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Published: January 14th 2010
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Ios Cathedral
Beautiful Ios Cathedral Ios is known as the party island of Greece and so far we’ve mostly seen the town at night, but today we planned to explore the town during the daylight. Chora, Ios’s main town is a typical of the Cyclades with whitewashed buildings and is full of steps and small alleys, curtained doorways and small courtyards. On the main thoroughfares there are the jewelers, souvenir shops and, of course, the clubs.
Ios has lots of churches; as a matter of fact it claims to have 365 churches, one for each day of the year. In Chora in a plateia just off the main road is the modern Orthodox Cathedral of Ios named Evangelismos (Annunciation). It’s an large whitewashed building with the traditional blue domes, very beautiful. Nearby is the church of Agia Ekaterini.
First we picked up the laundry and dropped it off at the hotel as we had to return the rental car by 12:30. Raced down to the port and dropped the Jimmy off at exactly 12:30, whew! The guy from the rental car agency dropped us off in Chora. We stopped at the internet café in the travel agency and Steve and I finished before Alice
Steve & Alice in recovery mode
At breakfast trying to recover from the night before! so we walked up to the plateia where the clubs are. We decided to get something to eat at one of the places in the plateia while we waited for Alice . I got an omelet, yum, and Steve got an egg and ham sandwich. Alice met up with us there and then we walked around and took a bunch of pictures. We walked up the main street and came out at the plateia with the windmills. Along the way we passed by a couple more churches and I took some pictures of the resident cats. Also got some pictures of the funky evergreen tree that looks like the old fake Christmas trees you stick the wire branches into.
Took the bus back to the hotel and went to the beach until 5:30ish. Steve decided to try out the banana boat ride thing. This is a big yellow float that looks like 3 lengthwise bananas held together by a crosswise banana on the front of the 3. This contraption is towed by a motorboat until the banana thing becomes airborne and the rider hangs on for dear life. The driver of the boat decelerates until the banana hits the
Banana Boat Ride
Steve on the infamous banana boat ride! water with terrific force and then he accelerates again until the banana is once again airborne. This is repeated for about 10 minutes for the price of 25 Euros. Alice rode in the boat with the driver and took pictures and a short video with her camera and acted as the spotter as well. I wanted to watch from the beach as the driver mostly accelerates away from the beach so you get a good view of the rider. Steve said it was a blast, but his arms ached the next day from hanging on. After Steve rode the thing, the driver asked him to ride in the boat with him a few more times to act as spotter. I got to do some topless sunbathing as well!
After the beach Steve went to the gym and I started sorting through stuff to pack. We went in to Chora on the bus for dinner and to look for souvenirs. The bus driver (a bus the size of a tour bus) was on his cell phone while he was driving and was all over the road, which is narrow and twisty anyway. Scary!!
Ate dinner at Vesuvius Pizzeria and
Steve & me
in the Chora Spaghetteria tonight, was really good, but way too much food to finish. Went by the Orange Bar and Alice and I bought T-shirts and said farewell to Panos and Wendy. They were such nice people. Next we went by the Red Bull Bar and Steve got a free T-shirt because we bought so many shots (you get a free t-shirt with the purchase of 7 shots at most of the bars) there the night before. Bought some random souvenirs for people and headed back to the hotel by taxi (bus finishes at 11pm).
We packed while we watched Harold and Kumar in English with Greek subtitles, too funny! Got to bed around 2am and set a wake up call for 8:30am to get the transfer down to the port to get the ferry to Santorini.
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