On Travels - The Greek Islands - Paros.
Okay, I've been pretty damn slack lately, and I haven't written much on the whole travel thing much at all. So, before I completely forget what I got up to, I should probably get something down. I don’t know how detailed its going to be, but I'll endeavour to make it understandable at least.
But, right now, I'm sitting on a train, heading into London again, for the second time in two days, heading to a pub. Again. Ahhh, but I'm having a good sociable time though, so I can’t complain too much. /Matt suppresses the tiny whimper of complaint that comes from his liver.
Announcement over the train PA: Customers are requested not to smoke in the toilets on this train, as the smoke detector alarm applies the brakes on this train, causing delays to your service. Ahhh - that explains why we were sitting at that station for so long...
Anyway, I'm supposed to be writing about travels in Greece, not travels into London.
So, I'm pretty sure that the last thing I wrote about was Santorini, so, that means its about time to write about Paros.
Paros is a pretty quiet and small place, and didn't grab me too much. Could've had something to do with the fact that we caught a 6.30am ferry there... But, once again, we managed to find some cheap accommodation - a little kid was waiting at the ferry, trying to convince people to go to his dads hotel - Amy got sucked in, but it turned out to be okay. Not really a place where it was easy to meet other people though.
Once again, we did the scooter hire thing, and went off to explore the island. Was very cool to ride solo. And, once again, they didn't have a helmet that fitted comfortably, so went without. Pretty cool to be riding along with the wind in your hair at about 60 or 70 kays, but every now and then, you realise how insane you're being and slow down a bit... <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>
There were some absolutely cool views up at the north end of the island, and we managed to find some some dirt roads to have a bit of fun with <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>. But then daylight savings sodded off to sunnier climes, and it got dark pretty early - pretty disconcerting, and annoying to. So, ended up having a quiet evening, and didn't do a heck of a lot. Not that there was much to do, as it was past the end of the season, so not much open.
The following day we headed off on the bikes again, and explored the rest of the island. We'd heard there were some ancient quarries that were pretty cool, but, they'd also seemed to have taken a holiday, and joined daylight savings on its cruise in the south Pacific. We did however, find a monastery at the top of a hill, which really wasn't that exciting, and also a few cool small villages, but really, they weren't that exciting either. We found a small village with a cool harbour, and sat on the pier and ate lunch.
But then we had to take the bikes back, so it was back to the main town (not that I can remember what it was called). Went in and checked out the 'church of a thousand windows' (I think it was called that at least), which is apparently pretty famous. Was pretty cool, but had that 'overdone' look that Greek Orthodox churches seem to go for.
Did a bit of random wandering through the backstreets, which was quite enjoyable. Some pretty cool houses there. Found the public toilets, which were those lovely squat toilets - not good <IMG alt=:( class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-6.gif" border=0>. I point-blank refuse to use them - I don’t know how anyone can.
Other than that, the only other thing of note was Amy getting chatted up by this Romanian guy, which was quite a laugh from my point of view, but not quite from hers... <IMG alt=":)" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-1.gif" border=0>
Then, it was onto the ferry, heading back to Athens, where we stayed again in our friendly HI hostel - a hostel that we saw waaay to many times on this trip. Which I believe, leaves us on November 1st.