Sampling Santorini

Sampling Santorini

In last week’s post, we were just leaving Crete via the Heraklion port, on our way to Santorini! Even if you’ve never been there, you’ve definitely seen the pictures—the iconic white cube houses clustered all up and down the cliffs.

It really does look like that, and it’s even more beautiful in person! Almost everyone is in on the secret, though, so, even in October, which is the “shoulder season,” it is PACKED with tourists, and as a New Yorker who sometimes has to do things in the Times Square area, I don’t say that lightly. We still had a great time. We arrived and immediately stopped at Oia Vineyart, where we tasted the famous local Assyrtiko wine, along with some local cheeses and charcuterie:

We did some exploring, and in the evening, we went out to catch the famous Santorini sunset. So did everyone else!

It was still pretty fun, with people bringing their picnics and wine like it was an outdoor concert or sporting event or something.

One of the food specialties of Santorini are tomato balls, which are deep-fried tomato-bread fritters. The volcanic soil in the area is said to make the tomatoes especially flavorful. We ate these on a rooftop while catching the end of the sunset:

The next day we explored Red Beach and had lunch on the water at The Dolphins, where we tried and loved the house-made wine.

Later in the day, we did the famous Fira to Oia 6-mile sunset hike, which was gorgeous and practically deserted.

It was also a bit more strenuous than we expected, and we were both a little sore the next day! We ended the hike at Domaine Sigalas, an Oia winery, where we did an epic wine tasting:

We picked up dinner from Pitogyros and ate in our hotel room, exhausted!

The next day it was time to head over to Milos. We enjoyed some spinach pies and coffee drinks in the port while we waited for our ferry:

I might have promised in last week’s post that this week’s would include Santorini and Milos (I definitely did promise that), but Milos will have to wait for next week—that’s enough for now!