Days 7 & 8: The Greek Kitchen and the Ancient Agora

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast in our hotel and took a bus in the rain (despite not having tickets--apparently you can't pay onboard in Athens, as we were expected to do on Santorini) to central Plaka. There we joined a cooking class with The Greek Kitchen. Our classmates were a family of four from Brisbane, Australia, a couple from Texas, a mother-daughter duo from the UK, a securities lawyer from D.C. who desperately needed a break from work, and a young woman from Nuremberg who is working in Athens for a couple of months on an up-coming beer festival. 

Our instructor, Vasia, gave us a tour of the nearby partially covered open-air food market. She told us about the offal soup Greeks eat at midnight after Holy Saturday services to break their Lenten fast of no animal products (Orthodox Easter is May 5 this year), and a different one made of cow stomach and feet that's supposed to help a hangover. (She recommended continuing to drink instead!) Then it was on to the fish market and how to tell when a fish is fresh. Finally, we went through the fruit and olive stalls. After class, Dear Husband and I circled back to pick up some apples and oranges for the rest of our trip.

SO MANY OLIVES!

We took turns chopping ingredients for things like tzatziki and making individual dishes. We learned how to roll both dolmades (rice +/- ground beef in grape leaves) and spanakopita. There was an eggplant dish, and dessert was an orange "pie" with torn phyllo dough that had the texture of a British pudding. Along the way, Vasia told jokes and played music, and we chatted amongst ourselves. 

Finally, lunch! Everything tasted delicious. 10/10, can recommend, had a lot of fun. After that we walked over to Monastiraki Square and the Ancient Agora (below). There's a small museum with objects from graves, and then a focus on the buildings that occupied the place over the centuries.

View of the Ancient Agora from the mount of Hephaestus's Temple, with the reconstructed stoa that holds the museum.

Left: ceramic boots found in women's graves. Right: a machine for determining who had jury duty. Below: obligatory red and black pottery.

I looked cute in the sunshine.

Above: Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, unfortunately closed for renovations. Below: The temple to Hephaestus (patron of fire, metal-working, and pottery) mostly survives. From 700-1800s it was a church to Saint George. Otto I was declared the first Greek King after independence from the Ottoman Empire there in 1833. It was used as a museum 1834-1934, and then it became an archaeological site.

DH really wanted to visit the Aeropagus (Mars Hill), where Paul preached to the Athenians. Due to fencing around the various site, it was a looong uphill walk. Unlike the Acropolis nextdoor, the hill is free to clamber up for the breathtaking views of the city.

By the time we had walked back to our hotel, I was nauseous and pre-syncopal, and I eventually developed full-blown food poisoning. It's unclear whether the culprit was the Indian curry for dinner the previous night or the eggplant dish for lunch. Nevertheless, an uncomfortable night for both of us. Sunday morning we did get dressed and go to St. Paul's Anglican church, but I only made it partway through the service before having to leave and lie down on a bench outside. The congregants kindly checked on me and offered water, but mostly I wanted to walk back to the hotel (slowly), take a nap, and nibble on crackers/sip on water. We scrapped our lunch and dinner plans, as well as a visit the Benacki Museum of Islamic Art. (I made do with their virtual tour.) With any luck, we'll still get to ride the funicular up to Lycabettus Hill before we leave.

Days 5 & 6: The Olympic Flame and the Athens National Garden

Due to high winds, our caldera boat tour was in fact cancelled, so Thursday we stuck around our apartment. After a late morning, we finally left shortly before noon to eat lunch at a nearby restaurant that had an enclosed second-floor dining room. We got "the best seat in the house" at Mama Thira, watching the clouds make shadows over the blue waves rolling inexorably toward the shore and the ferries coming and going. It was incredibly meditative. Dear Husband had an excellent beef stew, and I ordered dolmades and a seafood salad. Our waiter even brought some raki (or tsikoudia) at the end of the meal as an aperitif. It's the kind of stuff that will put hair on your chest!

Then DH worked on a choir project and I sat in on the patio in the sun but with my hair covered because of the strong wind, reading a history of food in World War II. Eventually we broke for gelato and then made the 15-minute walk up to Imerovigli, where we took photos from the high point at St. Nikolaus Holy Convent. 

