Greek Island Santorini

This summer we decided to support the Greeks and visit the island of Santorini. I have already been to Crete which is quite a big island. I had heard of Santorini before and heard that it is actually the best island to visit.

Santorini airport

Tower at Santorini airport

When you arrive at Santorini you realise how small everything seems to be. We took a bus from the plane to the airport which seems more like a bigger bus station. The conveyor belt has no signs whatsoever showing the planes arriving. You just wait and see if you find your bag. The sanitary conditions at the airport finally reminded you that you are in Greece in case you had not realised that yet. The airport tower was rusty and seemed like it was going to fall apart soon. Reminded me of some place in deep Russia only difference being that you do not step out of the plane and go through the gates of the airport right onto the main road of the city/town.

Mediterranean Royal Hotel

Hotel Beach

We had booked a tour and had a bus take us to the hotel. This was ok, because or hotel was only 2 kilometres away from the airport. Now you may think that this will be a very noisy area with planes flying all the time, but it was not. In fact it was never loud with plane flying, which happened about twice an hour during the day. The only loud planes are the military planes, which seemed to be flying from a military base located on the island of which we learned later. The hotel was ok. It had two pools and a beach. We stayed at the royal

Sea

Beach at the hotel

Pool bar

Hotel area, bungalows

The hotel was at the beach. The beach was some kind of black pebble sand. It was better to lie at one of the pools. The sea water itself is actually quite cold and the beach is a stone beach. You need rubber socks/slippers to go into the water. This is something the tour guides don't tell you. It was ok after a while though. The island itself is quite windy. If the weather gets a little worse, it gets even windier blowing the towels away. That was something I did not expect and it was a little annoying.

Winery

We rented a quad bike one day and decided to drive around. Not far away from our hotel, there was a winery. As I am interested in wine, I did want to find out what Santorini has to offer.

As you may expect from a hot climate, Santorini wines would be quite strong from the sun they receive. This is not really the case because of the simple cultivation. 

Wine museum

Winery

 When you get to the winery, you can have a tour and go to the wine museum. We skipped the tour and bought the ticket in order to go straight to the wine tasting. The reason for this is that I have been to many vineyards and did not expect to learn anything new about wine in Greece. Getting back to the simple cultivation, I would like to say that the Greeks are even simpler than Italians in some regions, whereas the reason for Italians making simple wines is usually that the conditions are good enough for making good quality wine with the grapes and conditions they have. In short, most Greek wines in Santorini are kept in steel tanks for 6 months maximum and are then bottled. The only wine which is kept in oak barrels for 24 months or more is the Vinsanto which is a sweet wine. Actually it is a sherry. They mainly use Greek grapes. I will not go into detail because I do not think it makes a difference.

Tasting area inside the winery

Obviously, with the methods the wine makers in Santorini use, you can not expect any high quality wine. This is why I only drank white wine, maybe some Rosé. The higher price ranges are also not in any way better so you can stay with the mediocre wine or otherwise drink beer.

Oia

Oia apparently has the nicest sunset on the island. We had the quad and drove there. It took us about 45 minutes. The roads are small. The maximum speed everywhere is 50 km/h. It was very windy that day and my sunglasses were almost blown off driving. I would also like to add that the Greek attitude towards maintenance of vehicles or bikes is different to ours. In short, that fixed brake did not work the way it should have when parking. The quad drove off once and hit Vespa. I could pay the owner 15 Euro for his broken mirror and he was fine with it. In Oia I parked it in front of a big rock. When we came back The quad was stuck onto the rock, which was better then it falling off the cliff into the sea.

As in most places, Santorini has a tourist attraction which everyone has to see. This is the sunset in Oia. When you go there, it seems like the whole island, or all tourists on the island are on the way to see this famous sunset. When you walk up the steep narrow paths you try to make your way through and see people sitting on the streets crowded like ants.

View from the top of Oia

In Oia you can see the typical white Greek buildings with round tops which are sometimes blue.

