If you want to go clubbing or having drinks from bar to bar, Apollonas is not the place for you. If you like kilometers of crowded beaches with sun chairs and umbrella’s Apollonas is not the place for you either.
BUT if you want to spent your vacation in a quiet place with real Naxian people, if you want to enjoy the beach and the sun, if you like hiking tours, if you want to visit the most ancient marble mine in Greece, if you want the ancient Greek gods, Dionysos and Apollonas to insure your protection, then maybe, after all, Apollonas is the right place for you.
On the other hand, you might be interested to see the rest of Naxos with a car. Yes, you have to rent the car in Naxos town but where you end up when the day is over is up to you. You can end up in Apollon away from frustration and noise.
If you decide to discover the hidden Naxos, you might need the help of a professional. Stuart Thorpe, an Englishman who lives here will take you to places you wouldn’t discover yourself.
I know I said there is not nightlife here but that’s not entirely true. Baywatch Café, down town J and Flex Beach Bar, by Hotel Kouros, our chill out bars will enjoy your loss with beautiful cocktails and nice music with rock flavor.
In Naxos town they will say to you about Apollon “don’t go there, there is nothing to see!”. I will answer to that “just have a look at the pictures and then see with your own eyes and decide for yourself.
So, I say to you, Come to Apollon (Apollonas). The people who work in the tourism wait for you.
Mountain Kalogeros waits for you to visit the partly pre-historic partly medieval ruins of the castle, taking fantastic pictures of the archipelago.
The “Kouros type” statue of Dionysos waits for you laying there for 2556 years, the largest marble statue in Greece and the world.
The ancient mine with the script ΙΕΡΟΝ ΧΩΡΙΟΝ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΟΣ (sacred village of Apollon) waits for you with the multiple and obvious spots where they removed the marble to make the magnificent archaic statues of Kori and Kouros. Go to the archaeological museum of Athens, in the first two rooms with archaic art almost all the statues are made either in Naxos either by Naxian marble. Do not forget, this is a divine place and hopefully you will realize it too.
Apollonas water sources waiting for you to drink the mountain water, one of the rarest benefits in Cyclades islands who are usually dry. Empoli, by the mine and Haskas, on the way to Komiaki wait for you to taste real running mountain water.
The olive presses on the way to Mesi from mountain Kalogeros, in the location Limata from the 5th and 3rd century BC, wait their fertility symbols wait for you to visit them and admire a civilization which hasn’t been forgotten after so many centuries.
Did you know that one of the two graves who have been characterized as the “carpenters graves” and they belong to the early bronze age (3200-2200 BC) have been discovered here in Apollon? Apollon Carpenter’s grave was a double grave and the archaeologists assume that a father and a son, both of them carpenters, were buried in it.
Did you know that there are stone age findings and even older, in the area and recently some scholars say that probably the first place that the asia minor (east coasts of Turkey) people would visit, would immigrate would be Apollon because of the proximity with Ikaria!
Do you want to be the one to discover the most ancient script of the Greek language, older than the one of Naxia’s Nikandre in the archaeological museum? I suspect that it is somewhere around here.
Do you want to visit Agia, the monastery, the byzantine church, the ancient olive presses?
Do you want to have hiking tour to Agios Georgios, Mesi, Komiaki?
Do you want to discover the beautiful beach of Agios Fokas with the tiny Byzantine church?
Do you want to have dinner in the beautiful village of Komiaki, the place of origin of the people of Apollonas?
Do you want to know more about our history, the history of art and the history of the Greek civilization? Do you want to meet the guy who addresses to you by this topic?
Maybe, after all, you should come to Apollon
Christos Sideris
1 comment:
Is the Hotel Kouros the place that was half-built for a number of years? When I was there in 1978 I lived in it, although it was nothing but a concrete skeleton with a stairway. A farmer left his bull tied up next to the stairs, and I used to have to get by him when coming home each night (usually drunk).
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