Sunday (8/19) - Food & Wine!

Day #7

Oh, so this is why people love Santorini. We made plans to wake up really early so we could catch sunrise from our beautiful balcony, and as soon as our alarm went off we opened the doors and made ourselves comfortable on the deck chairs as we took in the beautiful dawn. The sun slowly started to make its way over the hill to our right, and as it did, it threw amazing colors onto the perfect white canvas provided by all the hillside houses. What a sight. We breathed it all in, soaking in every second of this amazing trip and experience. Definitely one of the most incredible moments of the trip.

Sunrise hitting the white homes

Sun is up in Santorini!

As we watched sunrise, we also had our first canine friend come by. A black, furry little rascal with floppy ears came running across the local rooftops and porches and came and said hello to us. After a few tail-wags and a quick trip around our balcony, he plopped down on the floor next to my feet and took a morning siesta as we took in the sights. Because of his dangly ears, we named him Flops. Little did we know, this would not be our last experience with Flops in Santorini...

My main man, Flops.

After a quick morning walk around the local town, we received our first fresh bread delivery from an extremely pleasant Romanian woman who worked for the owners of our place. With a fresh loaf of cracked wheat bread, we pulled out the jelly and honey from the room and had juice and coffee on the porch. What a day this was going to be!

We set out down the famous steps down to Ammoudi Bay. There are roughly 280 rocky, well-spaced out steps leading from the top of Oia down to this small bay that had four restaurants, a small boat port, and a little swimming hole. The steps are famous for the multiple ways to traverse them. We took the more natural route of walking up and down, and passed on the less strenuous (but more aromatic) option of a donkey ride back up. The train of donkeys, strapped with bells, jingled their way up the hill, although this practice has become less in recent years with the uproar of local animal rights activtists not liking this treatment of the donkeys. We immediately jumped into the water, that was pleasantly warm (around 75 degrees) and swam around and stood on some rocks and goofed off. After taking in some rays on the pier, we explored the local restaurant scene and even passed a place with an aquarium in front where they put the day's catches! As we passed the aquarium, two local fishermen were busy cutting up their most recent, a giant grouper. I mean huge. The head alone was as big as a couple footballs. We explored a bit more around Ammoudi Bay, along the way finding two not-so-attractive, older, nude, female sunbathers. We whisked our way past them, gawking a bit as we did so. And on that note, we were obviously ready for lunch!

 

Ammoudi Bay 

Julie descending the steps to Ammoudi Bay

I have been so excited to write this next piece, cuz it's one of the best lunches of the trip. Off yet another recommendation from the LP Bible, we made our way to a lunch-place with an incredible view of the volcano and sea, named Skala. We ordered mezedhes-style, requesting four different appetizers along with our glasses of white wine. After a short wait, we were presented with a glorious display of plates and trays of food. Among the many dishes were tzatziki (a Marc staple at this point), greek salad, tomato fritters, and horn peppers stuffed with feta and herbs. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. The tzatziki was served chilled, as it should be, with the perfect amount of dill, and I quickly smothered the bread with it. The greek salad was huge, and had generous helpings of feta, tomatoes, onions, and cucumber. Julie and I both housed this bad boy. The tomato fritters were something Julie had heard about and wanted to try, and they certainly didn't disappoint. They were slightly chopped tomatoes fried into balls (slightly larger than a meatball), and when dipped in the cool tzatziki, they were outrageous. And then the crowning gem, the stuffed horn peppers. These peppers had just the right amount of kick, and they were generously stuffed with fresh feta cheese and incredible combination of fennel, anise, dill and oregano. They were so stupid-good, I was upset we didn't have more. OMG, so good. I want them now. This was a fantastic meal. I heart you Skala.

View from Skala

After lunch, we peeled ourselves from our seats at the lunch table and made our way to the town center to see how we could make our way to Sigalas Winery, the local vintner who made the wine we had sampled the previous night at Ambrosia & Nectar. After a short taxi ride, we found ourselves at a quaint wine tasting room, surrounded by its vineyards and beautiful Greek landscape. We were given the ridiculously awesome option of tasting twelve (yes, 12) wines for the absurd price of nine euro. Nine euro? Um, yes please. We made our way out to a veranda and waited for our epic tasting experience to begin. 

*Oh, side note...I met a cat, and I named him Vino. He liked me. End of side note.*

Five minutes later, our server came out with a tray of 24 glasses of wine (12 for each of us). What a sight that was! After she successfully balance the tray after placing all 24 glasses on the table, she separated the whites (6) and reds (6) and gave us a quick rundown of what we were drinking, then departed. So we embarked on our 12-wine journey, sipping each one, writing down notes for each wine, reaching for the next one, and...spilling wine #8 all over my shorts. Oh, and if you were curious, wine #8 was red, and my shorts were khaki. Epic fail.

Sigalas Winery - 24 glasses!

The wines were decent, much better in the white wine department than the red, but all-in-all, an incredibly enjoyable experience, and a great way to spend an afternoon in Santorini. Put it on the "well worth it" list. The setting and views alone were mesmerizing.

We called the cab (same driver) to take us back to the main square, and after a bit of street exploring, we took a short rest on the day bed in the living room. Between the wine and the lunch, we were overdue for a little siesta (much like Flops earlier). We arose in time to go watch a beautiful sunset at the peak of Oia, and the amount of people that came out to watch it was amazing. The entire town came out to see the reflections and colors thrown onto the white houses from the setting sun, and the hanging bougainvillea just added to the beautiful scene.

Watching the Oia sunset.

 

 Sunset

And then, it was time for more food. After a bit of a search, we found our next target...Kastro. A nice outdoor restaurant with pleasant music providing a great ambiance, Kastro was also highly recommended in the LP Bible. No longer stuffed from the lunch at Skala, we ordered an appetizer of grilled eggplant stuffed with feta, and followed that up with entrees of pasta with sundried tomato and asparagus (Julie) and lamb with an amazing gravy sauce (Marc). Two simple meals, two excellent results.

Last view of sunset from our place.

Fully sated, we once again ambled back to our room, and crashed. Yep, that's it. An exciting day ends with two tired heads on two comfy pillows in an old white house, on a bluff, overlooking the volcano caldera of Santorini. Ain't no thang.

*Up Next* - Julie's dream comes true, we rent ATV's, see different colored sand beaches, and more great food.