Typical Greek buildings in Oia

Crouds waiting for the sunset

In order to see the sunset, we made our way all the way up and decided to go into a restaurant (see Santorini food and restaurants). This is recommended as you at least have a place to sit then. The stairs and were crowded and there were almost not places to stand or sit to see the sunset.

Oia sunset

We saw the sunset. It was a sunset. What can I say. I doubt that it is very romantic with the crowds there. You can go there once to have a look but there are better ways to experience the sunsets in Santorini which I will get to later.

Kamari

Kamari was a five minute drive away from our hotel. A taxi to Kamari, like any ride cost about 10 Euros. 

In Kamari there are loads of shops on the way to the beach. You can even rent rooms. There are also a couple of restaurants and bars. They are mainly restaurants though.

In the souvenir shops you can buy almost anything. We bought fake sunglasses for 10 Euros for the beach as well as sun hats. Everything was quite cheap.

There is not that much to see but some bars have live music. There is even karaoke in some bars. We found a karaoke bar which was fun. If you want to go for a stroll and a couple of drinks, it is ok. 

Fira

Fira is the capital of the island. It is filled with all sorts of shops and restaurants. There are many gold and jewelry shops as well.

When we had the quad, we drove to Fira during the day as well walking up the narrow and steep paths at the edge of the mountain village. 

View of other island and volcano

View from the top of Fira

There are several bars in the higher part of the village facing the sea. Many of them have a good view. Cacti grow on the hills. We actually tried a cocktail with cactus juice, which was a non alcoholic one. They were  small and cost 10 Euros, so we drank them and left.

Donkeys going up to the top of the village

The only way to get up to the top of Fira is by foot, as driving up is not possible or allowed except with scooter which is also not possible everywhere. This is why they still use donkeys to bring supplies up to the top of the village. There is also a cable car. From the top of the village you can see a small port. It seems that most visitors coming with cruise ships take the cable car up the village or ride up on donkeys.

Sunset in Fira

We went to Fira one evening and went to Tropical Bar and could see a beautiful sunset which was definitely not worse than in Oia and much nicer to look at. We could comfortably sit in this small bar just for the sunset and wait.

Overall I would like to say that Santorini is a beautiful island. Service and quality on the whole is mediocre. If you are going for a holiday and you want to be at the beach and this is enough for you. Then it is good enough. There is almost no night life which is why I did not mention it. There are 2 or 3 so called clubs which are just bars and some crowded Irish Pubs playing house music. I liked the island very much and most of the people there as well. Everybody tried hard everywhere we went to make our stay more pleasant. Some might say that the Greeks have to try harder because they need the money right now, but who doesn't? That's not an argument for me. They all tried hard and were quite nice. They are not the quickest of all people which is why you have to tell them everything 2 or 3 times, but then you get what you want. If you have visited Eastern European countries you will probably understand the mentality. All in all, I would definitely recommend Santorini for a summer vacation and I would consider coming back.

Greek Island Santorini, Restaurants and Food

Hotel Restaurant at Mediterranean Royal

At our hotel we opted for the all inclusive program, basically because it cost just as much as half board. On the first evening we went to the hotel restaurant. The wine, as I have already explained in the other blog entry concerning Santorini is just average. 

Regardless of the quality of the wine, I did not want to go and get the wine by glass each time as they said would be necessary for all guests who have all inclusive. After asking a couple of times, one waiter agreed to bring us a carafe of their white wine. 

The best food at the hotel was grilled sausage or grilled meat. Anything of that sort with some kind of great salad was ok. Nothing special but ok.

During the day for lunch, we usually ate at the hotel restaurant as a matter of convenience. After a while, we did not really eat that much for lunch, just had a little bit of grilled meat or something of the sort with one of the Greek salads.

Most of the normal Greek dishes apart from the grilled meat or sometimes fish was pretty fat. You could see everything swimming in oil which was not very inviting. The Greeks eat a lot of very heavy and fat dishes especially for dinner, which is something I can not comprehend and would not want to start doing. This is why we basically held ourselves back with the food at the hotel and tried the lighter dishes which were rarely found.

