Day 22 - Paros/Athens

Once again, 2 posts at once.  Day 21 & 22 have been posted at the same time, so scroll on down...

Around 9am we woke up and took off to board a boat to Paros.  Paros isn't quite as large as Naxos, but it's also one of the larger islands.  It is actually made up of two different islands, Paros and Antiparos.  Antiparos is just a few minutes away by boat, and is where a lot of celebrities big wigs have homes and also is home to some really exclusive hotels and beaches that must be booked months in advance. 

Since we had hotels on the other two islands, Paros was a little bit different experience.  We actually didn't even go to Antiparos.  I guess I just wanted to share that information because I thought it was a cool side note.  We got to the port and had a decision to make.  We knew we were only going to be on the island for 6 hours or so.  We were either going to just stay in town and chill, find a beach and maybe swim, or try again to rent 4-wheelers from someone who doesn't care about minor details like having a drivers license. 

We decided to take a small boat over to a beach called Krios.  It's a little beach but not crowded at all.  We then had to decide whether we were going to succumb to the temptation of getting in the water.  It was so hot outside and the water is so cold and refreshing, so it was hard not to get in, but we didn't.  The only reason this was even a decision is because we knew that we were going to be spending the next 6 hours on a boat back to Athens, and then spending the night in Athens Airport (I will explain this in my next post).  So, we just found a cool little restaurant on the water, had a few beers (Heineken and Mythos, which is a greek beer) and huge slice of watermelon and just camped out for 3 hours or so.  It turned out to be a great decision.

After the beach, we grabbed a quick ferry back to the main port in Paros, and found an awesome bakery, where we grabbed what would be dinner on the boat later.  I got a piece of chocolate cake and a ham & cheese pie (can you tell I love ham & cheese yet?), Josh got the best baklava any of us have ever tasted & some cheese bread, and Blake got a veggie sandwich that is bigger than my head (which is saying something, because I have a massive head).  With an hour or so to kill we decided to grab a waffle complete with chocolate sauce, fresh banana, vanilla ice cream, and fresh whipped cream.  It was incredible.  After the sugar rush, we boarded the boat and headed back to Athens...

...Once we arrived, it was just late enough to miss the metro - awesome.  So, we grabbed the 24hr bus and took the 1 hour+ ride to the Athens Airport, on a hot, muggy bus (I think this was a foreshadowing of the next 24 hours or so)  Once here, it was time to find a place to sleep.  I will cut it short here because the next day is absolutely exhausting, and I will need to discuss sleeping in the airport, the flight back to Milan, and the Italian rail strike that almost made me lose my mind...