naxos - windsurfing and more sunsets

I was finally getting the hang of this relaxing holiday thing in Santorini when it was time to go. Jess and I got the afternoon ferry to Naxos and realised straight away it was beautiful and interesting in a different but good way. No huge cliffs with soaring views, but instead less crowded lanes, a beach to walk to and sunsets based around an ancient ruin.

We managed to just miss the sunset our first night after arriving quite late with the ferry. The accommodation we booked was apparently full somehow so the guy took us to one of his friends places, same conditions just bigger and still the same location. 

We had a delicious dinner as usual on the port at one of the recommended restaurants and picked up some fresh fruit with yoghurt and honey to make our own much cheaper version of the nicest ever breakfast. 

Since we were fully adjusted to island relaxing time the next day we wondered down to check out the beach and stayed there for a few hours. 

I had read that Naxos was famous for it's windsurfing and with no plans other than eating and chilling we decided we should give it a go. Luckily there was an afternoon taster session running at the school on the end of the beach so we signed up and before we knew it we were zipping all over the bay. Kind of. Mostly in the wrong direction. But it was awesome to try something new and we even paid for an extra hour to try and improve a bit. Who knows when I'll ever do that again!

After that is was back to doing nothing until it was time to head out for the sunset. Jess and I had been saying how Naxos wasn't as nice as Santorini in terms of cute lanes and old places, until we discovered them all in the old part of town on our way to the waterfront. They were actually better than Santorini because they weren't full of people! 

This time we actually caught the sun as it went down, and fought with all the other people trying to get the shot from the one particular angle through the archway. It was really windy though!

This lead to us meeting a lovely Australian girl, Sam, who we went to dinner with in a restaurant in a tiny lane with traditional Greek live music. We stayed so long the owner brought us free wine. Bonus! 

(It wasn't really empty I just took that when we left!)

The next morning we had a quick swim before heading to the port for our ferry to Mykonos. 3 hours early. Whoops. We wondered how we were the first people in line in the holding pen before realising the ticket said a different time to our original booking and since we had luggage and there wasn't anything more we could do in Naxos town we just hung out on the port! 

Freddo espresso (no idea why it's called this) and spinach pie. Favourites!

Naxos is actually quite a sizeable island as well and if you had more time you could explore the rugged hills and there beaches and small towns more. Ours was a rather fleeting visit but enough to give a taste of how the islands all differ so much and each one is worth a visit for different reasons. 

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