Naxos – my favourite island!

My Christmas wish for this year was to celebrate Christmas on Naxos. It is a big island, lot to do, many people around even if it is winter, and shops are open.

The marina is in town so everything is in short distance. It was only a couple of hours to sail from Paros and I took this photo when we arrived in the marina.

The harbourmaster Grigorio met us in the harbour and helped us to moor. We got a great deal for a month here, it is sometimes nice to just relaxe in a marina, specially through Christmas and New Year.

Two days later they had the Christmas Tree Lightning with music and choir. A lot of people joined!

They also had fireworks!

A nice Christmas Tree at the square.

A video from the Christmas Tree Lightning:

Some nice decorations in the streets.

We hired a car for the whole months to explore the island. I bought a map and marked all places I wanted to go. The first day we took the northern part of the island, and our first stop was at the Tower of Ayia. There are many towers on Naxos but most of them you can only see from the outside. It was a nice trail down to this tower, not far from the road.

The exact year of construction is unknown; however, it is estimated that the imposing tower was built during the 17th century

The village of Apollonas, on the northeast coast of Naxos.

Kouros of Apollonas

In the hill behind Apollonas you can find the Kouros of Apollonas. This is a 10,7 meters tall statue made of light grey Naxian marble with the weight of around 80 tonn. It is dated  around the turn of the seventh and sixth centuries BC.

I am getting very small together with the Kouros!

After visiting the Kouros we drove down to Aollonas. It is a quiet place on this time of the year,

But I guess it is a beautiful place to stay in the summer.

Restaurants along the beach, only one open today.

After Apollonas we drove up the hill, and it was really up hill! From zero to 600 masl!

Koronos

The village of Koronos.

We had a short stop here, here I am sitting at the square outside the church.

Koronos is a really beautiful village with small, narrow streets.

With a lot of nice details, and of cours, MANY steps!

Narrow stairs!

Stairs in all directions! Nice place to excercise!

More stairs!

***

We walked down the village, and we wanted to walk over to the other side, but we realized we didn`t had time if we should reach the waterfall, that was on the top of our list for today.

We had a plan to see more in this area but we realized that the time was running and the day is short at this time of the year. So we left Koronos and drove further up the hill. The view when you are driving in this area is amazing.

One of the many churches on the island!

Routsouna Waterfall

Our next stop is Routsouna Waterfall and the trail starts from the village Keramoti. Here is the serpentine road down to Keramoti.

My biggest problem when we arrived in Keramoti was empty phone battery!!! Is it possible?? Luckily Astor had enough battery and we could make a video from this hike.

It was easy to find the trail, just walk through the village and you will find it at the end. You will see a lot of goats along the trail.

We were walking to the west and all the way it was amazing views.

Taking some photos of flower!

Beautiful flower!

Finally at the waterfall.

It was also a bench and table for our lunchbreak!

We were so surprised when we came here, it was so beautiful, like paradise!

We tried to take some nice photos!

Like art?

Astor was climbing a little bit to take some photos closer to the waterfall.

I could have been here for hours, but we had to walk back before sunset.

Here is the video from todays exploring:

On the way back to the boat we had a beautiful sunset in the mountains.