were fishermen setting up, fixing their boats and thankfully no more octopus beatings. The water was crystal clear and we could see all sorts of sea urchins and fish and anemone and sea cucumbers.
At the ending the shore shore was a rocky outcrop leading to the ruins of a fort. We had seen people climbing all over these rocks and wanted to give it a go. We made it to the fort hut the rocky path beyond it was a bit much for my slippery shoes so we abandoned that idea. The water was filled with what I can only think were jelly fish - they looked entirely spherical and just sort of bobbed everywhere like whiteish orbs.
Back on land we did a once around all the restaurants. I saw one that did a fish deal for two people - and it was teeming with cats and a duck after scraps. After going around once we returned to this place and got ourselves a table outside looking out to the water.
To be honest the food wasn't amazing, but the service and ambiance was nice, and Dan and I ended up with a kitty each at our feet which we fed our scraps too. About four were milling about at the time, and the bloody duck kept eyeballing me.
The fish plate came with a variety of whole fish - we are getting rather good at deboning them now - and a Greek salad. Some cheap white wine (I think it was watered down). At one point I looked up from the meal and noticed some octopus had been draped over the sign of the door ahead of us - I wondered if one had been our octopus we heard being beaten earlier?
Just as we were leaving another two cats of note arrived - one with a weird looking black eye who was appreciative of our scraps (my bloody cat wasn't) and another that had clearly been in the wars very recently and looking at it made us sad. We scrounged through our fish to find it some flesh left, gave it what we could, and left.
There wasn't an awful lot to do here and we had until 4.30 for the bus, so we wandered trough the streets and did a reccie to the bus stop to see how far it was. We found quite a large church and a little park full of cats - but these were all quite skittish no matter how hard the Pied Piper Dan tried to get a pat out of them. Back on the waterfront we endeavoured to find our first cocktail of the trip - but they were all so so expensive, starting at €10. We found a place with couches doing cocktails for €8, so just settled in here to wait for the time to pass.
We did a bit of research on some trains and buses for one of our next legs - we had heard that the train we intended to catch from Thessaloniki - Skopje and then later from Skopje -Belgrade may have been cancelled until June. It didn't say anything like this in the Serbian Railways website, but we took note to research this later.
Downing our delicious sour cherry and strawberry cocktails, we went to he bus station. No dramas catching the bus back to Parikia, and we slowly walked back to our accom to pick up our belongings.
As much as we had enjoyed Goodys on our first long ferry, it's pretty expensive, so we opted to bring our own food for this leg of the journey which would take about 4 hours. Dan sat down near the port in a little park and I went back to the supermarket.
My little shopping list consisted of squishy cheese (if available) and accompanying meat, wine (duh), tomato and feta and olives for a pretend Greek salad and maybe something for dessert. I took a little longer than expected because I had trouble finding things. Cherry tomatoes were horribly expensive so I chose a couple of normal tomatoes. I ended up getting some olives from the fresh service area which was no problem (after watching two Americans be rather obnoxious trying to buy meat and cheese from the deli also, I figured I'd be a breeze!). The squishy cheese was eye wateringly expensive but I got it anyway. I naturally chose the slowest counter, and then proceeded to slow down everything even more as I hadn't gotten a price ticket for the tomatoes, and then to pay via card she had to walk to the other side of the store. She actually did the tut-sigh when I pulled out the card. Oh well! Got, in the end. More expensive than I would have liked but still cheaper than Goodys, slightly better for us and we got wine.
Today my throat started to get sore, which was a massive bugger. Do not want to get sick! I had looked for some vitamins or soothers but there was nothing in this store. Back with Dan in the Park, we shouldered our luggage and went to the port entrance - the first people to get there. This boarding experience was a million times nice than that in Santorini. Only a handful f people getting on. No rushing no pushing. The boat arrived roughly on time - getting on was no problem and was e found a seat on the very top deck in the sheltered area on some lounges - a nice change from the school style seats we had been sitting on.
We couldn't fully see the sunset from here - it was hidden by the body of the boat but if we stood up we could, and we had seen it twice anyway. It glowed a lovely orange pink as it slowly went down.
As the sun was setting we ate our wine and cheese, feta and tomato. Te olives turned out to be really overpoweringly salty so I didn't have many of these. Across from us another set of travellers had also wine and cheese picnicked for the journey / ours was a bit fancier tho!
Even changing into warmer clothing, there was still a cold breeze out here so we eventually decided to migrate indoors. Everyone around us had already done this, so Dan did a reccie and off we went. We found some lounge chairs near the departing point and plonked ourselves down for the remainder of the journey. We finished off the wine and polished off the Greek orange chocolate I had also bought, typed the blogs furiously and soon enough it was time to get off at Piraeus. We would be staying a single night near the main train station before heading to Meteora on the morrow.
We weren't looking forward to walking through Piraeus again. Originally we were going to take the actual train straight to Larissa station (main station) but they weren't running, so metro with a change it was. There wasn't a huge crowd getting off the ship so it was pretty easy to get off and walk through the streets unmolested. On the way, I saw a homeless man under a rug with a box of kittens in front of him, which were trying to climb out of the box.
