At the beginning of November London is not the sunniest place to be. So we thought that a trip to the Greek Islands would be a good idea, especially with the cheap direct flights to Athens available nowadays.
We were happy and confident, looking forward to some sun and warm weather on dream-like white and blue islands. We arrived in Athens and got a boat to reach Naxos. It was not warm, but not unusual for a morning in autumn. When we got to Naxos, there were about 5 of us tourists and at least 10 people offering rooms to rent. We decided for one and then went walking, looking for bicycles to hire for the next days.
We left the village and followed the coast until it got dark: it was perfect and Naxos is so dry, brown that it looks like a lunar ground! After having dinner in one of the three or four restaurants still open, we went for a walk in the lovely old town, where you can get lost in a maze of very narrow streets!
Unfortunately, it was too late in the season to rent any bike or moped and we only managed to get a car which enabled us to go around all the small and hidden places, the famous Mount Zeus or the 5m Colossus, both impressive! Two hours after we left home though, it started raining, temperatures dropped and the wind started blowing hard! We enjoyed all these excursions wearing two jumpers, waterproofs, hat and gloves! We were honestly not expecting this weather...
After a couple of days spent under the rain, we decided to make a move to Santorini: further south and eventually warmer and drier?
But, alas, same story. Too late to get bikes, we decided to explore this tiny island by foot under a brilliant sun and it was the best choice we could make - the view on top of the volcano is just superb and we were among a very small number of tourists. The following day, it began raining. We had to ask for more blankets for the room and the only reasonable activity was to lounge in a café, reading and enjoying the view over Santorini's landscape of black lava.
We still enjoyed ourselves despite the fact it didn't stop raining for the following two days and even worse, the bad weather worsened into a proper storm! The streets were transformed into rivers, the shutters of the hundreds of closed bars, restaurants and hotels were slamming noisily.
Then it was time for us to go back to Athens but because of the bad weather, none of the ferries were allowed to leave: so, we were prisoners of what could be a paradise but looked more like a big cold pool at the time! At the end, luckily, we got our boat to get back to the mainland on the last day and we had the pleasure to discover Athens as the previous ten days should have been: warm and sunny! So, going over there late in the autumn was a completely different experience than during summer and was closer to London than we ever would have thought!
Road Editions map of Naxos and Road Editions map of Santorini are still the best mapping available.
The Thomas Cook Greek Island Hopping guide is updated each year and includes timetables of all the ferry routes.
Author: Jacob Genelle
Date: 1 July 2002
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