Chapter 16

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The final cab off the island-hopping rank was the Island of Naxos. The Guide had good things to day about Naxos, with great beaches and Greek artifacts amongst its attractions. But on my previous trip to the islands, I did not think much of Naxos. It was a little too sleepy, a little to ho-hum for my liking. But Mel was keen to take a look (largely based on The Guide's recommendation, I imagine) and I had already imparted enough of my will by proposing we visit Paros and Folegandros to preclude me imparting any more. Besides, perhaps I would appreciate what better appreciate what Naxos had to offer this time around.

Once we had landed on the island, instead of doing the run around for accommodation we had become accustomed to, we sat down for a bit to eat and waited for the post-boat arrival rush to subside. This was a sign that Mel and I had become used to arriving at islands without pre-booked travel. We were becoming just a little brave about it. Blase, perhaps.

That was not the only change to our routine. Mel - who had seemed had enough of scouring around to find accomodation - suggested that we go to the accommodation booking centre by the port rather than walk randomly around the town in pursuit of accommodation. In hindsight I can see this decision made quite a bit if sense. The port town is quite large, certainly larger than most of the towns (of choras) we had visited. To walk around this town with luggage in tow would not only have been taxing, it would have been impracticable. In hindsight I can say this. At the time I felt that Mel was messing with my routine. I don't like having my routines messed with. It is a failing. I don't care. As such, I felt uneasy about this new approach. This unease got worse when the woman we approached at the counter of the accommodation centre went on to tell us about a whole manner of things - beaches, archaeologically significant sites, museums, tourist destinations - other than the one thing we were inquiring about: accommodation. I felt she was trying to distract us from the task at hand. Anyway, Mel expressed a primary desire to be by the beach and a secondary desire to have access to a pool (of course). In response, the woman at the counter initially recommended The Poseidon at €50 a night. He baulked - it just did not seem right for us. She then recommended The Naxos Royal at €80+ (not exactly sure what the '+' means ... let's say it means 'in excess of') a night which looked the goods but was booked out. Eventually, we settled on the Spiros at €70 night. I am not certain what to think of the Hotel Spiros. Our hosts were friendly and paid for our cab from the accommodation to their establishment. It was not expensive, but it was a nice touch. The rooms were large. They were ok, but not notably good. We had to change rooms after the first night, which in itself was no problem. But it was interesting that the room we had on that first night had electrical wires sticking out of the walls. I am quite certain they were not dangerous, but they were a sign of an incomplete room and I feel that it looked unprofessional. In that same room, a copy of a German clit-lit book titled 'Liebe um Mitternacht' (which I cleverly - or at least I would like to think - translated as 'Love at Midnight', much to Mel's delight and I imagine much to the dismay of my Year 9 German teacher who hated me for all the right reasons, but that is a story for another day) had been left behind by the previous tenants. The cleaners had not picked it up, which I again felt seemed unprofessional. On a later excursion on foot, Mel and I saw one of the proprietors / managers walk to the local water tap to fill up a water bottle, as opposed to purchase a fresh drinking water bottle, which seemed a little odd to us. On the plus side, the pool was pretty good and I have to reiterate that our hosts were very friendly, which goes a long way to forgiving any perceived ills.

The remainder of that first day in Naxos was a very lazy one for us. We went straight into afternoon nap mode once we had settled and when we awoke we had a shower and went out to get something to eat, which was tougher than we might otherwise have imagined. On the road from the port to the hotel fronting the beach there are a swathe of places to eat. However, of these about five or six are desert only establishments and only two or three are restaurants or cafes in which you can eat a main course, dinner type meal. I have never before seen a food strip so interested in desert. So we walked up and down the strip a couple of times and were badgered by the people working at them to have a meal at their place rather than their competitors. I hate that. The Lygon St strip in Melbourne, or Little Italy as it is known by the locals, used to suffer from the same thing. Then the local government passed a law banning it. That is a good law. The Naxos local government should pass a similar law.

Anyhow, for want of a better option, we ate at Popi's, run by two Greek Mumma's with whom I imagine you would not mess. They ran their shop their way. They bossed their staff around in the manner that suggested they would always let you know who the boss was. Of all of the people badgering passers by to eat at their restaurant, they were the most vociferous. They were the most persistent. This is not to say they were without charm. Personally, I find matriarchy appealing. I can't explain that. But if they badgered passers by the most and I detest this kind of badgering then logic dictates that there's no way we would have eaten there. But we did. We shouldn't have. Everything was very oily. Mel did not eat her calamari, which was of the lots-of-little-whole-squid variety rather than the rings-of-a-large-squid variety that she - nay, I - am accustomed to. The upside is that the resulting unsatiated appetite left us plenty of scope to try out one of the many aforementioned dessert places. Again, though, our experience was less than fulfilling - my chocolate cake was dry. This might sound picky, but I say that if a food strip places the kind of emphasis on dessert that this one had then you would think that the establishments there might feel a certain pressure to produce the best desserts possible. It would seem they might not. Surely, then, the forces of competition would weed out the string from the weak. My experience was that it did not. Time for me move on, don't you think?
Move on we did, to a €4.50 a pop cocktail spot for a one-off.

Clearly I was underwhelmed with our first day at Naxos. Perhaps it is because I was expected to be underwhelmed.