Getting the metro was fine - as we were the first stop we just bagged a whole four seater for all our stuff. At the change, the sign said a 15 minute wait so we settled in for this - however with 8 minutes to go a train rocked up, so we scrabbled for our stuff and jumped on just in time. Phew!
At Larissa station we wondered if we could buy tickets for tomorrow from a machine, but this was not the case. We would have to go to the ticket office in the morning and fingers crossed there were tickets available!
By now it was approaching midnight and thankfully our accom was only about five minutes (of pee-stinky) walk. The gentleman at the Neos Olympia hotel greeted us.
Checkin seemed to take an age, and I had been wearing the bags for ages, and I started to get fidgety. I didn't want to take it off because I wasn't sure id get it back on again tonight. I tried everything to lessen the weight, and a couple of times accidentally knocked the counter. The man apologised for taking so long. He then mentioned that breakfast started at 8 - at which point I butted in and asked if there was *any* way we could possibly have a bite to eat a little earlier as we would be leaving before 8. He asked when we would be leaving, we said around 7.30, to which he replied "ok you be downstairs at 7.15. I'm making breakfast then for some other guests."
Extremely thankful it was time to go to our room and crash. Four flights of stairs later (!) we made it up there, by now it was about 12.30am. We had to be up at 6.30, so it really was just a place to lay down and shower (and also get fed, thankfully!) before jetting off again. Quick showers - hot water and good water pressure is really something you appreciate when you travel - and off to bed.
Til next time,
Xx
We wandered through the white washed streets of Parikia trying to get lost and see what we could see, occasionally popping out on the waterfront and diving back in again. With time still to spare before the bus left, we got a frozen yoghurt each - we are in Greece after all! Must have yoghurt. I got natural yoghurt with fresh banana, chocolates sauce and crunchy bits, and Dan got toppings of sour cherry, chocolate and strawberry flakes.
We could see people gathering around a bus so we headed over there. There were people already on the bus but a lot of people standing outside too. We stood outside for a while not sure if we could get on, under the guise of "enjoying the sunshine". One person jumped on so we followed - the rest of the bus crowd following us also. The man came up he aisle to check our tickets and we were away.
The drive to Naoussa only took about 20ish minutes which was good as the only bus back was at 4.30pm, so that left us plenty of time to get our luggage and go to the foreshore.
When we arrived in Naoussa we got off a stop early with everyone else but it was the right stop right on the water front. We started wandering leisurely and as we went to cross the road, two giant geese were just sauntering down the road ahead of us. No one seemed to pay any attention to this other than us.
There was a small bridge that wasn't really necessary and didn't really lead anywhere - I think it was a throwback to an old castle - and so we went over to it to cross it because I like bridges.
Underneath I noticed more geese, some with very very strange colourings (they were huge with bright red on their noses - very ugly) and also some ducks - also with very odd colouring. In the shallow water beneath the bridge there were also a lot of little fish - the birdies dream! There was a short pier so we walked across that, thinking there might be a nice view to the buildings and boats on the waterfront.
Suddenly we hear a smacking sound, and see a man smacking a fish against the bricked fence next to the boats. That's a bit violent. Then we realise it wasn't a fish, but an octopus. And he kept slamming it and smacking it into the fence - the staccato sound seating through our brains each time as we knew exactly what was happening even we weren't watching. It was pretty awful. It seemed the octopus got longer as a result - maybe tenderising it? It was brutal. We kept walking the other way along the pier and eventually the sound stopped, and we sighed with relief.
We could now walk back the other direction past the octopus beating corner and along the foreshore. This is a fishing town to all along were fishermen setting up, fixing their boats and thankfully no more octopus beatings. The water was crystal clear and we could see all sorts of sea urchins and fish and anemone and sea cucumbers.
At the ending the shore shore was a rocky outcrop leading to the ruins of a fort. We had seen people climbing all over these rocks and wanted to give it a go. We made it to the fort hut the rocky path beyond it was a bit much for my slippery shoes so we abandoned that idea. The water was filled with what I can only think were jelly fish - they looked entirely spherical and just sort of bobbed everywhere like whiteish orbs.
Back on land we did a once around all the restaurants. I saw one that did a fish deal for two people - and it was teeming with cats and a duck after scraps. After going around once we returned to this place and got ourselves a table outside looking out to the water.
To be honest the food wasn't amazing, but the service and ambiance was nice, and Dan and I ended up with a kitty each at our feet which we fed our scraps too. About four were milling about at the time, and the bloody duck kept eyeballing me.
The fish plate came with a variety of whole fish - we are getting rather good at deboning them now - and a Greek salad. Some cheap white wine (I think it was watered down). At one point I looked up from the meal and noticed some octopus had been draped over the sign of the door ahead of us - I wondered if one had been our octopus we heard being beaten earlier?
Just as we were leaving another two cats of note arrived - one with a weird looking black eye who was appreciative of our scraps (my bloody cat wasn't) and another that had clearly been in the wars very recently and looking at it made us sad. We scrounged through our fish to find it some flesh left, gave it what we could, and left.
