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Published: August 15th 2010
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New day, new island… Just a small matter of a ferry journey to ‘get through’ first! Woke up and munched the v delicious chocolate croissants purchased at the bakery yesterday, packed our bags and made our little packed lunch sandwiches for the ferry (bless). Our taxi to take us to the port arrived on time, despite a momentary panic from me! As we were loading our bags into the taxi, out pops Katerina to say goodbye to us (whilst chatting away in Greek, of course), then it was off following the masses to the port in our very hot taxi. We became the foot passengers penned in the hut when we arrived at the port and waited for the ferry to arrive, but thankfully we were in the shade so didn’t mind too much.
The ferry was on ‘Greek time’ so departed 30 minutes late and we found a spot on the ‘sun deck’ of the ferry and got cooked/blown to pieces in the 55 minute journey to Hora (the port of Naxos). Despite the late arrival of our ferry, we still found our pre-booked taxi man holding up the ‘Chloe Spears’ name sign once we’d disembarked. After getting the
obligatory random to join us in our taxi - this time an old man who wanted to smoke his cigarette but must have understood sufficient English that our comment of ‘please don’t light up straight away, it’s too hot!’
We arrived in Mikri Vigla after a long(ish) taxi ride - well by Greek island standards anyway - at Oasis Studios, in a very pretty and quite isolated beach village. Mikri Vigla, which means in Greek ‘little lookout’, is a favourite of windsurfers and kite surfers, but when we arrived there was no wind so we happily headed to Parthenos beach for sunbathing! The beach is gorgeous and yet again there was perfect, clear water to cool off in. Treated ourselves to a post-beach cocktail at Thalasea and then back to our room to change for dinner. We had been advised that there were ‘only’ 5 restaurants in Mikri Vigla and thankfully picked what (in our opinion) is by far the best on our first night - Kontos… But popularity comes at a price, so when we arrived it was so busy we got told to come back in an hour.
Decided to head back to Thalasea for a
drink, so cut back via the sand dunes and past motor homes parked up (illegally, naughty Austrian people who come to windsurf and host beach parties!). Chatted to two English girls who are working/running Thalasea over the summer and they seemed keen to know how we found Mikri Vigla and got the impression that not many English people find it! Dinner at Kontos was eventually at 10:30pm and totally delicious - shared (see, lesson learnt!) a starter of courgette balls and then had meatballs and ‘small fish’ (essentially whitebait, yum…). We left Kontos when the owner’s(?!) son’s birthday party was getting in full swing with fanta and mythos (yummy Greek beer) being dished out. Oh and Chloe had also decided to knock over her glass of water when they started a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday…’, exit stage left and so to bed.
Saturday morning means only one thing, supermarket shopping! Well, not quite like popping around Waitrose but we found a supermarket that had sufficient provisions for making ham and cheese sandwiches, sprite, crisps, water and chocolate croissants! Sat by the pool at Oasis Studios having our breakfast of croissants and coffee, but then got ‘accosted’ by “Stavros” (our
standard Greek man’s name, cheeky I know) - the owner of Oasis Studios - who gave us our history lesson on Naxos and suggested a million and one things for us to do whilst on the island. It was interesting, but we couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty as all we wanted to do was sunbathe for 3 days…
After hiding in our room from the midday sun, we ventured down to the beach armed with a very attractive orange beach umbrella (emblazoned with the Oasis Studios logo, tasteful… Not!). Managed to find a spot on the busy beach - it was Saturday after all - and spent the day chillaxing, popping in and out of the water and watching small French children try to windsurf. Suitably baked by 6:30pm, we retired to our room via panaché by the pool. Not wanting to be creatures of habit too much, we headed out for dinner at Kontos! Although we arrived slightly earlier - just after 9pm - to a very busy restaurant again and only two vacant tables, one of which we quickly nabbed for our own. Ate yummy tzakiki and pitta bread (which doesn’t taste or look
like anything you find in Waitrose, and is much nicer), then mousakka and souvalaki - opted for pork souvalaki, rather than the goat option... Tried the homemade white wine, which tasted fine (when you mixed it with a bit of sprite!) as otherwise it reminded us of sherry. Got given free watermelon for dessert, which happened each time we’d eaten out so far, something that we’d read about in the ‘bible’ (aka the Lonely Planet guide book) but were very happy that it appeared to be reality too! We walked back in the pitch black to our room via a dubious cocktail at the ‘other beach bar’.
Sunday morning, we got up and packed our suitcases as supposed to be moving rooms, but no-one seemed to be overly bothered! So decided to continue the daily routine of coffee and chocolate croissants by the pool, but then when we wandered off for an impromptu photo session of the beach we returned to find that ‘Stavros’ had already moved our stuff to the new room without us knowing. Odd. Anyway, it was now time for the beach so armed with a blue stripy beach umbrella (no subliminal advertising today) we walked
the few steps to the beach - we really were staying in a total beach front location. There was much more wind, which meant that all the windsurfers and kitesurfers that were notably absent over the past few days reared their heads and entered the water too. Despite me trying to keep an eye out, I didn’t see any kitesurfters ‘fly’ out of the water - not too sure if this is a myth that I’ve created in my head or not.
A day of chillaxing passed without incident or trauma, panachés by the pool and then Kontos dinner again - as we daren’t try any of the other 4 restaurants as they don’t seem to be so popular. Sunday night at Kontos was fairly quiet, although the ironic thing was that the whole of our fellow residents staying at Oasis Studios were there having dinner.
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