At home there was a cold dinner, and then we hiked the other direction into Fira to get the souvenirs we wanted before coming home to pack. I am rather proud of the fact that just under 100 Euros of groceries yielded us 4 breakfast, 3 dinners, 1 lunch, and a LOT of extra cherry tomatoes--oops. Part of me wanted to be frugal, part wanted to eat what and when we wanted instead of whatever the restaurant kitchen sent out, and partly cooking for ourselves let us enjoy the gorgeous view from our Air BnB patio. I'll share the recipe I came up with to use the famous Santorini tomato paste (since the tomato jam looked watery and unappetizing). If we had rented a car, for sure we would have visited the Tomato Industrial Museum on the other side of the island.

Santorini Sandwiches: Cut a crusty roll in half, butter generously, and toast the tops in a pan. Spread a layer of tomato paste, then thinly sliced cucumber, next 2 pieces of white cheese, and finally 2-3 slices of prosciutto or salami. Enjoy with veggies, leftover dolmades, a glass of wine, etc.

The photobomber apologized for "ruining" the shot; I told him he made it perfect, very genius loci.

Friday morning was the big day: the running of the Olympic torch on Santorini starting in the main square of Firostefani, right where we were staying! We stood on a wall to see over the tourists and Greeks who had turned out to take photos and cheer. There was even a class of schoolchildren with construction paper torches. The flame was transferred from one of six carrying containers to the sleek silver torch. I haven't been able to find out the name of the athlete who carried it. She had an honor detail of buff bodyguards in white track suits with sunglasses and earpieces--their job was presumably to hold back the crowds on the sides of the narrow walkway, and to run interference with the hikers who insisted on using the path anyway.

After that, Dear Husband and I went back to our room and passed the time until our airport pickup by starting the Nanoblocks figure I got him of a grand piano. These are like Legos except smaller and were recommended by the New York Times columnist who also recommended my neck pillow and reminded me we needed new European plug converters.

Once in Athens, we took a very crowded Metro for an hour into Syntagma Square. I wanted to walk to our hotel through the National Garden. (The Wikipedia article encapsulates a strange episode in post-WWI Greek history involving a pet monkey biting the king and a war with Turkey.)

What you can't see is the extremely popular χελώνα (turtle) everyone is taking pictures of. 

There's even a small zoo with water fowl and billy goats (?!). After walking in an entire circle due to the non-linear pathways, we gave up and just took the noisy sidewalk alongside. Here's Hadrian's Arch we passed on the way to our hotel.

When we had finished the tiny piano and were ready to leave the hotel for dinner, we discovered that DH's sports coat had gone missing, so we retraced our steps through the drizzling rain, thankfully finding it draped over a bush on our way back.

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant that apparently just (re)opened for the season. It was a little off the beaten path, and perhaps we should have heeded multiple clues that things were "off"...

Day 4: Oia & Ammoudi Bay

Due to projected high winds, our caldera boat tour to the volcanic hot springs was pushed back by a day, so we swapped our Wednesday and Thursday itineraries. After breakfast on the patio, we packed a day bag with books for the bus ride and took the sea path downhill to Fira and the central bus depot. We were just in time to get seats on the public bus to Oia. I had read a blog that suggested the bus would make a clockwise circuit, effectively giving us a tour of the northern half of the island, but judging from the fact that the sea was on our right going and then on our left coming, we must have avoided the towns on the concave side of Santorini by taking the outer rim both ways. When you're not at the cliffs, the land is mostly scrub brush, with way more palm trees and cacti than I had anticipated. There seemed to be a good deal of construction to offset the buildings that had clearly been abandoned. 

When we disembarked, I realized I had not yet mapped out the way from the bus depot to our destination in Ammoudi Bay, so my phone was of little help. So we followed the crowd to the central square and the famous Church of Panagia Akathistos Hymn. A woman was trying to do a photo shoot in a long flowing dress in front of the people listening to tour guides or jockeying for their own kodak moment.

Then I guessed left, and we walked until we found a jewelry store that looked like it might have earrings to match the necklace that Dear Husband brought me back from his first trip. I bought a pair of posts that looked close enough and asked the saleslady for directions; she pointed us back in the direction from which we had come.

We joined the throngs shuffling shoulder to shoulder through the narrow main walkway past all the usual suspects: souvenir shops, clothing boutiques, silk purveyors, and cafes. This was the main reason I had decided to come at lunch rather than dinnertime/sunset. As crowded as it was, I wouldn't want to stay in Oia and can understand why people say not to visit just for this.

