With Paros as our base, we took a day trip over to Delos and Mykonos. An important archaeological site and sacred island, Delos is the mythical birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis. It was first inhabited in the 3rd millennium BC. During the Hellenistic times, it became one of the three most important religious centers in Greece and a successful commerce center. Wealthy merchants, mariners and bankers resided here. It became a free port in 167 BC.
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From Paros, we took a ferry to Santorini/Thira with my mom, sister and her friends Heidi and Angel. Santorini is thought to be the most spectacular Greek island of all. The island was originally circular, but around 1650 BC, a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurred and the center of the island sunk, leaving a caldera with high cliffs. Read More...

From Naxos, we sailed over to Parikia, the main ferry hub of the Cyclades. Once ashore, you can leave the mainstreet and enter a maze lined with shops, greenery and flowers. There are two open air movie theatres and we watched "Traffic" one night. It was in English, subtitled in Greek, so all the spoken Spanish was translated into Greek. We picked up occasional words and verbs, so I think we made some sense of it.
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We sailed into Naxos harbour (city of Hora/Naxos Town) after sailing for 5+ hours through winds that gusted up to 40 knots and nice rolling seas. Funny enough, thankfully our onboard guests, Tamra's mom, sister Laura and Laura's Seattle neighbor friends, Heidi and Angel, seemed to enjoy the little adventure at sea. Maybe being in the adventure mode is the secret to staving off seasickness.
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Siros is known as one of the less touristy cycladic islands. Ermoupolis (named after Hermes, god of trade, messengers and thieves) is the largest city in the cyclades and the capital city of this island group.
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