Parikia, Greece
We fly to the island of Paros in the Cyclades to begin four days of island exploration. We start with a tour of Paros’ port city of Parikia, with whitewashed buildings and attractive, narrow shopping streets.
Marianne and I enjoyed a prepared-to-order breakfast on the rooftop of the Home and Poetry Hotel in Athens, soaking in one last view of the Acropolis. We were still eating when I got a text saying that our taxi had arrived on the narrow street several floors below.
I sprung up from the table and whooshed down the stairs, skidding into the hotel manager’s office. “Thankyousomuchhere’sthekey,” I blurted, quickly placing the key on his desk. Another guest who had planned his day more effectively was having a pleasant conversation with the manager and stopped abruptly. My agitated demeanor brought concern to both faces. Clearly, there was a bomb I needed to diffuse somewhere or a kidnapper I needed to catch.
“Sorryourtaxiisherewehavetogo,” I added. “Thank you!” I hustled down the stairs, collected my wife and our luggage, and we made it to Athens International Airport… well, quite a bit early, if I’m honest.
We took a short, 40-minute hop southeast from Athens to the island of Paros, our home for the next four days. Paros is one of about 220 islands in the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea. It is best known for the fine marble quarried in the hills at the center of the island. Parian marble, pure white and flawless, was considered the finest in Ancient Greece and was the source material for many masterpieces of classical sculpture.
Paros Airport replaced an earlier, smaller airport in 2016 to meet increasing tourist demand. It’s about six miles south of the port town of Parikia, the biggest town on the island. We picked up our rental car there and took to the road. At that moment, everything changed. We had been on an incredible journey, but its pace and possibilities had been dictated by a cruise company. Now, four days stretched out before us, the itinerary our own. Add to that — I was driving on an island inhabited by the ancient Greeks!
Arriving in Parikia, we passed a row of restaurants and cafes lining the waterfront. We parked and walked one block inland to a parallel street of shops, bright with Cyclades-style whitewash. Marianne and I strolled down the narrow streets with giraffe-print cobblestone, pausing to duck into a few shops.
Among the twisting pathways, we found the tiny, blue-domed Pamegiston Taxiarches Church.
As I waited dutifully outside one of the shops, I spotted a shopkeeper’s son making his own products out of painted rocks and pricing them according to size. Another shopkeeper stopped by, and the boy walked him through his wares.
The boutiques in Paros are unique and well-appointed. We stopped in a shop full of sculptures and were drawn to a row of Cycladic heads, a symbol of Paros. The Cycladic culture thrived on these islands between roughly 3100 BC and 1000 BC., and it used these sculptures — with their striking, lean features formed in Parian marble — as idols in grave offerings.
Squeezed into the middle of the town is Parikia Castle, built in the early 1200s under the direction of Venetian Marco Sanudo. A participant in the Fourth Crusade, Sanudo captured the larger, neighboring island of Naxos on his way to becoming the first Duke of the Archipelago. Two walls and a tower from the original Frankish Castle survive today, showing how the structure was built from the remains of older buildings. Portions of the castle have been whitewashed and incorporated into the modern town; others were lost when an 18th-century earthquake caused a landslide, sending two walls into the sea.
Clouds and sun competed for supremacy as the day wore on. We felt light, in charge of our schedule, and content just to stroll about. We had no tour to catch, no reservation to keep. Days like this feel like they could last forever.
We finished our walk in front of the handsome Saint Nikolaos Holy Orthodox Church and headed to the hotel. In the morning, we would expand our exploration of Paros Island.
Staying In
We checked into the Sunset View Hotel, which earns its name, we would learn.
In situations like this, my inclination is to get out into the city, find a local spot for drinks and dinner, and try to get a genuine sense of the place and its people. But as we looked around our hotel, we realized that we were two of maybe 11 total occupants, and we had the sprawling bar and restaurant area to ourselves. We ordered in and never looked back.