April 23: Naxos

I woke up to the sound of church bells. I tried to capture a video of the bells, but the audio may be quite faint:

I went out onto my balcony and enjoyed one of the cans of iced coffee I purchased the day before. Here I am looking sleepy with bed head:

As I was enjoying my iced coffee there was a loud crash nearby, followed by a woman yelling in Greek. There were more crashes, some door slamming, more yelling, and sobbing. Obviously someone was having a rough start to the day.

After I finished my iced coffee I got dressed and decided to walk up to Chocolat Cafe Creperie for breakfast. I ordred scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, orange juice, and coffee. I was feeling much more civilized after that.

I decided that my legs and back needed a rest day, so I did a wee grocery shop on the way back to the hotel to restock my sandwich supplies and beverages, and spent the rest of the day in the pool. Cindy and Sandy were there, too, and we had good chats throughout the day.

Toward the late afternoon we were all feeling hungry. They asked me to join them for dinner and I got a better description of the restaurant they had recommended, Scirocco. It turns out it wasn't in the port - it was just one block past the Chocolate Cafe Creperie! I knew I could walk that far, so we agreed to meet up at 4:00pm and go for dinner.

The staff at the restaurant greeted us warmly. They obviously recognized Cindy and Sandy, since they had eaten there the last few nights. That's the thing about Greek restaurants - if you go back repeatedly, they recognize you and you get treated like family. Cindy and Sandy shared pita, tzatziki, dolmades, and eggplant imam ("little shoe"). I ordered fried zucchini balls with yoghurt dip and lemonades (lamb stew with lemon) and rice. The food was delicious!

Lemonades and rice (front):

Eggplant imam ("little shoe"):

One of the servers, Vangelis, sat down with a glass of iced coffee and started chatting. It turns out he lived on Naxos in 1979 when Sandy first visited. He pulled up some pictures from that time that he had on his phone and he and Sandy started reminiscing about what Naxos was like back then.

After Vangelis left, one of the owners (I presume) came over with another server, a young man called Giorgios. The owner explained that it was Giorgios's name day (after Saint George) and we all needed to give him a kiss. Maybe it was his name day, maybe it wasn't, but I was more than happy to kiss a handsome young Greek man! So, I gave him the double-peck. That's the most action I've had in years.