SeaDreaming: Grecian Holiday – Part XII – Paros, Greece

Last night was the most interesting overnight voyage of the entire trip. The distance from Mykonos was only 21 nautical miles. It seems however that the winds came up overnight. The captain reported that he had started to leave Mykonos and the winds got so strong that he went back and re-anchored. It seems the winds were over 50 kts for a while, which is almost 60 mph. We ended up leaving Mykonos around 5:00 a.m. for the sail to Naoussa. This was the bounciest sail that we had the entire voyage, but it was still not bad at all. When we arrived off Naoussa the skies were beautiful, but the wind did not want to cooperate so we ended up sailing around the island and anchoring off Parikia.

It took us maybe an hour or so to make the sail and we ended up anchoring around 10: 00 a.m. The harbor in Parikia town was busy with ferries and such but we were anchored far enough out of the channel that the water sports platform came down, and the water toys came out again. We did not have an excursion planned and I was quiet happy that we ended up here because I wanted to go back and explore some more of the church. FT wanted to go to the beach and there was one right in town. I grabbed a tender in and walked over to the church.

As you may recall from my earlier postings the church of Panagia Ekatontapyliani (Our Lady of a Hundred Doors) is the oldest remaining Byzantine church in Greece. In 326, St. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, sailed for the Holy Land to find the True Cross. Stopping on Paros, she had a vision of success and vowed to build a church there. She founded it but died before it was built. Her son built the church in 328 as a wooden-roof basilica. Two centuries later, Justinian the Great, had the church splendidly rebuilt with a dome.

As a reminder the church itself is surrounded by a high white wall, with monastic cells built in the walls, some of which have been converted into an ecclesiastical museum. In the church itself, at the corners of the dome are two fading Byzantine frescoes depicting six-winged seraphim. The adjacent Baptistery has a cross shaped marble font and bits of mosaic floor. I spent over an hour wandering the grounds. I discovered a monk’s cell, and really enjoyed the museum, which had some beautiful icons, and old vestments.

I then wandered in town, enjoyed a beverage with some others off the ship and just explored. It has the usual white washed buildings with the colorful door and window trim and marble and stone streets. On the way back to the tender I went into the small church on the harbor and enjoyed watching the local vendors selling vegetables. After a couple of hours I took the tender back to the ship for one of the few lunches that we had on board. FT was already back having found that the beach was not to her liking. She said that though it has umbrellas and numerous cafes that it has a lot of debris washed up on it.

Lunch back on SD included what I think has become my favorite soup – Kohlrabi. The buffet had crab legs and a very delicious shrimp and pasta salad. FT spent about 45 minutes after lunch paddling around in a kayak and watching Daniel dump the brave souls on the banana boat. Several people went swimming but the water is still too cold for me. I will take my Aegean in the pool, thank you. The afternoon pass around was cookies and cream ice cream between two homemade oatmeal raisin cookies.

Tonight was the Chef’s Degustation menu. It included:

L’Oeuf Poule au caviar “Surprise”

Seared Yellow Fin Tuna Loin with Grilled Scallop

Veloute of Pumpkin

Peach Champagne Sorbet

Pan Fried Sea Bass

Three Ways of Lamb

Morbier Cheese on Dried Fruit and Nut Bread

Light Earl Grey Soufflé

Homemade Petits-Four and Chocolate Truffles

As I said before I am not a fan of caviar so Jamie substituted the Vegetarian alternative for me, Artichoke with Guacamole. Delicious!

Tonight was the exception to our usual hurry back to the cabin routine. It was Liar’s Club. Jamie, Daniel, Amy and the Captain were hilarious. If you ever get the chance to go, it is truly not to be missed.