We came up with a brilliant idea….cancel our day trip to Santorini and instead take a ferry to Koufonisia for the night then on to Santorini the next day, returning to Naxos that evening. Ano Koufonisia turned out to be a spectacular island but sadly the Santorini ferry was delayed and our trip there had to be canceled. So many had told us not to go there because it is crazy busy with cruisers. We tried to pick a day (as advised) without a cruise but as it turns out, we could only find a day with less cruises. So remember we are here in the shoulder season and , every day had 3-5 cruises arriving—-about 10,000 or many more people by boat everyday. I was surprised you can actually find all this info on a site. I think Santorini in May sounds good to me—-for a whole week. We met a couple and several other people who have avoided Santorini for the past 5 years for this reason——our taxi driver said they were a brand name—yup, a victim of their success! Still, will look forward to returning in the off season.
Koufonisia Islands is a group of islands at the southern tip of Naxos. Ano Koufonisia is where we landed, grabbed our backpack and started walking toward the place we rented a bit away from the tiny port (a mile or so). Quickly we were picked up by the manager (owner?) who dropped us off only to tell us to get back in car when we asked to rent bikes. A half hour later we were on our fat tire Ebikes and peddling back to our beautiful little condo. We had a great time exploring on our bikes. Without a doubt the prettiest beaches on our trip thus far. Most of the beaches seemed pretty remote accessed generally by footpaths but most of the time there was a bar/ cafe. We were always shocked how reasonable the prices were at these spots. Mainly we were really mesmerized by the beauty and peacefulness of the island.
Would we come back?; We both would love to come back here someday. It is a very special place. We met a man from Berlin who works for an NGO. He was traveling alone and said he had been coming here for over 20 years (he was in his 40s). He travels all over but says he always ends up coming here when he just wants to relax. He spoke passionately about how he loves watching the colors change in the ocean….we so agree with him. He spoke English fluently and also Spanish because much of his work is in Latin America. We gave him our VRBO site and maybe we will see him again this winter. We think he would like LB.
I had to be a bit careful with beach pictures. Here many people are nude and I do my best to avoid taking their pic as they are really not appreciative—understandable given that I don’t even like to have pics of me in my bathing suit. On any given beach I would say 5-90 percent are nude. I like that it is mixed because it becomes so normal (as it should be.) And normal to be with or without a bathing suit I mean. It does make sense to not have to toss a wet bathing suit in your back pack——but us, oh my, we would look like such newbies with our white bathing suit imprint. After nearly jumping in nude (but then a large group showed up) I decided to check if it was actually legal. Actually there are no real rules…I kind of don’t ask don’t tell approach—-so not exactly legal but……
Life's Been Good To Us So Far! 