We just got home from a 2-week visit to Naxos a few days ago. We’re suffering tremendous jet lag, and really miss being in gorgeous Greece, but at least we have thousands of photos we can view to take our mind off the miserable fall weather at home. I’ll be sharing many of those pictures with you in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, I can summarize Naxos in just one word: Amazing!
Eye-popping colours greet guests at the Sun of Mykonos Studios in the Klouvas area of Mykonos island, as this image from the studios’ Facebook page illustrates
Kaleidoscope of colour: A brightly painted hotel on Mykonos catches plenty of attention from motorists driving the highway from Mykonos Town to Ano Mera village and many of the island’s famous beaches.
With its bold red, blue, orange, yellow and green doors, shutters, handrails and decor accents, along with landscaped grounds bursting with brilliant bougainvillea blooms, geraniums and other flowers, Sun of Mykonos Studios is a veritable kaleidoscope of colour that turns the heads of many people passing by on the island’s busy main highway.
But I’m surprised that its reasonable rates don’t stop more people in their tracks or draw a waiting list a mile long.
Although Mykonos is one of the most expensive tourist destinations in Greece, Sun of Mykonos offers 35 air conditioned studios at amazingly affordable rates.
From September 1 to 15 of this year, for example, the standard nightly rate for a double room was €40, while a triple was €60 and an apartment for 4 persons was just €80. Even in August, which is the ultimate peak season for travel to the Greek Islands, a room was still available for €85 per night.
The Sun of Mykonos Studios has a swimming pool with sunbeds and a poolside bar. The property is only 900 meters from Ftelia beach.
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This Apiranthos travel video runs nearly two and a half minutes. It was posted online by YouTube member naxosislandtv.
Marble & museums: When we visited Naxos in 2006, we rented a car so we could do one of the much-recommended round-the-island drives and visit some of the scenic mountain villages — including Apiranthos — along the way. We wound up seeing far less than we expected, thanks to the weather.
When we picked up the car shortly after breakfast, it was already 29 degrees Celsius (84 F). By the time we reached the mountain village of Filoti, the temperature was in the mid-30s, and we felt like we were going to melt after only a few minutes of walking around. We got back in the air conditioned comfort of the car and headed on, planning to stop at Apiranthos, but as we approached the village the dashboard thermometer showed it was a scorching 38 degrees outside. There was no way we could drag ourselves around the village in that heat, so we didn’t even bother getting out of the car and just kept on going. We eventually stopped at the Apollonas coastal resort area, where it was only marginally cooler at the seaside.
Marble architecture & four museums
It was a huge disappointment not to see Apiranthos, which we’d heard is one of the most beautiful villages on the island. Boasting marble buildings and marble-paved streets and squares, along with four museums (the Archaeological Museum, Folk Art Museum, Geological Museum and Museum of Natural History), the medieval village certainly sounded like a place we would enjoy. We thought we would get there during our next Naxos visit, in 2009, but we didn’t rent a car that trip and never made it to Apiranthos. We didn’t have a car during our brief stop in Naxos in May of this year, either, so the village remains on our Naxos “must-see” list.
With luck, we might finally get to see it when we return to Naxos next month. If we do make it there, you’ll see our photos (and maybe some videos, too) here on the blog. In the meantime, check out the videoclip above for a quick peek at the scenic village.
The cover of The Ionian Islands online travel guide, published by the Greek National Tourism Organisation, features a photo of a sailboat anchored near Navagio beach on Zakynthos (Zante) island
Free download: A new online travel guide for the Ionian Islands is now available from visitgreece.gr, the official website of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO).
The 88-page guide features maps, useful phone numbers, descriptions of must-see sights and must-do activities on each island, plus dozens of gorgeous full-colour photos. It’s organized into seven separate sections: Corfu, Diapontia Islands, Paxoi, Lefkada, Kefalonia, Ithaca and Zakynthos.
The guide is available in English, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Russian versions. To obtain a copy of the guide, click on this link to the GNTO downloads page, scroll down, and click on the flag that represents the language you prefer.
Don’t be surprised if you start dreaming of a holiday in the Ionians after seeing just the first few pages of the guide! Below are two of the images that appear in the publication. click on each photo to view a fulls-size version.
The Ionian Islands guide credits photographer G. Augoustinatos for this beautiful image of Antisamos on Kefalonia
The gorgeous sky-blue sea off Porto Katsiki beach on Lefkada. The GNTO guide credits this photograph to the Lefkada Prefecture.
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