Our last two days on Naxos were pretty sleepy, but we probably needed it that way after being so busy.
On our third day we rented a car to check out some of the sites outside of Naxos town. Turns out there were really only two that sparked our interest. (There were more, but we saw two of the beaches on our boat trip) The first was Demeter's Temple. The second was the town of Chalkio which is famous for its Kitron liquor. There was also a winery we planned to go to but decided we will be dragging the kids to enough wineries in Tuscany that we could pass one up in Naxos.
First off, our car. A Fiat Panda. Sounds cute. Different to drive a Fiat. Emilie did not particularly enjoy the experience, especially trying to get in and out of first gear. She said it reminded her of her first car, which was not a compliment.
We arrived at Demeter's temple via a bunch of tiny one lane roads through the hills. While it was relatively well signed, we did not get the impression this was a well-established tourist attraction. When we arrived the parking was all on the side of a dirt road, and people were wandering out of a farmer's field. Ruby took this as a good sign as Demeter was the goddess of the harvest. I wasn't so sure. Even so, we parked the car against some bushes and started hiking up through the fields. We caught glimpses as we approached, and sadly these were all we would catch as the site is closed on Tuesdays.
So leaving Demeter's Temple we were way ahead of schedule. Unfortunately Chalkio didn't consume the added available time. I can confidently say that in the time it took Emilie and Ruby to buy new bags, which they are very excited about and are supposedly hand woven on a loom, Graham and I covered the entire town twice.
We visited the distillery, which Emilie and I are sure we visited last time we were in Naxos and had essentially the same five-minute experience, walked the town again as a family, then had an absolutely excellent lunch of spit-roasted meats in a garden under a canopy of grape vines. Chalkio is great. Small, but great. Especially if you like spit-roasted meat and distilled lemon leaves and branches.
We dropped the car off early and went to the beach. Then we grabbed some vegetables from the market to go with the tremendous amount of leftovers. Did we mention that due to our high souvlaki intake, we have been short on vegetables. We are working on that...
We capped off the day with a visit to Apollos Gate to watch the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful, and while Emile and I drank some local Raki infused with cinnamon and cloves the kids took our IPhones and took pictures.
We wrapped up the day with a terrible decision. Gelatto in a bubble waffle cone. For those of you uninformed, bubble waffles are something we discovered about three months ago when we started getting the kids bubble tea. The waffles have nothing in common with bubble tea other than they have "bubbles" as part of the waffle. Using the bubble waffle as a cone makes as much sense as using a belgian waffle as a cone. Both kids were thrilled, finished eating everything and had huge stomach aches.
The water park video was terrific. I felt I was on the float travelling down the tube into the water. The photograph of you dining in the restaurant was beautiful. The colours and action were amazing. I don't believe that Ruby could possibly eat all of her large meal. One customer appears to be choking and another trying to sleep.