No Tricks, All Treats
Happy Halloween. We’re
into day 3 of our vacation and have a tiny plan of activity for each day. One activity is to make sure we know how time
works. Not in a cosmic sense of course,
but rather what time it is here and how it relates to home. We had a strange situation last weekend when
the change from “summer time” to “winter time” slipped right past us. Some of our clocks changed automatically and
others didn’t and it took us some time to catch up. Somewhere we got an extra hours of sleep and
didn’t get to appreciate it. Since we moved
to Greece we’re an hour later than Italy so 8 hours later than Minnesota until
last week when it fell back to 7 hours but now this week it will be back to 8
and then when we go to Italy on Tuesday it will be back to 7 again. Those are the things you think about when
doing nothing.
We have some very crunchy Greek cereal for breakfast with
real Greek yogurt and a banana. While we
miss our hotel spreads it is nice to just throw something together in the
morning. We take our morning walk and
things are changing fast here. There are
very few tourists marching around today and some of the businesses are moving
furniture from patios and boarding up windows.
November 1st is apparently the end of the “season” for these
folks and many of them seem anxious to move along. As long as we have a couple options for meals
we’re fine with the whole process.
It’s another lovely day with temps in the 60’s and a few
high clouds. Our “one thing to do today”
is to walk a couple miles into a valley on the north side of the island for
lunch and a wine tasting at a local winery, Domaine Sigalas. Going this way is downhill and reasonably
pleasant, outside of the fact that we are walking along a narrow road all the way. Santorini and all of the Greek islands are
not the south Pacific. They are arid and
strewn with cactus that is more like Mexico than Maui. Since this island is the rim of a volcano,
obviously the soil is volcanic which can be good for growing grapes.
The end of the season is very apparent when we arrive at
Sigalas. Not only are we the only ones here,
but our hostess seems very surprised to see us. She is able to scrape together a tasting of 7
wines which is normally 12 and applies a price adjustment. There are a couple we like a lot and most are
OK. They also do food and we impose on
them for lunch. We order a plate of Dolmades
(stuffed grape leaves with a lemon sauce), and another plate of local specialties
to share. That includes olives, dried
tomatoes, pureed fava beans, feta and a crumbly bread product topped with their tomato
paste, caper leaves and capers. What the
heck, let’s get the dish-of-the-day too which is a homemade barley-like pasta
in a tomato sauce. We perhaps
over-ordered and we’re stuffed. It was
all washed down with our favorite wine, the Santorini Barrel select white. We grab a bottle of the white wine and begin
to waddle back up the road.
Only some of the grapes are trellised here while other grow
in “baskets” on the ground. The vines are literally
woven into a basket right on the ground.
The big time wines are the dessert wines with Vinsanto as the star of
the show. Vinsanto grapes are left in
the sun for 10-14 days after the harvest to concentrate the flavor and sugars
and then aged for years to mature into something that really tastes like
candy. Delicious and expensive.
It was a slow chug up the hill back to Oia (we're thinking of an incline of about 8 or 9 on the treadmill) and finally to
our little cave. John is still under the
weather (in spite of the wine) and crashes for a couple hours. Mary deals with our original porter Tim who
has come to replace a couple light bulbs.
He has a helper who supervises and the result is that Tim needs a
screwdriver and a couple bulbs he doesn’t have at his disposal but he will be
back later. When he returns he still has
his helper as well as his son and they plug away for a few minutes and decide
that we need to leave an upstairs lamp on to substitute for the stairway light
that doesn’t work. And, ya know tomorrow
is Sunday so he probably won’t have the right things until Monday or
Tuesday. Mary says, “It’s Greece.”
We’re back in the routine of nap-eat, nap-eat and after a
couple hours it is time for “eat.” There
is a small tavern down a narrow lane near us, Roka, that has been recommended
and has worked its way to the top of the list.
It is getting chilly out and we opt to eat inside. We will miss our cats that are always around
our feet whenever we eat outside in Greece, but they will miss us more. There is a group of about a dozen Americans having
a birthday dinner inside. They’re a
little noisy but having a good time—we’ve been there. Again, it’s the end of the season so multiple
things are crossed off the menu including our wine choice.
There is still plenty to eat. John has a veal dish in a spicy red sauce
that tastes very Indian. It is supposed
to be served with Duchesse Potatoes but they are out of those so it comes with
rice which is more appropriate. Mary has
the grilled Greek meatballs that are a specialty with fried potatoes. It is all very good and we’re fat and happy
once again.
We do a pretty long walk after dinner tonight. It is just us, a big moon and perfect night
views of our island. Vacation is going
well.
What did we learn today?
You can grow grapes with the vines curling around on the ground like
cucumbers.
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