Colourful fishing boats, white washed churches, clouds of bougainvillea, crazy caves and an easy vibe we liked immediately. Paros promised us a week of beach combing, hiking and a couple of days with car… now we’re talkin’!
After picking up our little car we set off to explore the island we had a map and many highlighted places that Arsenia (our landlady) had insisted we should see. First on our list was the small inland village of Lefkes.
After wandering up to the well known church and admiring the arcitecture and the view, we caught sight of a sign pointing to a walking trail. Old Byzantine Road it said. It looked intriguing… why not? We spent the rest of the day hiking along the ancient polished marble stones of a road laid in Roman times, a thousand years ago. Absorbing wonderful views and vistas among wild sage and thyme, ancient olive, almond and fig trees. We made it to the Aegean and had a well earned lunch (lamb and wild mountain greens ). A truly spectacular hike and so unplanned. A real highlight for us.
Paros, throughout history has been famous for its marble. The Venus de Milo, Hermes and nearly 90 percent of all notable greek sculptures began here. All mined or quarried out of these dusty hills dating back 3,000 years. As we drove up to the site we could see the scarring of the marble quarries above us, but the mine entrance was quite hidden. After a bit of scrambling, we found two cave entrances all open (there are no safety measures here you are on your own !!) – We were the only people there which added to the magic of this long dis-used place. Anywhere else this would be a major tourist attraction. Caves are are pretty scary for me so I stayed close to the entrance!,
The first one, a deep cold tunnel going down forever. Hard to imagine in Roman times 150,000 slaves worked in this dark dank place, I’m sure in very dangerous conditions.
The second one we found, had incredible relief sculptures on the wall at the entrance, (behind the grill Lance is looking at). A two thousand year old carving just there, carved into rock to protect the original miners. It was incredible to imagine many of the world’s most beautiful sculptures were hewn from these tunnels.
The next day the coastal trail called us. A relief to escape the heat of the town by climbing up high on the cliffs and enjoying salty breezes blowing off an impossibly turquoise sea.
Anti Paros
Across the sea, just a few miles, lies Anti Paros. Five Euros and a 30 minute boat ride on an antiquated ferry gets you there. We had no idea what was there and decided just to let the day unfold as it would. Amazingly as our little boat docked, a bus pulled up right next to it with the words cave and beaches written on the side… did some call and tell them we were coming?
We hopped on the bus and it drove us up up and up some more until we got here..and a beautiful view of Anti Paros. We all filed up to the ticket office got our tickets and then were allowed through the door to get our first glimpse of the cave.
I could feel my heart starting to beat a little too fast as we all peered down the first flight of steps to a door way cut into the rock, ohhh sh***tt – said many in various languages. Lance was ahead of the crowd looking forward to seeing the guts of this mountain. I held back allowing everyone to go first trying to pluck up my courage –
NO REFUNDS it said on the sign at the ticket office I guess I’m not the first to pay and panic.
I couldn’t do it 100 meters straight down (the deepest vertical cave in Europe btw and 45 million years old) into the belly of this mountain. Lance waved as he disappeared I‘ll take photos he called.
After having a two person conversation with myself (some of which was out loud) I pushed past the people who were staring at me and squeezed trough the door way and made the decent.
Long story short I got to the bottom step and stayed there long enough take these pics so enjoy them hehe.
There was a crazy amount of graffitti down there earliest we saw was 1604. But somewhere is an inscription on a stalagmite by the the first known visitor Archilochus (c. 680 – c.645 BC), the Greek poet from Paros, er umm so how did he get down there with no steps and no electricity? ropes and candles… omg. Lovely blurred selfie – proof we were there. So would you be skipping down those steps? anyone else not good with heights or closed in spaces? or am I the only wimp??