At the ferry port, one by one buses and car loads of people and their luggage arrived and filed into the undercover waiting area.  There are no set rules like first come first to get on the ferry… although there are some people who definitely thought that rule existed, so as people arrived and naturally moved to the open spaces nearer to the gate, there were some other people who had arrived earlier, but had chosen to sit on the bench further back who couldn’t cope with getting on the ferry after those later people…. so the dragged their suitcases through the waiting crowd.  No excuse me or pardon me… just push your way through.  So as the ferry approached and the gate was making the get ready to run through noises, I got poised.

Note the tongue out for maximum concentration.
On your marks!

Today we were sailing from Naxos to its neighbour Paros just a short 45 minutes on the slow ferry.  So we said goodbye to lovely Naxos…

… and stared wistfully out the sea and other islands

Until we arrived in the Paros port

It was such a beautiful calm day

The port in both islands are very similar with the obligatory white and blue church…

and a windmill.

We were staying in the old part of town where cars are forbidden, so a tiny little one seater motorbike/scooter/ute came to pick up our luggage and we walked with Dimitri, our local go to guy to our hotel – The Argonauta.

Then we got stuck into the shops in the old town.

A restaurant for miniature people

A Paros siren just hanging around in town.

Some of the shops have aircon, but not all of them, so they shop workers sit outside their shop chatting and smoking with the other non aircon’d shop workers…. or if you’re lucky enough to find a vacant one, you could rest your weary shopper legs as well.

Paros has different types of shops which is a refreshing change from shop after shop selling the exact same wares.  We have also been assured in every single shop that we’ve gone into that all their wares are made in Greece, by Greek people, designed by Greek designers – Greek.  Greek, Greek, Greek.

There are lovely little holes in the walls and narrow laneways filled with cafes and restaurants.

We had asked our new best friend, Dimitri where the best beach would be to find sea glass and he said “I don’t know what this sea glass is.”  We explained, “you know the little pieces of glass that wash up on the beach?”  He replied, “Oh, you mean the rubbish?”  “Yep”

Dimitri didn’t know where we would find such a thing and he assured us that all the beaches on Paros were cleaned regularly – not what a collector of treasures is after.

After a damn good wander through one of the main streets, we found ourselves on the beachfront for something to eat at watch the sunset and amazingly enough this beach – right here had the treasures we were after.

We collected by the lowering sun and then watch her set over the mini boat harbour

How pretty is the lady?

I think this gives Broome’s Staircase to the moon a bit of a run for its money.

Whilst dining on Greek Italian food, we watched the ferries come in and out of the port making it quite a spectator sport (accidental rhyme)