THE SUNRISE

We had read about the amazing sunset from above the church, so we planned to get up early and make the climb. The alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. and it was already getting light out. We threw on some clothes and literally went running out the door. I thought I would have a heart attack by the time we got up to the church. We then realized we had to go to the top of the peak above the church. (A good ways up the side of a mountain.) We climbed some terraces and finally reached the top. Actually we went to one peak and realized we had missed the high peak and I made Josh hike even some more. 

It was quite peaceful on top of the mountain at 5:30 in the morning. The ocean looked like glass with only a few fishing boats out. It seemed as though the only other living creatures at that moment were the roosters, donkeys and goats. As we sat waiting for the show, the sky had already started to glow red and a few roosters had now woken up. A herd of goats was on the adjacent hill and we watched as two of the younger goats got adventurous and took off down the side towards the ocean. We never saw what happened to them. It took ½ hour for the sun to finally poke out from the horizon. It was a red slice as it peeked out and quickly turned to yellow ball of fire. We sat on the rocks and watched until the sun was pretty high in the sky and headed back down towards our warm bed. As we stumbled back down the hill, we found that a herd of goats was blocking the last gate to get back onto the church grounds. We kept walking towards them, thinking they would scatter once we got close. We were wrong. As we got close, the Granddaddy goat started at us. He didn’t appear to be stopping and we back up a little. When we realized he really wasn’t stopping, and getting quite close, we got a little worried and started running up the steep incline.  Rocks were falling out from under our feet and we had no other option but to climb the church wall.  The wall was made of stones and we worried that it would crumble if we climbed on it. With Granddaddy Goat hot on our tails, we tried our luck and made it over the fence successfully.

A LAZY AFTERNOON & LUNCH AT POUNTA

Before heading back to the studio, we went to the bakery as soon as it opened at 7. We got some delicious croissants (one stuffed with spinach and the other ham and cheese) and headed back to the hotel. After doing some wash, we accidentally fell back to sleep and didn’t’ wake up until 11.  We were still exhausted when we woke up and decided to go relax at the pool and read for a few hours.  Josh was quite burned from our hike yesterday, so he found some shade while I lay in the sun. After a few hours, we got hungry and decided to try Pounta while it was still open.  I think I overheard the Owner saying that he closes each day at 4. The back patio at Pounta is really peaceful.  A few other couples were there and we were allowed to order off of either the breakfast or lunch menu. I was craving something different and hadn’t tried the Greek yogurt, yet. I ordered the yogurt with fresh fruit and honey. It was delicious and hit the spot. I now understand people’s love for Greek yogurt. It was light and whipped.  Josh had the “special potato salad” which was a warm salad with potatoes, zucchini, carrots, olives, capers, salt, pepper, olive oil & onions. He wasn’t crazy about it.

ANO MERIA

We had checked the bus times before lunch and headed out to the square to catch the first afternoon bus to Ano Meria, the other town on the island. We didn’t really know where to go or what to do in Ano Meria, but the bus driver told us to get off at the very last stop. He explained that the Folk Museum was back down the main street. We decided just to walk through the town, making our way back towards the museum. There really wasn’t much for us to look at in Ano Meria. We were able to see some of the terrain that we hiked yesterday and we realized we were glad we hadn’t continued on to hike to the last beach and then to Ano Meria after our lunch at the Terrace restaurant.  We knew that the next bus wouldn’t leave for two hours and we figured we could easily waste two hours just wondering around. The highlight of the walk through Ano Meria was the two old mills. The rest of the sites were mainly farm land and a couple restaurants. Only one looked as if it had opened for the season. We found the Folk Museum , but a local man across the street motioned that it was closed. It was only 4 and our guidebook said it didn’t open until 5. We weren’t sure if it would open or not, so we took the next bus back. We climbed up to the museum to rest in the shade while we waited for the bus.

DINNER AT PIZZA PAZZA(?), CHORA RESORT & FINDING EL GRECO!

Back at the hotel, we grabbed our books and some wine and headed down to the terrace again. There was a good breeze and the hotel turns on lounge music in the evenings. It was so peaceful with the ocean below us. Before we even realized it, it was already 8.  By nine, we had showered and were heading back out for dinner. 

