Last month I posted about easyCruise coming to Greece. Read here:
Paros Paradise: easyCruise among Cyclades

I had looked at the easyCruise web site but missed the following from one of their press releases:

Commenting specifically on easyCruise’s expansion plans in Greece, the cruiseships will sail from one of the Marinas located in the Faliro area near Athens (avoiding the commercial port of Piraeus that other cruise lines and ferry companies use),
offering weekend cruises to Mykonos and Syros, and 4-day cruises to Santorini, with possible visits to Paros, Naxos, Milos or Serifos.

According to Stelios Haji-Ioannou: “We aim to create a new cruise market in Greece, just like we did abroad. easyCruise ships remain in the port during most of the day and overnight, so that the passengers are free to visit the local bars, restaurants and shops, thus strengthening local economy in their ports of call.
We target a young, active crowd, with average age 30-35 years, both Greeks and foreign visitors. The advertising campaign that will support our activity in Greece will contribute to the country’s promotion abroad. Greece and its destinations will also be promoted through an easyCruise on-board reality TV show that is already on air in European and US channels”.

I think this is great news for the Cyclades and Paros. Not because we will have more visitors but because we are suffering right now from limited ferry service. A recent meeting on the issue by all the island powers-that-be came up with many suggestions but no solutions. One idea floated was to pool resources and buy our own ferry. I understand Amorgos did that. I should mention, however, that Parians are notorious for not being able to agree on anything relating to the good of the whole island.

Stay tuned.

I would like a logo for this blog and then for my full service site.

We will see what comes from: http://freelogo.blogspot.com

Our Granddaughter, Sarah, is visiting with us for about three weeks. She recently graduated--with honors--from Evergreen HS in Vancouver, Washington.

Green is her school color and she likes watermelon.

All in all a beautiful combination.




Photo courtesy of another proud Grandfather, Robert Bailey.

When Google Earth first came out we checked out Paros and found that it became a blur when you got down to individual building level. So we were plesantly surprised when a friend sent us this reference from Wikimapia.org: http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=36994335&x=25138178&z=17&l=0&m=a

Open it in another window and you can browse the island of Paros to your heart's content. Of course there are no place names for orienting purposes.

The photo above is our village of Aliki. Our villa is just above the left corner of the This is us! tag.

Read more about our island life on our full service web site.

There is also a map there if you want to find some place particular on Paros.

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Admittedly Karin and I do some strange things, especially when it comes to money. Last Christmas we were here on the island without family and decided to save our gifts to each other until we found something that we really wanted rather than buy whatever we could find at the time. Well, I found mine rather quickly last January--over the internet, of course. Karin is harder to please.





Yesterday we decided to have a little outing to Antiparos to check out Karin's favourite dress shop as she wanted something to wear to Athens next week. We left after dinner to catch the 8:30 P.M. ferry. It was as busy as I have ever seen it. Then I was very surprised at Main Street; it was active with mostly Swedish speaking people. Of course we were there between 9 and 10 when everybody on the island makes their way into town. Still it seemed more crowded than Parikia. Yet everybody was happy and smiling while they were shopping and eating. I felt like a minority among all the long, blond hair. I tried to snap a photo of a family group or two but didn't get the lighting right. In case you didn't know, Antiparos is very popular among the Scandinavian set.



Yes, Karin did find a dress that I bought for her Christmas present last year. Now we start looking for next year. She wouldn't model the dress, so I took a close-up.





Read more about Antiparos, a separate island that we consider a neighborhood of Paros, on our full service website: http://ParosParadise.com