Paros Day 1

We didn't do much at all today and mostly lazed around and read and relaxed.  The day started with a trip to the local store to buy provisions for the next few days which is interesting because we can't read Greek so we just have to go on the pictures and a little bit of guesswork.  Sometimes this throws up some nice surprises but it seems that supermarkets are supermarkets the world over, the sizes may vary but essentially they all have what we need to live.  Greece has a different schedule to S.A, they get up very late and go to bed really late not to mention a little bit of a siesta in the late afternoon.  The view from our balcony looks like this ...

 The house we're in is amazingly cool, even when it is quite hot outside the house is chilly so much so that we are keeping the doors and windows open to let some of the heat in.  At about midday the Van der Riets went down to the beach to swim and laze around and I joined them for a bit but Caron put in a serious siesta of about 3 hours.  The water is quite chilly and it takes a little getting used to; I might consider a swim if it gets scorchingly hot and I really need to cool down.

At about 17:00 Carl and I went for a 25 min run up and around the back of Naoussa and coming back down through the centre of town we checked out the beach which Kirsten and Carl found last night and decided that a second visit was in order so once we had showered we all traipsed back down to the beach which is a little tucked away.

While we were sitting there this, I presume, Greek Orthodox minister came strolling past and I couldn't resist a snap.  He greeted us with what sounded like 'Christ be with us' but in Greek so the the only word we made out was Christos and the rest was guess work.

As the sun when down I got a little snap happy so I have dozens of more or less the same view but with changing light.  The adjectives and photographs that describe or show the scene don't really do it justice, it was just perfect.  A slight breeze and warm enough that one didn't feel chilly and the golden glow of the setting sun painting the scene in gentle colour.  Just amazing.

 The restaurant that we were at was horrendously expensive and fortunately Carl paid the bill :-)  The cocktails that we had were pretty good but the pizza thereafter was pretty average.  Nonetheless, it made for a great evening.

One has got to love the colours in the photograph below.

Once we had finished and the sun was well and truly down we wandered through the streets to find that the day only really started after dark and that all the shops were open which made it a slow walk home because as a lightbulb is to a moth, so is a shop to Kirsten and Megan.

Although we didn't really do anything today, we were all pretty tired and very ready for bed!  I think I am going to have to explore more of the centre of town and see if there aren't any more hidden gems lurking there.