On the bus ride we saw the back portion of Chora that we had never explored before. It was past all the squares. As soon as we saw the Chora Resort and a few other restaurants we said “ah-hah!” This must be where El Greco is. I’m not sure why we were so obsessed with finding this bar. I am determined no to be defeated and I wasn’t going to let one little bar get the best of me.  We didn’t go inside Chora Resort but peeked in through the gates. The pool, bar, grounds, etc. were beautiful. I haven’t checked the rates, but if the Cliffside location isn’t necessary, this place was gorgeous. Just off of our impression, this seemed more like a resort while Anemomilos was a family run group of villas. They would be hard to compare as they are so different. Next to the hotel was a cool looking bar that I think was called The UnderRoom. It wasn’t open, though, so I couldn’t check it out. Next to that was Sweet Chora. This was a really cool dessert shop. It was a gorgeous and modern all white shop. Very elegant. It looked brand new. We weren’t in the mood for sweets, so we can’t vouch for the food, but it looked delicious. Nearby was the closed Laomi.

We were in the mood to try the pizza place, so we headed over to El Greco, as it was located upstairs. This was the first place we went that was playing all American music. Rap, hip-hop, Elton John. It was a very eclectic mix of American music. Strangely, we were the only tourists there. The dinner was quite cheap. We got a full size pizza, half Greek - half 4 cheeses, and a Greek salad. After all the work to find El Greco, we weren’t in the mood to go to the bar that night. It looked like a neat place to hang out. It definitely had a bit of a funky vibe to it. On the way back to the hotel, we passed Eva’s Garden which is right past the last square. There was only one table of people inside, but it looked like a nice atmosphere with a lot of lit lanterns.

FINALLY GOT FERRY TICKETS

Before dinner, we headed back to El Diablos to check on the ferry ticket situation again. The girl behind the counter smiled and said that they in fact had gotten the schedule for Sunday. The boat we were expecting was on the schedule. Good thing since it was now Friday night. That was a little nerve-wracking. The Ios stop did get cancelled from our boat, so thankfully that wasn’t our ultimate destination.

We slept way later than expected – almost 11. We were woken up by house cleaning, knocking to see if we were still there. I had woken up at 6:30 when the sunrise shone in the curtains. It was nice not having a schedule for today. We grabbed some printouts of the hikes, the guidebook and got ready for the day. We had heard that Kartego was a good beach, but not included in any of my planned hikes. Cornelia said we needed a motorbike and we told her that we liked to hike. She said we could take the port bus, hike to Livadi and then take a path down to the beach. The bus sign said the next bus wasn’t until 2:30, but the bus driver said there would be one at 1. After getting some cherries, nectarines, salami & water, it was only 12. We went for Plan B and I pulled out my hike from Chora to Angali Beach .

What a cool hike this was. You take some gorgeous old stone staircases out of Chora, down the hillside and cross the main road. The hike detail is good but you really have to place close attention. There was a part where we had to go over a wire fence and head down the hillside after climbing over some almost impassable bushes. We saw another couple confused at the spot for the wire fence. We found our way over the fence and the followed after us. Our directions told us to head towards the log cabin. Well, we hadn’t seen any wood construction on the island. We made our own way through the hillside and finally got down to the first beach – Fira (or Fyra).  The cabin we were aiming for was actually a masonry building.

FIRA BEACH

Fira Beach was completely deserted and very peaceful. It was a tiny stone beach with beautiful crystal clear waters. We took the beach for ourselves and spread our lunch out on the rocks. We ate and watched the waves crash on the rocks.  A few minutes later we continued to the other side of the small beach where the path to Angali continued. 

ANGALI BEACH

After a short climb from Fira, we found ourselves on a small beach that wasn’t named on our printed hike. It was very clear that whoever owned that land did not want us to camp or take our clothes off their, though.

After some more hiking, we got to Angali. In the busy season this beach is supposed to be packed because it is the easiest to reach by bus. Obviously, most people don’t take the route through goat pastures and over fences, like we did. We stopped for a few minutes here and decided to keep going towards Agios Nikolas Beach. This was a quite steep climb up and down here. The path was blocked at one point, but we climbed over as we had seen quite a few people head this way and no one had come back. We came across our Swiss friend here, again, and pointed him towards the good beach areas. From the top of this peak, their were gorgeous views down to all the bays. When we had almost reached Agios Nikolas, we found the Terrace restaurant. 

