Subject: A cunning plan
Hi everyone Kay here.
The plan must have been a cunning one because it worked.
After 30 hours in the air and more than that on the ground in various countries, my dear husband was waiting at Arrivals in the Athens airport. I floated off the plane in superb condition having been pampered with the spoilt-brat business class treatment all the way. Being able to really sleep on the planes was such a treat. And did you know that upstairs on the A380 there is even a lounge to recline in whilst sipping drinks and demolishing snacks?
What’s more, we’re both now enjoying a series of lovely little hotels in Crete and Greece that Dennis had spent hours researching and booking months ago. We were contacted 36 hours ago by the one we’re in at present, saying that they were having to send us somewhere else for our first night as the previous guest had had a ghastly 9-hour series of boat trips, had been frightfully seasick and was in hospital being rehydrated and not be able to check out. Having experienced several days of extreme winds and storms in Santorini we could imagine what she had been through and we weren’t exactly looking forward to our ferry trip. As it turned out ours was a much bigger boat and we had the seats in the very front allotted to us so it was a good 2-hour trip and I didn’t drop a stitch.
Fira was the exact white plus blue plus bougainvillea of all the posters and paintings seen over the years. It was also plus 4 cruise ships one day, 3 the next and none there after. Our fabulous Zorzis Hotel was in peaceful Perissia and run by a lovely Japanese lady and her Greek husband who were the ultimate hosts and quite rightly proud of their beautiful home – well, it was like home to the guests. We had several bus trips to and from Fira as well as heading north to Oia one day for lunch.
On a particularly wet and windy morning we crammed on to a bus and sloshed our way to Akrotiri where in 1967 a remarkably well-preserved Minoan settlement was unearthed. Now there are 3 acres all roofed and enclosed with 2 and 3-storied buildings in various stages of recovery revealing much of the ancient civilisation in a time when it appears there was more water available than now.
We had been quite intrigued by the grape plants – not vines as we know them but low-growing and curled into circles no more than 30cm above the ground. Dennis also took a wine tour one day and learned that many of the plants are a hundred years old and that picking at ground level is a totally back-breaking exercise with the bunches hiding under the leaves.
But before we got to Santorini we were in Crete, firstly in the seaside town of Iraklio (Heraklion) where we happened upon an amazing restaurant quite near the main square and fountain. Other diners told us they had eaten there 3 nights in a row after reading about it in an in-flight magazine. At the end of the delicious meal we were served with a glass of complimentary rose-scented raki which was even smoother and more desirable than cointreau. It was obviously the place to return to on the second night but no amount of searching amongst the dozens of eating places would reveal its whereabouts. We did a grid pattern search to no avail knowing that part of the problem was #1 we had actually stumbled upon it from a little side alley and not the main entrance, and #2 because of #1 we didn’t know its name but we suspected it began with “P”. So in a country where one doesn’t speak the language it was simply not possible to enquire even in our highly developed tourist’s hand signals. We slumped off, ate elsewhere and pretty soon discovered that in other establishments the after-dinner raki was more of a mouth-burning Chateau Highpower.
Chania was a delightful town further along the coast easily reached by bus and Dennis had us booked at an exquisite small hotel run by three 30-somethings who epitomised awesome service. Socrates was the morning host/chef and each day he created 4-course breakfasts which he would present artistically one plate at a time with a passionate recitation of who had created the original recipes or provided the ingredients. The temperatures were in the high 30’s so we’d retreat to our enormous suite in the afternoons and sometimes a bottle of wine with nibbles would just appear. One of the hosts is expecting a baby in a few weeks so one day during the heatwave I set to and made a pair of bootees using wool that I had for my current knitting project. (Sorry, Amy. Hope there will be enough left to finish your garment).
A google search revealed the location of the missing restaurant in Heraklion and we had one more chance to locate it on our return journey. We were so obviously jubilant when we found it that we were given a bottle of their raki to take away with us.
If one is lucky when travelling, you unexpectedly meet up with someone from home and this time it has been Gillian and Richard Stowers who were in Santorini and now Naxos at the same time. Today we rented a car and with Dennis ably navigating and Richard sticking determinably to the wrong side of the road, we had a tour around the island even managing to find most of the “must sees”. This evening we lured them to a little restaurant we found last night and had the best garlic prawns ever dropped on a platter. Apparently we’re going there again tomorrow night breaking all the rules again about eating at each place only once.
Dennis has a cold so has quite rightly gone to bed early so I will try and find some photos to attach to this so we can send in the morning.
Kali spera
Kay.
Despite my cold I feel the need to make a few passing comments.
4000 years ago the Minoans built cities with underground sewerage and a variety of flushing toilets so Greece had a head start in the plumbing business. But they haven’t done much with it because every toilet comes with a written or pictorial exhortation not to flush paper of any sort, but to use the rubbish bin conveniently placed for the deed. One wonders if it just a custom or does the country have such delicate infrastructure that it can’t cope with bits of toilet paper.
In Santorini, and I suspect elsewhere in Greece, there are lots of cute little churches in all sorts of places. I read that by putting a church on your property you could avoid paying property taxes, but when I did my wine tour the guide told me that by building a church first you officially made the land religious property and that meant the normal building regulations need not be followed, so you could build something else that took no notice of the property laws.
Santorini has a population of 13,000, in the tourist season 20,000 more come to work in the industry and at a peak there are 60,000 tourists staying. The status symbol the locals aspire to is not a flash car but a flash garden which shows you are wealthy enough to afford the water.
Apart from my wine tour, in depth investigations are mostly being conducted at the restaurant house wine level which is a sort of bottom feeding exercise with the occaisional sample that is above the average. At $6-7 for a half litre it is not an expensive occupation.
That’s all.
Dennis.
p.s. had selected 7 photos to send but little computer has spat the dummy so you’re saved