There hotel rarely offered any fish. This seemed odd to us as we were on an island. It seems that fish is more costly and not really offered at the hotels except when you order some specials as we saw the locals do when they ordered giant prawns for example.

Salad

Perigiali Tavern Kamari

When walking up and down the beach road, we were looking around actually looking for a restaurant recommended to us by our hotel concierge. We passed by this tavern twice on the way and were chatted up by one of the waiters on the main road. After having looked at the other restaurants we wanted to sit down somewhere and as the waiter had been nice we decided to go to Perigiali Tavern.

We asked for suggestions and wanted to try something Greek. I would like to mention that in Santorini most restaurants are tourist oriented. It is hard to find gyros anywhere. So we ordered some garlic bread with some sort of dip. They had no tzatziki.

Moussaka

We ordered some Moussaka for starters between the two of us. The portions, I might add were very big as they were in most restaurants in Santorini. The moussaka was far too much and mainly contained potatoes and no egg plant (melanzani) as you would expect. Not very Greek to me.

Lamb stew with vegetables

For the main course I wanted to have some grilled lamb. For each dish we asked about they could not really explain due to their lack of English language skills I suppose or just because they could not be bothered. As I said, I asked for grilled lamb. They then told me about a dish and said "this is what you like, is good". They said the same about the wine. I felt like in the movie "Don't mess with the Zohan". Eventually they served a lamb stew instead of grilled lamb which came with vegetables. It was ok but now what I had ordered.

Fish with vegetables

We also ordered some grilled fish. It came the way you see it on the picture. Basically we did not have any Greek food the way we would have expected it to be. It was not bad but their attitude was not very caring. They just wanted to serve quickly and cash in the money and that was it. It was not expensive, I must say but definitely not a place worth coming back to.

Strogili Restaurant Oia

As I have mentioned in my previous post, we eventually decided to go to a restaurant in Oia in order to experience the sunset in a more convenient location. This is the restaurant we chose. In this restaurant, we could order half bottles of wine, which was good.

Tzatziki

 The Tzatziki was not bad. After a long quest in Santorini, we had finally found a restaurant which had tzatziki, as odd as it may sound.

Grilled chease in honey sauce

As a starter we had a grilled cheese in honey sauce which had an interesting taste. The portion was quite generous.

Spicy saussage

The spicy sausages were indeed spicy in a nice sauce. It was something new and a good starter.  

Souvlaki

Giant prawns in spicy sauce

For the main course we had souvlaki and giant prawns. Finally we had souvlaki. The prawns reminded us of a tuscan taste.

Baklava

We tried the Baklava for desert which was very sweet and drenched in honey. Was also nice. Overall, this restaurant was a nice experience in the overcrowded mountain village of Oia. It took long but was ok. The waiters were hectic and disorganised though. Either way, if you are looking for a place to eat and sit in that area, this is not bad. Would we go back? I am not really sure.

Kings Cafe Restaurant Kamari

This was a place we went to on the first day we visited Kamari whilst wandering around the main street. We went there for drinks. We were treated very well. We then said that we would come back sometime. We then found out that they have live music in a couple of days. The owner said that he would be happy to reserve a table. He said that he will just remember us when we come and that's it. He said that he will remember the Austrians. We left it at that.

Egg plant and fried vegetable starter

When we arrived that day, we waited and asked for our reserved table. The owner came after a while and saw us. He brought us some more comfortable chairs. We probably had the best table in the restaurant with a good view of the musicians. We felt good straight away. We then came on the day of my birthday and ordered a nice Pimm aperitif which was good.  Then we also ordered starters and a good bootle of a very strong Greek white wine. This wine really was strong and probably the best Greek wine we drank during our stay in Santorini. 

Fried egg plant with feta cheese and tomato sauce

The highlight amongst the starters was the fried eggplant with feta cheese and a home made tomato salsa which was an interesting and very pleasant combination. This is something you could try and cook at home. Probably the best starter we had in Santorini.