I don’t know what the actual name of it was, but that is what we called it. It was perched on the side of the hill overlooking the beach. I don’t think it gets more peaceful than this. We got some water, a coke and fried calamari. (Josh kept craving this all trip.) We spent over an hour here sitting, enjoying, writing, reading and listening to the waves crash below us in the breeze. Rejuvenated, we made our way back to Angali, not feeling like we needed to descend down to the last beach. Agios Nikolas looked like a lovely beach though. It had many trees that provided shade and it wasn’t overly packed.

The directions going back got us quite confused. We were supposed to look for a staircase and we missed it.  We actually had to hop another fence that must have been added since the hike directions were written. We got back on course though and started our straight up climb to get over the mountain.  We made it back to the hotel around 5:30 and felt completely gross. The ocean had been quite cold so we hadn’t gone in. Instead we dropped our packs off and got in the pool. Well, we got up to our knees. We then went and were excited to have our first hot showers of the trip.

DINNER AT CHIC RESTAURANT

At 7:30 we headed out for dinner. We walked around for a while and took pictures. (Can you tell this is our favorite time of day to do it?) We were running low on cash and went to the travel agency to cash traveler’s checks. We think it is kind of weird that they are only open at night. Still no word on the ferry for Sunday, yet. We wandered through the Castro area (there is a lot of history there, but I couldn’t tell you without looking it up). It is very quaint with the old homes, archways, tunnels and alleys. This is what I pictured when I thought of Greece before going.  

Our theory each night was to find the busiest restaurants and go there. Tonight it was Chic. I had my heart set on the Spinach Pie, which I had heard was good, but they were out of it. Instead I got the Penne with Roquefort Sauce (I love that this country loves cheese) and Josh got the Pork with herb and mustard sauce and fries. The fries were awesome. They were thin, crispy and drizzled with olive oil. We started with an olive dip – one side was kalamata and the other a green olive.  The meal was very good (especially the olive dip and Josh’s pork dinner) and the restaurant was packed every night we were in town.

After dinner, we checked to see if Baraki was open – nope. We tried to find El Greco, but we couldn’t. We even asked for directions, but that didn’t seem to help. I couldn’t figure out how we couldn’t find a place in such a small town.  Instead, we picked up some fruit for tomorrow’s lunch and checked on the times for the bakery in the morning.

THE BACKWARDS BUS RIDE

We slept in until 9, packed and headed to the center to check out a catch a bus to Fira. Everything went smoothly until we were on the bus. About one mile into the route we came across another bus and couldn’t cross the paths. (The roads are very narrow and hard for even two cars to pass). After sitting there for 15 minutes, with our bus driver on the phone the whole time, our bus backed up and the other bus passed. We had lost 20 minutes, but thought that we would continue on our way now. We weren’t sure what was going on, but the bus then started backing up the entire way back to the center of Ia. There was lots of yelling between the bus driver and a few locals on the bus. We ended up taking another route down by the sea, although, I don’t think it was any faster. My guess is that we were so far off now that they just wanted to avoid the first half of the stops. One couple was so mad that they refused to pay until they got to Fira. The money guy gave them a stern look and told them to be more polite. The one good thing was that we got a free tour of even another part of the island. We went by Sigalas Winery and the scenery was pretty.

Luckily, we had left really early and still had 30 minutes to kill before catching our bus to the port. WE went up the main road in Fira and stopped another travel agency. They told us the same thing – no ferries on Sunday. This was upsetting and we figured there was nothing we could do from here. We would wait until we got to Folegandros to figure out what to do. I went back to the bus station while Josh went to find food. Ten minutes later he returned with no food. He didn’t look happy and said that he spent all his time waiting at the gyro place and they wouldn’t serve him. They served everyone around him and beside him, but completely ignored him. Fira was not making a good impression on us.  Maybe we just weren’t going to the nice places…

OUR EVENTFUL FERRY RIDE TO FOLEGANDROS

Disgruntled, we got on the bus at noon and headed for the port. We found some gyros before loading onto the boat and were off for our 3 ½ hours on the sea. We tried to sit outside, but the wind made it miserably cold and we went inside. We hung out in a quiet cabin area with several other American groups. I was surprised at the number of people who would leave their luggage unattended and go wander around the ferry. At one point the group of four behind us, all went outside to take pictures. While they were gone, two young girls came in. First they stated picking up their guide books. They taking them. I was about to follow the girls to get them back when the girls starting going through luggage.  Being the good person that I am, I went and found the group outside. They came back and followed the girls to recover the taken items. Another young couple seemed to think the kids were harmless until three of the girls started banging on their laptops and pulling the lady’s hair. The boyfriend finally had enough and picked the girls up and took them away.  It was quite amusing listening to the original foursome discuss how this just must be their culture and they wonder if they are real gypsies.

