When leaving for holiday, I told my co-workers that I was going to sit on an island and do nothing. I was off to a good start our first day on Naxos. We grabbed a couple of beach chairs, lathered up with sun (screen) cream and soaked up a bit of sun while listening to the waves lap against the shore. Ah… holiday!
Naxos was a great low-key island. It has great beaches and plenty to do, but isn’t overloaded with tourists. It does have a healthy share of tourism and the typical shops and restaurants that come with it. But it also has substantial industry otherwise supporting a good population of friendly locals. This mix allowed us to enjoy generous portions of great home cooked Greek meals as well as get fruity drinks delivered to our beach chairs.
We stayed in the north of the island on the edge of the main town. Our hotel was convenient to the beach and a short walk from the main street of restaurants and shops.
The highlight of our time in Naxos was Wednesday, which happened to be our 9th wedding anniversary. We rented bicycles and rode about 40km to the south of the island taking in the scenery and local character. It was a windy day which brought out the wind surfers an kite boarders in full force. It was fascinating to watch them zig zag across the sea skipping and jumping over the waves. The wind also made our ride fly by which we noticed on our return trip where we had to pedal twice as hard!