Click here to read about the other parts of our Greek vacation.
Friday, October
After a short one hour ferry ride from Naxos we arrived in Paros on Friday morning. On the ferry, we had used the guidebook to pick a place to stay called Pension Rena. It was only a short 10 minute walk from the port and they had a room available for 30 euros. Sure, it was pretty sparse and we had separate twin beds, but it was only for one night and the price was right. This place ended up being our cheapest accommodations on the trip. If you’re looking for a cheap stay in a convenient location, I’d recommend this place.
After settling in and storing our stuff, we grabbed gyros for lunch and wandered the city streets. We visited a famous church and then stopped in at an archaeological museum. We strolled the streets and visited the shops.
The weather wasn’t quite beach-worthy, but we stopped at the beach in the evening and watched the gorgeous sunset. We had dinner at Hibiscus (supposedly the oldest restaurant on Paros (dinner for 2 = 20 euros)), strolled some more, bought ferry tickets to Athens (60 euros for 2 tickets) and then headed back to the room for some reading. Sidenote: We both read Corelli’s Mandolin on our trip because it’s set in the Greek islands. I liked it more than Bird did.
Sunday, October 9
We had some time to kill in the morning before our ferry to Athens, so we had breakfast at a little cafe (15 euros). Eventually, we headed to the port and set sail for Athens. This was our longest ferry of the trip and it took over 4 hours. We read up on Athens in the guidebook and then settled into our other books and the time went by fast enough.
Thoughts on Paros
Paros came highly recommended from family and friends. It’s a major ferry hub and tourist destination. However, we were slightly disappointed. We found that because we were there in the low season, there wasn’t much to do which was not the case on Santorini and was less-so the case on Naxos. If the weather would have been better, we would have been happy to be at the beach, but it wasn’t, so once we did the stroll around town, there wasn’t much to see or do. We hit the church and museum that were listed in the guidebook but that only took a few hours of our afternoon. Of course, we were only there for a day so we can’t judge it too harshly, but we were ready to leave after that one day. In hindsight, I think we were just excited to move on to Athens and its promise of big city excitement and adventure.
Financially, Paros was great because like I said, we didn’t do much. Even with all the shopping we did, I don’t recall really buying anything. In all we ended up spending 140 euros in Paros.
Next up….Athens
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
All in all, still sounds like a nice stop on the island tour. The pictures on the link to Naros were spectacular, especially the “church of 100 doors.” So after hitting the highlights of a place, sometimes a little down time is good – gives you a chance to rest up.
What was the exchange rate on the euro while you were there? Do you by chance have a credit card that doesn’t charge a currency conversion fee? (I need to find one of those!)
Yeah, I think you’re right about having a little downtime to rest up. It was a good stop for right before Athens.
The euro was worth about 1.37 dollars while we were there. I’m not sure about the credit card fee. I know I’d just hand it over, they’d swipe it and I’d pay the bill when I got home
I guess I didn’t look too closely at the bill versus what I was charged in euros.
I do know that for the few times we used our US Bank debit card at ATMs we were hit with a $2.50 fee which was actually much less than I was expecting.
Thanks for the comment!