Mixed Grill with pita bread, salad, tzatziki and fries

On the night that was my birthday, there was live music. There were also some dancers. They showed everyone how to dance Sirtaki. The young man showing Sirtaki was approximately age 25 and extremely overweight which made this look like some sort of comedy, but we were still entertained.

Giant prawns with egg plant and salad

Our main courses were a meat mixed grill dish with tzatziki, pita bread, fries and salad. The portion was huge. After the starters I could not even eat half of it. We also had the giant prawns with egg plant and salad. This was also a generous portion like all others at this restaurant.

My birthday surprise

After these huge main dishes they played happy birthday for me and brought us some cake and ice cream on the house. Overall we felt very good. We asked them to call us a cab which they also did and showed us to the road the cab would drive to. Overall, this was a very nice experience. The owner is forthcoming and seems to read his guests minds. We ate to much there and drank even more but it was definitely a fun evening. I recommend this place on the nights they have live music. You'll have a laugh. You can also come one normal nights, the location is nice and the food is also good. This is definitely a place to come back to when in Santorini.

Zafora Restaurant in Fira

Restaurant terrace

After having seen the sunset at Tropical bar, we walked around and looked at a place to sit and have a bite. We did not really want to eat but want to try out something local.

Local Rosé wine

We ordered a bottle of a local rosé wine. It was ok. The wine was cold when they brought it to the table but they did not even bother putting it into any kind of cooler.

Huge tomato and feta cheese starter

We had a tomato feta cheese dish as a starter. This was very much. We tried it between the two of us. It was just big and fatty.

Oven cooked lamb in with cheese and vegetables

As a main course, we had an oven cooked wrapped lamb with a cheese and vegetable filing. This was just a big dish, not necessarily tasty. Overall I would like to say that this was a place for tourists where you pay for the location rather than for the food. It was nothing special at all. The food was at best mediocre and the service reminded you of a factory canteen rather than a restaurant. 

Taverna Mario

The Taverna Mario is a fish restaurant which is in Monolithos and was not far from our hotel. We could walk there. In Santorini, everything is fine as long as you are on hotel property. Once you get out, you see some unfinished buildings, empty spaces and wild dogs. The restaurant itself was pretty empty when we arrived. 

Fresh fish

The waiter showed us the fish straight away when we asked about fish. As I have said before, it was relatively difficult to find fresh fish in restaurants. The restaurant is right at the beach and you can hear the tides rushing towards the shore at night smelling the sea breeze. 

See view from the restaurant

We decided to try some local specialties as starters. I would like to mention that the starters in Santorini are usually quite big and usually were better than most main courses. 

Tzatzii

Garlic bread

We ordered tzatziki again as well as some meatballs and filled red peppers. 

Fried meatballs

The feta cheese filled red peppers are a specialty of the restaurant. The portions were very generous. They were so generous in fact that we were already full after the starters without even finishing everything.

Peppers filled with feta cheese

For the main course we decided to have lobster pasta and a filet steak wrapped in bacon and cheese.

Steak wrapped in bacon and cheese with pita bread, fries and rice

Lobster spaghetti

The portions for the main course were even bigger. Everything was very good. The lobster was actually 500 grams. They took out the meat and put it on the pasta, making it easier to eat. After this huge meal, I could only order one more thing and that was raki.

Raki

After having eaten all that, as generous as they were, they still gave us some baklava on the house. 

Baklava

We finished our dinner when it was already dark. I asked the waiter if there are any wild dogs walking around on our path back to the hotel and he said there are some. I was going to call a cab to take us back but they offered to drive us to the hotel. Or hotel was not very far away but I thought that was very nice. Overall, this was a very nice evening. The restaurant was definitely best we came across in Santorini.

In general, I would like to say that the Greeks are generous and very friendly. You can mainly eat grilled meat or fish and some salads. The food is ok, nothing grand. The wine is mediocre in general. The friendly people make up for everything with their efforts and value for money is generally ok.