Naoussa, Paros, Greece, A New City Explored on the Island of Paros

July 8th

Our last full day in Paros and we had one more city to explore, Naoussa. This city was the second largest on the island and was on the north side. Because it is so popular, there are a ton of buses that connect our port city to this beach town. Excited to explore a new city, I convinced mom to wait to have breakfast until we got to the new city, so we could try a new place. We got on the 9am bus and were there by 9:30am and at my handpicked breakfast spot at 9:35am.

We went to the cutest spot ever, Almond. And to fit the theme, we got the vegan almond butter pancakes. Thankfully mom agreed to split them with me because we got a 4 stack of thick pancakes with a layer of caramelized almond butter between each cake. Topped with chocolate flakes, the nut butter balanced out the sweetness of the chocolate, and the chocolate made the need for syrup irrelevant. It felt like a cafe Bali, my go to granola health cafes haha, and again grateful that mom was along for the ride. 

We had leftovers, because even together we couldn’t finish it, and took them along to start exploring the city! There aren't a ton of attractions around the city but there were a few I had on the list for us to see. The first was the Venetian Castle. At the edge of the harbor, the castle is more of a stone outpost extended into the sea. To get to the castle, you had to walk along a narrow stone path, not wide enough for mom’s fear to bear, so I went to see the place myself.

I caught good timing with low tide, as sometimes it’s half-submerged in the water due to its proximity to the ocean floor and the openings that once housed cannons now framing views of the open sea and letting water in when the tide is high. The closer you got to the castle the better the view of the city was. The white homes stacked on top each other and spread wide and far into the hill. What a place, I was steps from stone castle, within the fisher’s wharf, and the iconic greek white building landscape spread about. I wish my mom was there to see this view, to walk around the weathered but still standing castle, and to join me in awe of the view. I could’ve stayed at this castle forever, however the narrow path was not a good stopping point for admiration and my mom was patiently waiting for me back on land.

We wandered around the harbor a bit as well, it housed fishing boats that added charm to the city. The boats looked almost staged, although we walked past one with octopus handing on a line, so there was some business happening here.

What did we do next? You guessed it. Stores, stores, stores, shopping, shopping, and more shopping. We were getting good at this! I’m not one to complain about the heat but it was getting pretty hot. So much so the streets seemed almost deserted. It was around 11am and everyone must have been taking an afternoon rest to escape the sun. It was almost eerie how few people there were. It was lovely to wander about in peace, but also I questioned whether we were in the right place. 

In my research, I found a cute restaurant on the water and thought it would be a nice place to sit and enjoy the view with a coffee. The place was called Come Back, and we got so lucky that right when we got there, the table next to the water was leaving and I had first claim on it. Mom got a lemonade and I had my coffee for the day. White washed homes on both sides, crystal blue water between, and a peaceful aura throughout. What I would give to enjoy my coffee and breakfast with this view every morning. It was so beautiful here mom and I didn’t want to leave. So we didn’t. We stayed here for at least two hours, long enough that we ordered lunch, sharing the scrambled tofu so that I could get some protein. 

After staying long enough to be ready for a new view, we got up to finish exploring the city. On the top of the hill was the church, so of course we found the stairs and incline path to get there. The gates looked closed, so we just saw it from the outside, and the cute and quiet neighborhood up there. Beautiful, but nothing can compare to the church and grounds of Lefkes. We did see this sweet grandma, who has probably lived in her home here her whole life, slowly walk up the steps to her front door. She made her way slowly and surely, but also slow enough that mom and I almost chimed up to offer help, however she did not seem like someone that could speak a language other than Greek. And she must do this walk daily, so we instead just made sure she made it in and carried on with our venture around the neighborhood. 

We had seen almost all of this quaint town at this point, and it was so hot out that all I knew to throw out for a potential next do is the beach. So to the beach we went! Prepared for the day with our suits and towels, we found a shaded spot on the sand and planted it there for the next hour. I wanted to cool down so I went into the water, it was much warmer than Patras, but cold enough to do the trick to cool down. I went back to the beach, and laid down on my small and thin travel towel that I shared with mom. I laid back, grabbed my kindle, and made some progress in my book (Current Read: Intermezzo). 

Similar to yesterday, it was a bit after 4pm and we were ready to head back. We had beach time, city time, sightseeing, and even enough time to stare out at the ocean for hours with a coffee in hand. There was a vegan gyro shop I wanted to pick up for dinner so we made a quick stop, getting takeaway, and catching the 4:30pm bus back to our port town. I was ready to go back and chill at our beautiful hotel for the night but also so grateful that we came up here and got to explore another great city on this island. 

The rest of our night we spent at the hotel and that was perfectly fine to me. We talked to our Irish neighbor and it was great getting to know him better and hear about his travels around Greece. I had the gyro when I finally got hungry, but otherwise spent the night reading my book with the ocean view. The sunset that night was the most incredible one of the trip, so good that I grabbed my camera and ran to the harbor to grab some photos to capture and memorialize the perfect conclusion to our time in Paros. Oh yes, ABBA was most certainly on aux the whole night.