Fun in Chios, Greece

This weekend, I was lucky to be able to spend about two days in Chios, a small Greek island off the coast of Turkey. I've been to Chios many, many times over the years- it's less than an hour by ferry from Cesme, a port city near my home in Izmir. This time, I sailed with family and my friend Luke from college who's on a gap year in Athens. We got up to some interesting things, and I was happy to get the chance to do some proper photography for the first time in a long while.

 

This is one of the gorgeous buildings in Pirgi, a small village that's famous for having beautifully decorated houses.

 

This is a beautiful old church that's at the end of an alleyway in Pirgi. I didn't get to go in (most of the time the churches are locked, which is unfortunate) but I admired it from afar!

 

 A group of older women sewing and sorting pieces of mastic (a tree sap used to make chewing gum)  from stones and other debris. They seemed very happy to see us and chatted away to Luke (who speaks some greek) while I snapped photographs. 

 

This woman might have the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. Just being around her made me happy. 

 

This is the back wall of Maria's, a very cute little restaurant on Emborio beach. We've been going here regularly for the past few years and the food is always fantastic! What I love most about it that Maria has all sorts of colorful and gorgeous knick knacks, herbs, dried tomatoes and such hanging all around that add a vibrant burst of color to the restaurant. Gorgeous!

The next two pictures are from Mesta, another village that's more medieval and has an absolutely gorgeous, ancient church that we unfortunately weren't able to visit this time around. (We couldn't find anyone to unlock it!)

Finally, no photographic journey in Greece would be complete without at least one shot of a cat!