Apr 22 – Paros and the town of Parikia

Today we are visiting another island, Paros.  This island is new to us.  We took a tender into port.  It’s a bit overcast this morning but the haze started burning off fairly quickly. 

We are taking a walking tour of the port town of Parikia.  The waterfront of town.

And the windmill at the harbor.

It is a quintessentially quaint Greek island village with windy streets, white painted buildings, some blue roofs and charm everywhere.  

And lots of blooming bougainvillea that is striking against the white buildings. 

 And we are seeing many cats around the island, as usual.

Our first stop was the Holy Shrine of the Virgin Mary church. 

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Also visited the adjacent Baptistry.

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More Paros Shrine of the Virgin Mary
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Then it was on to another archaeology museum.  We have seen many.  This one is relatively small with much of the same types of artifacts.  The guide was very knowledgeable and spent a huge amount of time talking about the various sections of the museum.  Fortunately, we had been given Whispers (ear devices so we could hear her speaking) so we wandered a bit while listening to her. 

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More Paro Archaeological Museum
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This stop was mainly notable due to the calico cat that wandered everywhere with the group, even into the museum rooms.

We spent more time walking through the village and stopped at a 13^th century Frankish Castle.  We saw only a small part of the original castle.  Part is believed to have sunk into the see after a landslide in the 18^th century.  Also, parts of the castle have been swallowed into adjacent buildings and whitewashed.   

Near the end of the tour we stopped in a bakery where we were treated to a local delicacy, a small pastry that resembled a Mazapan (an almond paste), but not quite.

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More Paros
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Tonight’s entertainment was Rocket Man, another Elton John tribute.  Very good.