Part Two: Day One on Naxos (and a touch of Santorini)

No doubt, my fellow philhellenes (--I know you're out there, somewhere) are thinking, "Aren't you going by boat from Crete to Naxos? Wouldn't that make you and Suzy Theseus and Ariadne, not Odysseus and Penelope?" Well, my astute brethren, I hold to the version of the story in which Ariadne is killed, most outrageously (but also most properly, by aesthetic standards) in a storm on Naxos before she and Theseus can really soldify their fateful partnership. See, here she is, on Naxos, only half formed:

And that is why I grab hold of Penelope instead... And with that glimpse of just how weird it is to be married to me (--until now, a closely held family secret), I bring you Part Two of our Greek adventures: Naxos.

Actually, we had a brief interlude in Santorini, which, thanks to Grandma Martha, is very much worthy of mention.

It was here that we jumped on a bus for curiosity's sake to check out one of three cliffside cities on top of the 7-mile-long plateau island.

50 Euros for about twenty minutes on top, and for one perilous bus descent that made Suzy and Maggie and most of the kids scream silently at every turn. (This picture was at the beginning of the bus ride, not the end.)

A bite to eat, and then it was back on a ferry, and off to Naxos.

(That doughnut helped keep Scout from flying off the deck.) Though I ditched Ariadne, the wind of the last part of her story stayed with us. Actually, it seemed like the whole world ditched us. We had arrived a day or two after the end of tourist season, and, apparently, on a holiday weekend to boot; so, aside from our wonderful apartment owner, we felt utterly alone at first.

Well, not totally alone.

The kids, Kiefer especially, fell in love with a couple of kittens among a whole extended family of stray cats that the owner of our apartment fed regularly.

I, for one, was thinking we might have to eat one or two of the cats, if we did not find an open supermarket soon. But right about the same moment I had the plumpest one pegged, the nearest restaurant did open up, and we had a great first meal. Even a limited menu at a restaurant in Greece was many many times over delicious.

The next day, our first whole day on Naxos, was a relatively wind-free day on the beach. Still a bit nippy, but it was a great day, best told in pictures.

Great as this day was, it was the next day, the windy day, that became the unanimous favorite of the whole trip, and that I will tell you about next...