There wasn't an awful lot to do here and we had until 4.30 for the bus, so we wandered trough the streets and did a reccie to the bus stop to see how far it was. We found quite a large church and a little park full of cats - but these were all quite skittish no matter how hard the Pied Piper Dan tried to get a pat out of them. Back on the waterfront we endeavoured to find our first cocktail of the trip - but they were all so so expensive, starting at €10. We found a place with couches doing cocktails for €8, so just settled in here to wait for the time to pass.
We did a bit of research on some trains and buses for one of our next legs - we had heard that the train we intended to catch from Thessaloniki - Skopje and then later from Skopje -Belgrade may have been cancelled until June. It didn't say anything like this in the Serbian Railways website, but we took note to research this later.
Downing our delicious sour cherry and strawberry cocktails, we went to he bus station. No dramas catching the bus back to Parikia, and we slowly walked back to our accom to pick up our belongings.
As much as we had enjoyed Goodys on our first long ferry, it's pretty expensive, so we opted to bring our own food for this leg of the journey which would take about 4 hours. Dan sat down near the port in a little park and I went back to the supermarket.
My little shopping list consisted of squishy cheese (if available) and accompanying meat, wine (duh), tomato and feta and olives for a pretend Greek salad and maybe something for dessert. I took a little longer than expected because I had trouble finding things. Cherry tomatoes were horribly expensive so I chose a couple of normal tomatoes. I ended up getting some olives from the fresh service area which was no problem (after watching two Americans be rather obnoxious trying to buy meat and cheese from the deli also, I figured I'd be a breeze!). The squishy cheese was eye wateringly expensive but I got it anyway. I naturally chose the slowest counter, and then proceeded to slow down everything even more as I hadn't gotten a price ticket for the tomatoes, and then to pay via card she had to walk to the other side of the store. She actually did the tut-sigh when I pulled out the card. Oh well! Got, in the end. More expensive than I would have liked but still cheaper than Goodys, slightly better for us and we got wine.
Today my throat started to get sore, which was a massive bugger. Do not want to get sick! I had looked for some vitamins or soothers but there was nothing in this store. Back with Dan in the Park, we shouldered our luggage and went to the port entrance - the first people to get there. This boarding experience was a million times nice than that in Santorini. Only a handful f people getting on. No rushing no pushing. The boat arrived roughly on time - getting on was no problem and was e found a seat on the very top deck in the sheltered area on some lounges - a nice change from the school style seats we had been sitting on.
We couldn't fully see the sunset from here - it was hidden by the body of the boat but if we stood up we could, and we had seen it twice anyway. It glowed a lovely orange pink as it slowly went down.
As the sun was setting we ate our wine and cheese, feta and tomato. Te olives turned out to be really overpoweringly salty so I didn't have many of these. Across from us another set of travellers had also wine and cheese picnicked for the journey / ours was a bit fancier tho!
Even changing into warmer clothing, there was still a cold breeze out here so we eventually decided to migrate indoors. Everyone around us had already done this, so Dan did a reccie and off we went. We found some lounge chairs near the departing point and plonked ourselves down for the remainder of the journey. We finished off the wine and polished off the Greek orange chocolate I had also bought, typed the blogs furiously and soon enough it was time to get off at Piraeus. We would be staying a single night near the main train station before heading to Meteora on the morrow.
We weren't looking forward to walking through Piraeus again. Originally we were going to take the actual train straight to Larissa station (main station) but they weren't running, so metro with a change it was. There wasn't a huge crowd getting off the ship so it was pretty easy to get off and walk through the streets unmolested. On the way, I saw a homeless man under a rug with a box of kittens in front of him, which were trying to climb out of the box.
Getting the metro was fine - as we were the first stop we just bagged a whole four seater for all our stuff. At the change, the sign said a 15 minute wait so we settled in for this - however with 8 minutes to go a train rocked up, so we scrabbled for our stuff and jumped on just in time. Phew!
At Larissa station we wondered if we could buy tickets for tomorrow from a machine, but this was not the case. We would have to go to the ticket office in the morning and fingers crossed there were tickets available!
By now it was approaching midnight and thankfully our accom was only about five minutes (of pee-stinky) walk. The gentleman at the Neos Olympia hotel greeted us.
Checkin seemed to take an age, and I had been wearing the bags for ages, and I started to get fidgety. I didn't want to take it off because I wasn't sure id get it back on again tonight. I tried everything to lessen the weight, and a couple of times accidentally knocked the counter. The man apologised for taking so long. He then mentioned that breakfast started at 8 - at which point I butted in and asked if there was *any* way we could possibly have a bite to eat a little earlier as we would be leaving before 8. He asked when we would be leaving, we said around 7.30, to which he replied "ok you be downstairs at 7.15. I'm making breakfast then for some other guests."
Extremely thankful it was time to go to our room and crash. Four flights of stairs later (!) we made it up there, by now it was about 12.30am. We had to be up at 6.30, so it really was just a place to lay down and shower (and also get fed, thankfully!) before jetting off again. Quick showers - hot water and good water pressure is really something you appreciate when you travel - and off to bed.
Til next time,
Xx
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