Ios Island

Ios Island, situated between Santorini and Naxos Island, is another small populated Island with a population a little over 2,000.  Two movies have been filmed there, Ginger and Cinnamon and scenes in The Big Blue.

Beautiful Beaches

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And an ancient archeological fortress, that is from 2,700 to 2,300 B.C.

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Folegandros Island

Up from Santorini you will find Folegandros, a hidden gem of an Island, just a 45 minute ferry ride from Santorini.  It is a great getaway in combination with Santorini, fly into Santorini spend a few days there and then hop over to Folegandros for a few days.

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The "chora", the name of pretty much every main village on the islands is built on the cliffs of the Island.
This Island has only a little over 650 locals and no bank or tourist office so make sure you have plenty of cash and free time to enjoy a relaxing and quiet Island. 

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Some of the beaches are hard to get too, so if walking wear a really good pair of shoes, rent a buggy or have a boat take you to a few of the harder to get to beautiful beaches.

Santorini Island

I have talked about Santorini here and shared a few pictures here and here.

It is located at the bottom of the Cyclades Island group.

This video shows some of the cave bars and beautiful beaches.

Video source YouTube, this is not me.

How is your Anchors Aweigh Quilt going?

Milos Island

Milos is the lowest southwestern Island of the Cyclades.  Below Serifos and Sifnos.

Milos is best known for Venus de Milo a statue of Aphrodite in the Lovre Museum in Paris.

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But what it should be known for is it's beaches and surrounding colorful waters.

source, Is that your boat anchored there?  I wish it was mine!

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Don't these waters make you want to just run and play and swim all day, ahh..laa..  Is it summer time yet.  Many of the websites say that April and May are a good time to visit, and being closer to Crete and therefor probably getting warmer weather earlier than the more northern Islands, then maybe this is true.  April is just around the corner, anyone ready to dip there feet in?

Changing over to bloglovin'

Okay like the rest of the world I am changing over to bloglovin'
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5040355/?claim=sad64vq3bd9">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Serifos and Sifnos Islands

Serifos and Sifnos just below Kithnos, 2 not overly populated islands, 1,400 and 2,600 respectively.  They both have mining in their histories, Serifos in Iron-Ore and Sifnos in gold, silver and lead, making them very wealthy in ancient times, it has been inhabited since 4,000 BC.  But the metals ran out on both Islands so making a living on them has resorted to tourism and agriculture.

A Church on Serifos

 Beautiful, Remote Sifnos one of the first places in Greece to mint coins, 600 BC.

Sifnos, Bay of Kamares

note the 2 pictures are taken from Wikipedia, the links to Wikipedia can be found in the first sentence.

Kithnos Island

Cyclades Islands

Today we are visiting Kithnos or sometimes spelled Kythnos, located just below Kea.

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 With more than 70 beaches there are plenty of places for a person to relax and maybe enjoy some ouzo or a cold Frappe.
Kithnos is truly amazing in that it has on of the oldest known habitations in the Cycladic islands, they have found human skeletons and stone artifacts dating back 12,000 - 14,000 years ago, WOW.
In 1983 it became Greece’s first place for a wind park.
And then in 2002 (not very long ago at all) they discovered an intact and un-plundered Temple, that was filled with over 1,400 artifacts,  including precious jewels, gold and silver.  An amazing find considering that the Islands were attacked by Pirates and Marauders for centuries and no one found this 2,700 year old Temple to Hera.

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Wouldn't you like to moor your boat here and spend a few leisurely hours walking around and perhaps finding your own hidden temple.

KEA, double layout

double layout of Kea

 Kea is a beautiful Island, it's quite and it is slightly different from the other Cyclades Islands in it's Architecture, I would have been happy in any of the homes on the water, such gorgeous stone houses.

This one had it's own bay, and a pretty blue door leading down to it.

detail of buttons and fabric flower

First page of layout, My favorite Things about KEA

My favorite things about Kea, bougainvillea, architecture and the beautiful blue SEA.

chipboard SEA

Second page of Layout

First Page Linking too Scraptastic February Challenge #4
Second Page Linking too Creative Craft World March Challenge

March - Cyclades Islands

Let's explore the Cyclades Islands, Cyc·la·des (skl-dz) also Ki·klá·dhes (k-kläs)

A group of islands just south of Athens in the Aegean Sea. The name was used in ancient times for the islands surrounding Delos. (ow -I was trying to get how it sounded from the dictionary, go here to check it out)  Delos (blogged about here) being a sacred Island from before Christ, is one of the best and most interesting historical and archeological sights of Greece.  One of my all time favorite places to go, to get the feeling of how old and ancient Greece is.

