EOV (End of Vacation)
This is our last full day on Santorini. We take off tomorrow morning making this the
last of our nap-eat days. We start by
not sleeping late but not getting out and moving either. It is a pretty day outside but we dawdle with
computer stuff, TV, breakfast and books just like you might do on vacation.
Our final small thing to do this week is to walk down to
Ammoudi Harbor for lunch. It is right
below us—we can look down and see it—but it is a lot of steps down and painful
back up. When Mary sees that the steps
are reasonably consistent stone and very wide she overcomes her previous
reluctance to go for it.
We start down at 11:00 and walking pretty steadily we are
there by 11:30. John’s watch says we
went about 2000 steps (about a mile) which is a long stairway. We gape at the beautiful clear blue water of
the Aegean and the little boats tied up in the harbor. One of the last of our recommended
restaurants, Katina is right in front of us so we grab a table on the water for
an early lunch.
We get a couple of Mythos beers (we’re on vacation) and Mary
orders the Greek salad and John the seafood salad. There is a fellow a few feet away from us who
has a charcoal grill built into the outside of the restaurant wall where he
grills all of the seafood. There is a
window from the back of the grill to the inside where they can pass prepped
plates out to the grill guy. Mary
notices a big plate of grilled seafood pass by us and then it reappears as
John’s seafood salad. Make no mistake,
Mary’s Greek salad is perfect with a big slab of feta on top and all of the
tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, olives and peppers. However, John’s seafood salad is a work of
art. There is squid, mussels, octopus
and shrimp piled high on top of nicely dressed greens, tomatoes and onions with
a sprinkling of fresh dill. It couldn’t
be more perfect.
We are mesmerized sitting in the warm sun with the waves
lightly splashing against the harbor wall, good food, good beer, small boats
coming and going. We decide that we have
finally accomplished the goal of the week—relax! John walks over to chat up the grill guy for
a while and to watch the process of grilling a whole sea bass. The cook loves the recognition of his
efforts. Mary meanwhile has decided she
is staying right where she is for the rest of the day. Well, almost.
We do manage to stretch two salads and two beers into an hour and a half
of down time.
It is a long and only slightly painful walk back up. We take the road instead of the steps which
is longer but less steep and less painful.
We log a mile and a half going uphill which is today’s workout for the
calves. Mary wants to pick up some more
bottled water while John thinks the balcony and sling back chair is calling his
name. It is almost completely silent
today. Our favorite day of the year in
our old Lodge days was the day after Labor Day when you could actually hear the
difference. Today in Oia is the
same. Mary notices while out that not
only are shops closing for the season, but they are taking down signs and
boarding up windows. They must go
elsewhere when the second hand passes midnight on October 31st.
The siesta (we don’t know what the Greeks call it) is nice
but we still have things to do this afternoon.
The official sunset time is 5:21 and we are going to get there in time
for a prime spot on the town wall. There
aren’t many people left in town but they are all going in the same direction
when we merge onto the walkway at the top of our stairs. It has been sunny all day and with clouds on
the horizon the last few days there is some pent up demand for a famous
Santorini sunset. We do get a nice spot
and we watch the sun gradually submerge into western clouds. Phooey.
No green flash on this trip. It’s
too early for dinner on Greek time so we get a couple more chores done before
retiring to our balcony with a final bottle of Santorini white wine on a cool
starry night. We both decide we are
happy we came and probably wouldn’t be back.
Dinner on the water tonight back at Skala. We know the “guys” now as well as the menu
and the routine. We get the Santorini
fried tomato balls as an appetizer, Mary has a really good spaghetti with
tomatoes and lots of olive oil and garlic and capers, and John has the cumin
laced Greek meatballs on rice. The
“famous” tomato balls are on every menu here and we haven’t tried them yet so
this is a must. What they really are,
are green tomato slices with a flavorful coating and deep fried. We now recognize them because Lucky gave us a
taste of his version yesterday in Fira.
Everything is good again. The
restaurant is reasonably busy tonight which is supply and demand at work. As many of the restaurants close the
remaining customers are funneled into those few that remain open. All is working as it should.
We celebrate our last night here with an Ouzo nightcap
before bed, our farewell to Greece. We
set an alarm for tomorrow morning for no apparent reason—we don’t leave until
after 9:00 but better safe than missing a flight.
What did we learn today? Ouzo tastes like “Good and Plenty” candy.
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