Day 15: Hello Naxos

Trip

Greece 2022

Location

Naxos 🇬🇷

Date

September 10, 2022

Never judge a city when you first meet it at night. Not that we really had a chance to make any judgment yesterday, as we were picked up and driven the one kilometre to our hotel. This morning, Naxos still feels off to us. The roads don’t have sidewalks like Astypalaia, but, contrary to our previous digs, they are used by quite a few cars, forcing us to weave through and dodge traffic.

First stop was a local coffee roaster. The one thing that we haven’t had since Rhodes. The Rebel Project offered a choice of origins (our first since we left Canada) and made two delicious double cappuccinos. While the Google Maps description might talk of brunch and more, it isn’t the food place.

We kept going and had breakfast right next to the Temple of Apollo’s Door (Portara). A symbol of Naxos that’s right on the port. The Naxos Apothecary doesn’t sound like a good place to eat, but it’s actually a good restaurant with a chill atmosphere and a great terrace. We initially thought they were one of the rare places that focus on local ingredients and dishes. While they do it with a twist by separating the dish by villages, we later found out that pretty much every restaurant will focus on local ingredients. Not surprising when you think about it. Naxos is one of the rare islands that has become self-sustaining in terms of food. They farm what they eat, so not having local ingredients is an effort, not the other way around.

We had a good meal and headed out to find laundry facilities. Unlike other places we’ve visited, there’s no laundromat here. There are laundry services that will take dirty laundry, wash, dry and fold it for you, however. With our quick-dry, all-wool or synthetic clothing, we didn’t trust them to put anything in the dryer. For one, I didn’t think my merino wool boxer shorts, going from medium to extra small, would make the rest of the trip comfortable. They probably thought we were crazy foreigners, but for 6€, Laundry Clean Express took in our load of laundry and ran it through a washer for us. We were told it would be ready by 17:00, and it was. We found a nice plastic bag waiting for us to keep everything else dry.

Laundry in the capable hands of the laundry people, we went exploring. The Naxos Archeological Museum closes at 14:00 and doesn’t reopen. We arrived a little after 14:00 and decided to explore the Venetian Castle, home to the museum. One important thing to note is that there’s very little of the ancient Castle left (other than the closed museum). The road and alley layout, along with the buildings on top of the small hill that created the castle's perimeter, are very much Venetian, but that’s about it. If, like Karine initially, someone is expecting a proper castle, they’ll be sorely disappointed.

We stopped at Avaton 1739 for some wine. Their terrace, inside the castle, overlooks the city and was a great place to stop and relax while we waited for 17:00 and laundry.

The big thing, I’m told, is to watch the sunset at the door of the Apollo temple. When told of this, I imagined the sun setting through the door with either the sea or the city in the background, creating that beautiful landscape worthy of the best painters. It’s not even close to that. The door opening has a 300° orientation (North West) if seen from the city or 120°(South East) if seen from the sea. None of this is even close to lining up with the sunset. You could get the side of the door in your picture if you’re there an hour in advance with all the other lemmings. But it’s a sunset over an island across a bay, big whoop. We could have saved ourselves the trouble by sitting by the port and enjoying the same view without queuing up to go down the stairs and back to the port.

We had Apéro at Honey & Cinnamon Cocktail Bar. Good little terrace, comfortable. They made a good but sweet cocktail for Karine, and I had an OK glass of wine. We then went back to the Apothecary for dinner and sampled the famous Naxos cheese, followed by local meat and pasta. An enjoyable meal that felt a little rushed, as the bill was brought just as our mains arrived. It was normal at breakfast and at the bar, but it left us with a weird feeling at dinner.

After a day, we can say that while Naxos offers a broader variety of food and it’s all been good, the city itself felt more touristy and busier than anything else. We’re hoping tomorrow’s hike in the mountains will help skew our opinion back to something more positive.