Clouds soar above Agriolivado Bay on Patmos
Author: admin (Page 74 of 109)
Looking across the brilliant turquoise sea as waves softly break against the sand at Agios Prokopios beach on Naxos
Feeling the chill: Clouds. Wind. Rain. That pretty much sums up the dreary, depressing weather we’ve been experiencing here in Toronto since late October, when Hurricane Sandy started moving out of the Caribbean on its way to wallop the USA’s eastern seaboard. We were supposed to see a mix of sun and clouds on Sunday, Monday and again today, but the sunshine didn’t last for more than a few minutes. So you can imagine how envious I felt this morning when a friend in Athens bragged about being on her way to the beach because it was a balmy 29 degrees (Celsius).
At the time, I was sorting through photos from our visits to Naxos in 2005 and 2006, looking at pictures of some of the island’s beautiful beaches. Just out of curiosity, I checked the weather for Naxos. The island wasn’t getting the same blast of heat as Athens, but the temperature was still a summery 24 C. Meanwhile, we were shivering with a high of only 2 C.
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Chora, the scenic main village on Ios, is viewed in this panoramic photo shot from a hilltop on the south side of town. Click on the photo to view a larger-size image.
No more squinting: The narrow display column on my blog limits the size of photos I can publish — and that simply doesn’t do justice to panoramic or widescreen pictures that must be scrunched to fit the tight space. But the new app I mentioned in my previous post (the one below, featuring photos from our hike in the valley above Aegiali on Amorgos) now lets me publish pictures that will literally pop out of the page into a larger, easier-on-the-eyes format when you click on them.
This gives me the chance to share some shots of what is not only one of the most picturesque towns in the Cyclades, but also one of my favourite Greek Island villages — Chora, on Ios (often called Ios Town by many).
A typical Cycladic village of whitewashed buildings and blue-domed churches, Chora straddles the top of a wide hill roughly midway between the Gialos port and beautiful Mylopotas beach. The village actually is wedged between three other hills, including one to the south, one to the east, and an even bigger rocky peak to the north.
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Looking toward the whitewashed houses of Langada village from the opposite side of the vast valley above Aegiali Bay on Amorgos. Click on the photo to view a larger-size image.
Ahhh-morgos! A friend planning a short trip to Amorgos contacted me last week, asking for some travel advice and links to my photos so she could take a sneak peak at the scenery she and her travel companion would soon be enjoying first-hand.
While I was scouring my computer for information and photos from our visit to Amorgos in 2009, I discovered a series of panoramic pictures I haven’t posted either here on the blog, or in any of my online albums, because the images are simply too large. When re-sized to fit in the narrow column on the blog, the photos would be almost too small to view. Some would be so tiny, I thought it would be a waste of time to publish them. But then another friend familiar with the technical workings of WordPress blogs showed me a handy-dandy trick for displaying larger images.
Photos from our half-day hike around Aegiali valley
I decided to give it a try, so below is a series of photos that we shot during a half-day hike around the valley above Aegiali Bay. (Amorgos is a hiker’s paradise, and the valley walk is just one of many incredibly scenic routes on the island.)
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With its wide variety of reading material (as well as food and beverages), this café on Folegandros gives a whole new meaning to the expression “book a table”
The café tables and books are in shade while a lush canopy of bougainvillea vines catches the brilliant morning sunshine above a row of whitewashed houses
The café is situated in one of the three charming town squares in Chora village. Filled with taverna tables, the squares are all shaded by plane trees.
A customer writes in her journal while enjoying a coffee in the quiet square