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?

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.

Donkey Layout

I swear this is the last Donkey post and my last Donkey page layout, you can see the others here and here.

 

I even didn't use 5 photos and cut up several more to make this layout a grid style that Scraptastic talked about.
I am so happy to have found challenges they help me step out of the habit of using just 2 papers, here I have used 7 different ones, okay only 2 are print and the rest plain paper, but still an improvement.

2 comic bubbles

Linking up to:

Purple Pumpkin November Sketch Challenge
Scraptastic November Challenge #2

Double Donkey Layout

This is a continuation of Kamaki Ass, with my pictures of when I was on Santorini and rode a donkey up from the old Thira port to Thira.
Both Layouts are using the November Color Challenge from Scraptastic "When Skies are Grey" .
The background pages are blue and then a strip of gold/yellow and grey on top and the donkey tails are in black.  It's raining and the skies are grey here right now so I could not take good photos.

Double Layout, on the left showing the sheer cliff to climb and on the right with the donkeys.

The Layout on the left is for the Studio Calico Nov. 15th challenge, with a Donkey Tail in the top right hand corner.  The 2 photos show the trail that you either have to walk, take a tram or by Donkey, well I picked the fun one, the donkey.

 The Layout on the Right is for Creative Craft World's Scrap Map Challenge, I used 4 photos and a banner in the right top corner with donkey tails (using pop up stickies) and then pinned a blue donkey tail on the picture in the middle with a brad.  A little journaling at the bottom and I drew on the island map that was already on the background paper.

Linking up to: Scraptastic Color Challenge -both layouts
                      Studio Calico's Sunday Sketch-layout on left
               and  Creative Craft World Scrap Map Challenge- layout on right

Is this okay if I do double layouts?

More Santorini Info:

The old port is not where you will be dropped off if you come by ferry, instead they unload and pick up travelers from the new port and this is fairly far away from Thira (the main town) so you will need to find transportation to your destination. 
At the bottom of the old port they have boats that will take you to the volcano as a day trip, loads of fun and I suggest going with an old bathing suit and towel because the boat will drop you off at some Thermal Springs that have a yellowish color and sulferish smell (it ruined my bathing suit).  They also have Tavernas located in the old Port, walking down is easy and walking up not so hard either, but really who wants to when you can ride a donkey!