The first 2 photos above are at the Panagia Agion Panton, one of the big blue domes. A little farther on, past a busker playing accordion, we separated from the masses at the 241 stone steps down to Ammoudi Bay, which I had read was a beautiful little cove and has a nice (n$$$ce) seafood restaurant as well as dock for a ferry and a couple of other businesses. Below are looking left and right where the steps end.

Due to the high winds, the water-side deck was closed, but the maitre'd enticed us to the (mostly) enclosed upper deck, where we had a front-row seat to the spray from white-caped lapis lazuli waves and tried to waft the cigarette smoke from the next table through the opening in the plastic. Somehow I had missed this crucial detail, but the prices were mind-boggling (sometimes 3-digits for a single entree). We ordered seafood rigatoni, deconstructed grilled cheese with fries, and sparkling water and managed to get out of there with a bill for <$100.

Eschewing the suggestion to call a taxi, we counted the steps as we hiked back up. Not quite ready to end the daytrip, we searched out the Naval Maritime Museum, which we had seen profiled on Bettany Hughes' Smithsonian Channel documentary on Odysseus's journey across the Mediterranean. Located in a tony former captain's house with marble floors down a long passageway, we felt virtuous about visiting their little museum until 3 classes of school children showed up who were way more interested in ringing the bell and (probably) making fart jokes than learning about Santorini as a center of shipbuilding and trade. We learned that wine was crucial to the Greek fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, and that they used to grow cotton.

Below left: a "documentary" about shipping in Santorini that included some text from downstairs as well as a cartoon schooner from 1890 that traveled from the island to the Black Sea following a log from 1890 and projected on a large sail as a screen. Below right: a masthead from 1650. Bottom: the captain's library.

Below left: DH looks through the "real, working submarine periscope" in the garden (all there was to see was sky?). Below right: the largest of the model boats on display.

Finally it was time to buy several postcards and march back to the bus lot. DH held our place in line while I ran to the mini-market to get bottled water and tomato paste, since the local tomato jam looked watery and unappetizing. We arrived in Fira without incident and hoofed it back to Firostefani, where I washed the sand out of my hair and DH napped before we made another late dinner of pasta, canned fish, and Greek salad.

Missed Days 1-2? Day 3?

Day 3: Fira Old Port

 What a way to start the day: with a homemade Continental breakfast and this gorgeous view.

Tuesday was scheduled to be "down time," so the only thing on the agenda was walking into Fira to take the funicular down to the Old Port, where I wanted to eat lunch at a fancy cocktail restaurant.

It was a quick and reasonably smooth ride; we shared a car with a British couple who usually visit her sister in Las Vegas, but it's becoming so expensive that Santorini was a nice and closer alternative. It seemed that most of the folks riding up/down were also coming on/off the two cruise ships moored out a little ways and being ferried in little boats back and forth.

Alas, it turned out the restaurant I wanted to patronize is still closed for "the winter," so we ended up at the only one open this early, Taverna Syrtaki. The proprietor asked us whether we wanted fish or meat, and since we're the original surf-and-turf combo, he told us he would grill me a whole red snapper and Dear Husband a lamb shank. And that's what we got, along with some bread with tzatziki, fries, and a little salad. Other people had extremely fresh "catch of the day": we watched one of the employees stand on the edge of the dock with a spool of line and a little bait that he used to snag some really dumb fish. It was nice being down by the water, although someone at a nearby table was smoking, and it irritated my face. There wasn't much else going on, so we paid and found the donkey stand, where we rented four-footed rides to the top!

We hiked back up to Firastefani, wondering what people do when they or their joints age too much to climb these stairs. Below is a mural along the way that I think says "Santorini's eyes" and the "three bells of  Fira," which I believe is a church to Our Lady/Mary. 

After DH had a nap, I made dinner: pasta nests with marinaded mussels in pesto sauce with Greek salad. Not too shabby for a galley kitchen and a bodega. We cleaned up and then sat on the bed to catch up with Saturday Night Live via YouTube. Feeling peckish, we ventured out for ice cream at a local cafe, which overlooks the caldera as well as "the abandoned boat" on the roof of the hotel below it.

I think I snapped the best picture of the sunset this day:

Coming up! Day 4: Oia & Ammoudi Bay