Greek Cuisine

There is a Greek restaurant in Bologna, De Logo, which we absolutely love and  eat at quite often. So because we had already had a taste of good greek food, we were looking forward to enjoying greek food in Greece. 

Luca was hoping to eat some delicious fresh seafood, however all the seafood restaurants were too expensive and the one time we did splurge a bit and got grilled shrimp, and seafood pasta it was extremely disappointing. Actually, it was the worst food we ate the whole trip. 

The first day we were in Paros, it was our anniversary. We found a smaller, quaint restaurant Yemeni Taverna. The menu is based on local products and full of traditional recipes. We got a beet root truffle risotto and pork tenderloin dish. It was absolutely delicious and reasonably priced. 

We decided to go back to eat here again since we knew it was good quality food worth the price.  Our second dining experience at Yemeni, we went with the more traditional dishes. 

Dolmades- vine leaves filled with rice

Octopus - sweet greek wine and honey sauce 

Mousaka - eggplant, potato lasagna 

    

                            We ate a ton of greek yogurt, and tzatziki and also got in a couple of gyros. 

But our favorite meal was probably at a restaurant in Oia, Santorini. We had gone to watch the sunrise and after we went looking for a restaurant that wasn't too expensive. We choose the first place that offered different dishes with a normal price. Unfortunately I don't even know the name of the restaurant. 

There was only space on the  rooftop terrace, which at first seemed great, but it quickly got cold because of the wind. In July in Santorini the days are extremely hot, but the evenings are windy and cold. So we gobbled up some tzatziki, fried haloumi cheese with honey and black sesame seeds, and pork and ran down the stairs to pay and escape the wind.

 We didn't stay in hotels that offered breakfast, so we had to be creative since from what we saw Greece doesn't have a typical breakfast. Places offered eggs and bacon and pancakes but we didn't want to spend 20€ for breakfast. So we usually grabbed a prepackaged croissant from a small grocers but then got coffee from a cafe so we could use the internet. 

All over the place people were walking around the take away iced coffees. They looked yummy and refreshing so at first when I saw a frappé on a menu I thought that was the popular drink. But after trying a frappe, iced espresso, and cold cappuccino I think everyone was ordering the freddo cappucinos. However, every morning we were disappointed with our caffeine fix. Greek coffee and espresso is nothing compared to what Italy has to offer. Boy are we spoiled! 

I'm pretty sure that in the near future we'll back for more Greek food from our favorite place in Bologna! 

Greece- Santorini

Oh Santorini. 

Whenever Greece was mentioned two things came to mind, the first was Athens and the second was Santorini. I enjoy perusing pinterest and more than once, beautiful magical looking photos of Santorini would pop up. We knew the island would be more expensive than others because it is a popular destination and I suppose is like the Cannes of Greece, so ritzy. 

The island was even more beautiful than I had expected. 

Fortunately we were able to find a reasonable priced hotel right on the Caldera View. Santorini isn't known for it's beaches. It is the remains of a volcanic eruption and so first of all all the towns are built up high on the cliffs and the few beaches that do exists have black sand. 

When we arrived at the port, we immediately rented a car. Even though we would have enjoyed another quad to scoot around the island, we knew that with all the hills we would have trouble! The man at the car rental tried to help us with the location of our hotel but told us it was in Firastefani, and after we stopped and asked for help, we learned it was actually in Fira. 

view form hotel terrace

view from hotel terrace - Fira

After we finally arrived hot, sweaty, and pretty exhausted we headed out soon after to check out the town Oìa. It's the best place to watch the sunset. It's a small town and so it didn't take long to walk through and enjoy the breathtaking views. Then we settled down to watch the sunset. 

Our second day in Santorini we decided to drive around the island and visit the few beaches. They are called by the color of their sand. So first we stopped at "Red Beach" and then we tried to stop at "White Beach"- it was rocky white but we're not sure if it was the white beach. Then lastly we drove on over to the other side of the island to Perissa to see the most popular "Black Beach" but it was disappointing, full of beach umbrellas and chairs.  

While we were driving back we saw some horses, donkeys, and goats so we had to get some photos. 

The second night we decided to have homemade aperitivo. We stopped at the Carrefour which was near out hotel and picked up some white Greek wine and peanuts. We sat up on the terrace of our hotel and enjoyed watching the sunset and sharing a drink together. We had to ask the older greek lady at the reception for a corkscrew and when we were walking up to the terrace she met us with two wine glasses which was really sweet of her. 

We also saw on more than one occasion the classic image of an old greek man sitting on a donkey, leading a trail of donkeys behind him. A few times they passed right in front of our hotel room door. Thankfully they didn't leave any smelly gifts behind, because despite the picturesque view, walking along the caldera streets of Fira it was rather unpleasant. 

Two nights in Sanotrini was the perfect amount of time. We were able to walk around Oia, Fira, and Firastefani and visit the most popular beaches. When we return we'll have to go on a super special occasion and get a hotel with the private pool right on the edge of the cliff... hopefully! 

p.s. a lot of photo credit goes to Luca 

Greece - Paros

This summer Luca and I are able to take two shorter holidays with the time off Luca can get from work. So we decided for the first week to go to Greece, which also fell over our anniversary- we couldn't have celebrated a better way.  

Luca had already been to Greece, but it was my first trip. We knew we wanted to visit the islands and Santorini was a definite must. But other than Santorini we weren't sure which islands to choose. There are so many and our friends talked about each visiting different ones and so it was hard to decided without feeling like maybe we'll miss out on something.  

We were able to find a cheap flight with Vueling to Mykonos. Mykonos is known as a party island and our flight was full of high schoolers or recent graduates who were going to have a good time, but that wasn't our aim so we stayed there just a night, since we got in late, before catching a ferry to Paros the following morning. 

We choose Paros because it's "on the way" to Santorini and because between the island of Naxos and Paros our research told us the Paros was a smaller quieter island. 

As soon as we got off the ferry in Paros we knew we would need a means of transportation to get around the island. We were ripped off by the taxis in Mykonos so we immediately rented a 4-wheeler to get from the port to Naoussa. However there aren't really street names on the islands and so it wasn't so easy finding our hotel. We had to stop three times and ask for help and finally at the last stop the shop owner offered to call the hotel and ask for directions. 

We had four nights in Paros. Each day we visited a different beach. 

On our first full day we visited Kolybimthraes beach. It had a nice cove and there were beach chairs to rent for 2 euros which is a great deal! We relaxed in the shade of pine trees.  On a hill nearby there was a church and we were able to walk on the roof and take some gorgeous photos. 

 In the evening we meandered around the the historical center of Naoussa which is rather small but very quaint and picturesque. We were able to catch a traditional dance performance and found a great spot for happy hour. 

overlooking Naoussa 

Happy Hour bar 

The second day, we ventured out to the complete other side of the island to visit the "famous" Golden Beach. The name probably comes from the long white sandy beach that runs along the coast. It was different from the day before; a lot bigger, super windy, and tons of wind surfers taking lessons from the wind surf school located right there. This time we got 2 beach chairs and an umbrella and enjoyed a nice long lazy afternoon.

Our last full day on the island we visited the other large city where the port is, Parikia, and  in the afternoon we stopped at Parasporos beach. Parikia was absolutely beautiful. It is everything you would imagine Greece to be. There were flowers everywhere and the narrow streets leading you around the white town was dream like. 

Thankfully we didn't run into any problems with the 4-wheeler the whole time as we did see a group of teenagers in a moped accident. The food was great, but I'll probably end up writing a post just on greek food alone. And I can definitely say that we don't feel like we missed out on an island because Paros was pretty amazing.