Sarah and Adam: The Next Generation

An exhausting week in Naxos

We've spent the past several days relaxing at the Hotel Liana on Naxos, in Agia Prokopios (Prokopios beach). The daily schedule:

8:00 Jasper wakes us up. Lounging ensues. Grownups take turns running along the beach.

9:30 We wake Gus up. He is as grouchy as a 15-year old who doesn't get his license for four more months.

10:00 Creamy Greek yogurt with Naxos honey and fruit, sitting on our patio overlooking the sea. Really the culinary highlight of the trip, especially the thyme-tinged honey, which has this amazing zingy flavor.

11:00 morning swim. The hotel has a kids pool and a big pool, so sometimes we all go in together, sometimes one of us takes one kid swimming while the other kid plays in the kids pool. We're usually joined in the pool by some assortment of beautiful blonde Swedish kids staying at our hotel.

12:00 extremely long hot showers with the kids, then lounging.

2:00 Oh crap, we forgot to give Gus a snack, let's race out to get lunch. Grownups eat Greek appetizers, kids eat French fries.

3:00 siesta. Gus has mostly given up his nap so we all lounge in the master bed. Kids play video games or watch videos, adults read. 
    Reading list so far includes Robopocalypse (pretty awesome), new Jeffrey Deaver-penned James Bond novel (decent), about 22 indistinguishable chick lit and fantasy novels (read by only one of us, I'll let you guess which), Born to Run (nonfiction book about ultramarathoning indigenous Mexicans tribespeople and why people get running injuries), and The Wise Man's Fear (amazing magic-adventure sequel to The Name of the Wind).

6:00 evening swim, usually with all four of us. Occasional beach visits, mostly to look at marine life, but mainly in the pool.
  The swimming progress has been remarkable, especially for Gus. He'll leap into the deep end, go under, come up for air (with a lusty war cry), then tread water, turn around and swim back to the wall. He's fully crossed the line this week to more dangerous/reckless than scared. Whee!
   Jasper's also given up the water wings entirely. He'll push off the wall and swim half the length of the pool on his stomach, or all the way on his back. As long as an adult is visibly right next to him the whole time, he's got great stamina, just like on land, and he really loves it.

7:00 more lounging. We usually play "Asphalt 6: Adrenaline" car racing at this point. It's a sharp-reflexes driving game on the iPad, too tricky for the kids to play so Adam drives, and the kids are agitated backseat-drivers—"Dad, why did you miss that nitro boost? Dad, you missed the shortcut!" then every couple races we unlock a new race car and they get to trick it out, their favorite part of the activity.

8:00 Walk along the beach during a killer sunset to one of the local tavernas. The better ones are down the beach a bit in Agia Anna. We made a point of returning to Gorgona (Mermaid), a family-run place with heaping portions of gigante beans in tomato sauce, Spanikopita, eggplant with feta and the local graviera cheese, and for the kids, bread with olive oil *and* French fries. with Greek ketchup!

9:30 Lounging back at the hotel before (and then after) the kids' bedtime.

So you can see, it's been an exhausting trip, but really worthwhile.

Actually, we did take the bus a couple days into Naxos Town to walk around the tiny spaghetti streets through the old town, and we rented a car one day to drive to Chalki, a artsy little village with great baclava and an ancient temple of Demeter nearby. But it's been a really easy trip since we've had few plans in Naxos and thus few logistics.

Now we're almost done with a (so far uneventful, knock on wood!) short ferry ride to Mykonos, and tomorrow we fly to Italy to meet up with Grandpa and Grandma in Piedmont. The kids can't wait to see their grandparents, and we can't wait for the pasta, truffles, and gelato (ok, ok, and the grandparents). We'll post a couple more pix in Flickr (on the top right of this page) when we have wifi next.

Greece, part 1

24 hours of traveling, with 4 separate flights (to Boston, Munich, Athens, Santorini) was a bear, but the kids did relatively well.

Santorini was the perfect decompression. Cliffside hotel room with the perfect caldera view, right on the pedestrian walk in Oià. Terrific food (first at Scala, then Nectar): feta, yogurt with amazing honey, cheese tyrokroketes, eggplant, sesame & honey pasteli crunch bars.

2nd day we went to the pool twice, and Gus learned how to swim--like *really* swim. He began leaping into the pool with wild abandon, and his dog paddling became efficient enough to create forward momentum. Jasper is, as always, more cautious about his leaping, but as long as you're there to catch him he'll jump in and swim most of the width of the pool. Those swim lessons all spring are finally paying off big.

We took the high-speed ferry the next day to Naxos. Even the combination of Dramamine and Sea-Bands was no match for the awesome power of Jasper's motion sickness, so it was a miserable 3-hour crossing, but we had plenty of room since every time he threw up people would bolt from our row.

Naxos is a place people live, not just a tourist destination (though our beach town is naturally touristy, mostly other Europeans). We're staying here for a week, in a new hotel with a pool, kids pool, and the beach across the street. The food here is just ok so far, but we're hoping to find better food a bit further afield from our town. Jasper thinks Greece is the best place in the world because they have Nutella here. Please don't tell him it's available back home!

Sunset on Naxos: (currently visible on the upper right of this blog page)
http://flickr.com/photos/sarahandadam/5871798023/

Back when we were young and mobile...

It seems like ages ago now, but when we spent the year in Italy in 2003, we spent about a month travelling around Europe in the spring. Here's a short video with some of the highlights of our time in France.

Adam and Sarah's Not-So-Rough Guide to Italy

We wrote this back in 2003 when we were living in Italy for the year. If you're planning a visit to Italy, we hope you’ll visit some of our favorite haunts and and find some of your own. Our recommendations are Tuscany-heavy, naturally, but we have a few other suggestions too.