Ancient Lions on Delos

 Kiklas means "around" in Greek and this describes the Islands that are around Delos, now in modern times they surround Syros as a modern and very large port (boats) center.

Picture of an abandoned house with a Bougainvillaea Flower bush outside-Syros

The Cyclades comprise about 220 islands, the major ones being Amorgós, Anáfē, Ándros, Antíparos, Dēlos, Eschátē, Íos, Kéa, Kímōlos, Kýthnos, Mēlos, Mýkonos, Náxos, Páros, Folégandros, Sérifos, Sífnos, Síkinos, Sýros, Tēnos, and Santoríni. Most of the smaller islands are uninhabited. (Stolen from Wikipedia and all of these sights will take you to a Wiki page)

Where would you like to go?

I have blogged about Kea, Mykonos and Santorini (click on each one to bring you to a new window with even more pictures) :)

Tell me where would you like to go next?

Mara

For Anchors Aweigh QAL, we are working on Rows 3 and 4 this month, I posted a few cheater tips on Flickr if you would like to take a look.  Also don't forget that So Chick! The Blog is also doing a QAL for Anchors Aweigh and she is doing the full pattern just the way it is supposed to be made, so go check out her website also.

February Re-Cap-Anchors Aweigh

Did anyone get their First and Second Row completed of the Anchors Aweigh Quilt?

Row 2 hiding under there, blanket that I bought at IKEA and will be using for the back

Let's do a little re-cap of where we traveled in Corfu, we went to Ipsos Beach, Sidhari Beach, St. George beach.  Now I will take you to 2 popular beaches that I personally did not like, but feel I should include since a lot of people go to them.

Going from Agios Georgios south along a very narrow and scary roads you get to a very popular area called Paleokastritsa, once again if you are not a good driver it is suggested that you don't drive because some of these roads are like on cliffs.
I thought I took pictures of Paleokastritsa but I couldn't find them so I am borrowing from the internet, when we were there the beach was so packed that you couldn't even put a towel down, once again not for me.  It is a great place to go for lunch maybe if you can find parking.

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source, this little tiny beach was packed with people, not room to even walk to the water.

The next beach we stayed at for 3 nights but only went down to the beach on one day, the day we arrived after that we drove around looking for better beaches, because this one was so rocky and even though we were staying in a hotel close by, it was a hike up a big hill after swimming and when you have 2 little kids to carry it's not so fun.  Parking was minimal and so we couldn't even just drive down and then drive back up.  If you don't have kids and enjoy a larger rock beach where the water gets deep pretty quick and there are small to medium waves then this beach is very nice, especially with the added bonus of lots of hotels around and tavernas.  In guidebooks and even on the internet it is said to be a sand beach, but on the year we went 2012, it was large rocks, I am guessing that in other years they may have dredged the bottom to get it to be sandy, this is just a guess though. 

Blue, Blue, Blue Waters

The kids did like throwing the rocks in the water, what kid wouldn't?

Agios Gordios, Corfu

With all of this traveling you could also just stay in Corfu Town and swim in this lovely cove right in the middle of the busy downtown, with it's small paved footpaths.

Corfu Town, Corfu

Oh did you want to see the Tula Pink Salt Water Aqua collection paired with V. and Co. Ombre Aqua.

do you see my little mess up.

I was asked how much background fabric I am using for my smaller version of the Anchor's Aweigh quilt.  I purchased 2 yards for each quilt, and cut them into 3 - 22 inch panels, I had 8 inches left over, (Caitlin over at I don't do dishes, is very generous in her cuts).  2 of the panels I cut from the middle 9.5 inches (don't forget I am using ombre fabric, this is making things a little different) for the sides (see picture above) then for the middle piece I cut that from the extra left over 8 inch piece.  The 3rd 22 inch piece I am cutting down the middle and then cutting out 8 inches on each side.
And if you missed the Salt Water Coral paired with Ombre Graphite Grey then you check out this post.
I am going to show you a cheater version of what I will be doing with the rest of the Rows tomorrow.