Jamie'n'Rach

So we were on the ferry from Athens, and after a quick stop of in Syros we arrived in Tinos.

Hello syros, goodbye syros.

The Tinos main town is pretty cool, yet another Venetian town, winding cobbled streets and alleyways up to the church on top of the township. Because we arrived on a Saturday we were one of the only touristy types there as all the Greeks pilgrimage out on the weekend to come to the top church.

The old ladies crawl their way to the main church from the gates as they enter, on holy days they crawl the whole street (must have been about 700m).

Room with a view

Our first full day in Tinos and we decided (because there was a slight breeze) that we’d tackle one of the old donkey paths that are still maintained on the island. We went from the main town and went up up up to another small village (Kitikados)

So weird that in the middle of the island, surrounded by mountains are little outposts scattered everywhere, still inhabited and working as they did hundreds of years ago

When we were in Kitikados, church must have just been getting out as lot of geeks in their Sunday best were passing us heading back down to the small main square. Then out of nowhere as we were walking under a balcony a man pulls out an elephant gun and starts shooting off into the distance. Rachel still maintains it was a shotgun wedding.

Anyway from Kitikados, we headed on to a beach we saw down a valley. And to a much deserved swim.

Our next day in Tinos and we were ready to really start seeing the island and the island was really ready to show us what it could do.
So we hired a scooter and decided to go to the furthest and least visited beach we could go to. What should have been a quick 40 min trip was elongated by the 50cc scooter having to battle up steep mountain roads with two people and massive head winds.
Oh my goodness the winds, it was insane the ferocity of the gusts that would blow around the scooter and almost throw us off line. Not to mention the max speed of 20km and hour we’d get into the head wind.

We eventually made it to Livida Bay, and it was totally worth it as there was not a soul around but us.

Yes we do like to jump around

The only upside of the winds is that they whipped up some waves to have a bit of a play around in

The next few days were dominated by the winds as they increased and made it a bit uncomfortable to go to any of the main exposed beaches. We did go out for another scooter ride to find a sheltered bay (unsuccessfully) and had to turn back to one we had seen right at the start of the ride. But at least it got the adrenaline going.

Anyway we were told by some locals that the winds were pretty specific to the group of islands close by Tinos, Syors and sometimes Mykynos. So we were pretty keen to head onto our next island Naxos.