When we got to Folegandros, all the people were huddled by the ramp to disembark. We waiting as the mooring ropes were tied off. All of a sudden there was a huge bang, water fell from above and all the Greek men scrambled inside. One of the huge ropes snapped and came flying down. Luckily, no one was under it. We were ready to get off this ferry!

ANEMOMILOS APARTMENTS

Our host at Anemomilos picked us up in the van and took us up to the hotel. We were immediately more at peace. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful setting. We got a green-line room (trying to save a few pennies) right above the office. No Cliffside room, but still beautiful and a view of the sea through the pergolas across the walkway. Our patio was large and separate from everyone else’s, also. The pool area is nicely screened with lush plants so you can’t see the pool from our terrace.

DISCOVERING THE VILLAGE

After showing us our room, Cornelia told me that she got my email about the ferry problem. She assured me that there was a ferry on Sunday and to get my tickets from Diablos after 6. After getting settled (it was so nice to actually unpack our bags) we went to explore the village a little. We walked up to the church on the hill, Panaglia. It is quite a steep, but short, walk. The view is amazing. The church was quite pretty and their were stairs that allowed you to climb up onto the dome. It was a little windy, so Josh got nervous and made us get down quickly. There were goats and donkeys grazing on the hillside along the path as we walked. Quite different from the touristy place we had just come from.

We then wandered around the village.  Chora (the main town) is a series of five interconnected town squares. They are all quaint and look like something you would see in the movies. Throughout the town are stone paths with white grout that the locals repaint each year.  After we tried to get lost, we went back to get ready for dinner.

O KRITIKIES

Cornelia suggested that we try O Kritikies for some good local meat that night. I wasn’t sure that I was up for goat, but decided to take her word for it.  After a game of chess out on the terrace, we headed out for dinner.  In Santorini, everyone went out to dinner very late – at least after 9. Tonight, we got to the restaurant about 8:15 and over half the tables were already taken. By the time we left, they were completely packed. The crowd was a nice mixture of both tourists and locals. This was the trend we saw during our entire stay at Folegandros.  

Our first waiter was the son of the Owner. When I asked him what was good on the menu, he responded, “Everything. My mother is in the kitchen tonight”. I thought and rephrased my question. “What is your favorite?” He told me that the Mousaka and Pork Steak were especially good that night. We took his advice and ordered those along with grilled feta (with tomato, green peppers, capers and olive oil grilled) and a ¼ of red wine (who knows what kind) and a beer. We were very happy when we got the bill and saw how much cheaper it was to eat here than in Santorini.  The second waiter came over after we were done and said “Today is your first night on the island, right?” I told him yes and asked how he knew. He explained that it was off season and the locals notice everyone who is new. He then brought us pieces of the island specialty dessert (the name has slipped my mind). It is made with sesame seeds and honey. Very good.

THE A BAR

We asked waiter #2 where to go for drinks, as he was our age. He said it was really early in the season so if we saw anywhere with 10 people to go in, because that meant it was packed.  He suggested the bar right across from O Kritikies that starts with an A (the sign was in Greek and even when I tried to translate it, it didn’t make sense) and El Greco. We had heard that the wine bar Kellari was great, but Cornelia told us earlier that it had closed. The owner didn’t own the building and had been forced to leave. However, he had opened a new place called Baraki, over by the grocery store. We went to Baraki first but it was closed.

We headed to the A bar, because it had 10 people! It was very small with a bar and one table at the front and one at the back. On nice nights, they would put tables outside also. I’m not sure how more than 10 people could fit in this place. The bartender was very friendly and had a huge collection of CD’s with some mixing equipment.  At one point I really liked a band he had on. He explained that he wasn’t playing mainstream Greek music and that most people don’t realize that Greek music is so diverse. He described what he played as alternative. At one point he played a Bouzouki album recorded in NYC in 1965 for us. He explained one of the songs where all the Greek people were heading for America . Some of it reminded me of older Shakira Spanish albums.

We must have spent 2 ½ hours in the bar with our host and new friend from Switzerland . we heard what the Greeks really thought about the sinking cruise ship and even discussed why so many people dislike Americans. A larger group of Welsh tourists came in and we went ahead and called it a night.