We wake up to bells from the church at the end of the block, reminding us that it’s Sunday.  Once again we are first in line for breakfast, a Greek omelette, yogurt and watermelon this time. I’ve been craving watermelon! 

We have hours to kill, but need to check out of our room, so we drop our bags in reception and take to the streets in search of souvenirs. It’s a successful shopping trip. 

Another cruise ship has docked and unloaded thousands so the streets are packed with more people. Not wanting to fight the crowds anymore, we go back to the pool at our villa and wait there until it’s time to go. 

The porter collects us and our bags right on time and walks us through the streets to the corner where we were dropped off just two days ago. We hop in the van and off we go to the port. 

It’s a beautiful drive along the edge of the island, where more single family homes appear to be the norm, yet not densely so. 

We arrive at port and it is another organized chaos situation. We are in the terminal waiting with everyone else, and a line forms. The ferry is nowhere in sight. We hear some vague announcements over PA  but nothing in English. I recall a friend’s advice,”whatever you do, don’t stand neatly in a line. It’s a mad rush , so you just mad rush too!”  The ferry arrives and we are herded to the boarding area. Caroline and I have reserved seats, so we find our way to our section, but the numbered seats seem to stop before ours. Shrugging, we grab two seats and decide we’ll figure it out if someone contests our squatting. Not to worry, almost no one is sitting inside in the seating area. Everyone makes a mad rush for the cheaper seats in the common areas or deck. And there is still plenty of space for all. 

About 10 minutes before the ferry docks, there is a PA announcement that all passengers getting off at Naxos should gather at the debarkation point. The ferry is still chugging along, so it seems too soon, but I don’t want to go to the next port so I harass Caroline into leaving our seats. We somehow sneak to the front of the line and walk down a couple flights of stairs to what looks like the inside of a C130, just a massive area, with people’s bags all piled together, and huge gangplanks that start opening while the boat is still moving toward the dock.

It is a sea of people and cars when we get off the boat. People walking everywhere in the road while car re trying to drive by. Police try to coral the pedestrians to one side of the street and are mostly successful.

Surprisingly, we find our driver, Ilias, pretty quickly and he takes us to our car. He is a jolly man and peppers us with recommendations for food, coffee and attractions. He shares a lot, for which we are grateful.

We are also grateful that he can drive us right to the door of our hotel! We check in quickly and walk to grab dinner. We dine at a nondescript local restaurant and order using pictures from Trip Advisor. Our waiter sees us looking at Google Maps, and offers to help us find what we are looking for. I explain we are looking for ideas on what to do for our 3-day stay, and he provides us with his favorite beach recommendation. It’s a completely different vibe here, already feeling less hurried.

By the way, our hotel isn’t even shown on Google Maps. According to the Maps, we are camping in a field.

We are actually in a nice new hotel. I guess the satellite doesn’t fly over Naxos.