It's a good birthday when you wake up to warm, sunny, blue skies and a beautiful view. Even better when the hotel staff gives you a cake with a candle in it! After an early breakfast, I was off to catch a boat to the small island off Paros called Antiparos.
The boat to Antiparos took about 45 mins. And a good thing it didn't take much longer, as it was a bit choppy out on the ocean! We made it to the island, and it was cute - a small version of all the other island villages, lots of fishing boats, restaurants and hotels. I think the clientele on Antiparos is quite well off, as the hotels seemed pretty swanky.
But my next stop was the bus stop, where I stood and waited for the bus to the Cave of Antiparos. This cave is the biggest tourist attraction on the island, and quite rightly so. It has huge stalactites and stalagmites as well as other interesting rock formations, it's enormous, and is lovely and cool inside. But it has also been used throughout history since around 700BC, then as a refuge in the 4th century BC and a church in the 15th century, where people held Christmas mass. The oldest stalactite in there is thought to be 45 million years old. I can't even comprehend that, it's so old. There were 411 steps down into the cave, which were lovely to go down, as it was really cool inside, but horrible to go back up, because once you got back to the 30+ degrees outside, you were already sweating and hot! But it was so worth it...
After the cave, it was time for a look around Antiparos village and some lunch. I had a quick poke around then popped into a lovely looking cafe for lunch, where I treated myself to some lovely Greek food. Then the waitress came out with a dessert for me - on the house! That's the second free dessert I had that day! When I left the restaurant, I bumped into two girls I'd seen at the cave (and before that on the ferry from Parikia). Then we bumped into each other again in the streets of Antiparos, then again by the ferry! It was so funny that we decided that we should bump into each other again on purpose, and we caught up for a birthday drink that night. What fun!
We caught the ferry back to Parikia, then I went exploring around there a bit more. There was a really nice Byzantine church in the town called Panagia Ekatontapiliani (it dates from 326 AD), plus some lovely buildings nearby. Then I went to the hotel, had a swim, got dressed for dinner and had a lovely fancy dinner at Dionysis restaurant before meeting Heather and Mhairi for our drink. It was such a lovely birthday!
