Greece - Paros

This summer Luca and I are able to take two shorter holidays with the time off Luca can get from work. So we decided for the first week to go to Greece, which also fell over our anniversary- we couldn't have celebrated a better way.  

Luca had already been to Greece, but it was my first trip. We knew we wanted to visit the islands and Santorini was a definite must. But other than Santorini we weren't sure which islands to choose. There are so many and our friends talked about each visiting different ones and so it was hard to decided without feeling like maybe we'll miss out on something.  

We were able to find a cheap flight with Vueling to Mykonos. Mykonos is known as a party island and our flight was full of high schoolers or recent graduates who were going to have a good time, but that wasn't our aim so we stayed there just a night, since we got in late, before catching a ferry to Paros the following morning. 

We choose Paros because it's "on the way" to Santorini and because between the island of Naxos and Paros our research told us the Paros was a smaller quieter island. 

As soon as we got off the ferry in Paros we knew we would need a means of transportation to get around the island. We were ripped off by the taxis in Mykonos so we immediately rented a 4-wheeler to get from the port to Naoussa. However there aren't really street names on the islands and so it wasn't so easy finding our hotel. We had to stop three times and ask for help and finally at the last stop the shop owner offered to call the hotel and ask for directions. 

We had four nights in Paros. Each day we visited a different beach. 

On our first full day we visited Kolybimthraes beach. It had a nice cove and there were beach chairs to rent for 2 euros which is a great deal! We relaxed in the shade of pine trees.  On a hill nearby there was a church and we were able to walk on the roof and take some gorgeous photos. 

 In the evening we meandered around the the historical center of Naoussa which is rather small but very quaint and picturesque. We were able to catch a traditional dance performance and found a great spot for happy hour. 

overlooking Naoussa 

Happy Hour bar 

The second day, we ventured out to the complete other side of the island to visit the "famous" Golden Beach. The name probably comes from the long white sandy beach that runs along the coast. It was different from the day before; a lot bigger, super windy, and tons of wind surfers taking lessons from the wind surf school located right there. This time we got 2 beach chairs and an umbrella and enjoyed a nice long lazy afternoon.

Our last full day on the island we visited the other large city where the port is, Parikia, and  in the afternoon we stopped at Parasporos beach. Parikia was absolutely beautiful. It is everything you would imagine Greece to be. There were flowers everywhere and the narrow streets leading you around the white town was dream like. 

Thankfully we didn't run into any problems with the 4-wheeler the whole time as we did see a group of teenagers in a moped accident. The food was great, but I'll probably end up writing a post just on greek food alone. And I can definitely say that we don't feel like we missed out on an island because Paros was pretty amazing.