OCTOBER 10, SUNDAY

WANDERING

We woke up planning to visit Anteporos, an island seven minute ferry ride from the southern town of Pounta. We figured out the two bus rides and were just taking off when we met Wolfgang, who has the other occupied room in Airbnb Efi‘s Rooms and Efi, a very energetic and vocal woman in her 50‘s, a grandmotherly figure who doesn‘t speak English but is supported by her daughter Olga in Athens who answers the English Airbnb queries.

We were talked into renting a small car for five days for $200 which changes all our plans for the next week. We are not going to take a ferry to Santorini, we are going to, a day or two from now, take our car to the next door larger island, Naxos, whose mountains seem close by and ride around there for a day as well as exploring Paros. No use planning ahead, instead it is better to be ready to turn on a dime, to use a phrase of far off Swannanoa.

So instead of going to Anteporos we were driven by Wolfgang, a German who speaks excellent English and fluent Greek which he says he has learned from Efi in his four stays with her and his many other trips to Greece, to where he rented his car, which is cheaper than the place just down the hill who quoted a higher price. Greece and Germany are the opposite in almost every way. We are renting a Chevy Spark.

So we were off to Pisso Livadi, 15 minutes away, which is on the coast, where Wolfgang suggested we drink a coffee and look at the sea

and where there is a long, yellow sandy beach in which we waded. We had our coffee on a beach side coffee house with a wide view of the Aegean in all directions.

Then we were off to Lefkes, another 15 minutes, a high, moutainside town with views far out to sea where we had lunch with lamb stew in a pot and a tasty feta cheese and tomato dip on bread.

We walked down through the brilliant white town on a Sunday afternoon with lanes too

narrow for cars. It was completely silent on a Sunday afternoon with no people in sight, only cat after cat strolling or lying in the sun. And

then we drove back, twenty minutes, to Efi‘s place feeling as if we had made a grand tour of Paros, 13 miles long, but with plenty left still to explore. On the way back from parking, fifty

yards away, we saw a tourist pirate ship with parents and very eager children boarding it for a pirate voyage.

I napped. At 8 in the evening we ate in another outdoor cafe and came home, feeling as if we had been on Paros for a month and with no idea what we will do today, maybe Anteporos.