Naxos
Day One
We decided to do laundry on our last day in Crete, but had to hang-dry our clothes overnight. Our ferry left early, so we had to wake up even earlier to pack up. We were predictably running a bit late, so we had to walk with urgency / lightly jog to make it in time (the place we were staying was only a 18 minute walk downhill--we made it in 12).
The ferry was a few hours, and actually stopped at Santorini on the way--we were very impressed by the speed and efficiency of the Greek ferry system. It only takes about 10-15 minutes for the boat to dock at the port, let everyone off, load, and depart, all with very few people needed at the port. And these boats are larger than planes! Think about if you could arrive at the airport 15 minutes before your flight left!
We arrived in Naxos around noon. This time, the rental car was waiting for us at the port, and the person renting it to us was much nicer than the people in Crete.
Jack had a coworker who just went on a sabbatical to Greece, and provided us with a lot of restaurant recommendations in Naxos and Athens. For lunch, we went to a place off this list. We had eggplant spread, spaghetti with garlic red sauce, house wine, and, you guessed it, a Greek salad, specifically a Naxian salad. We’ve learned that each Greek island tends to have its own specialty type of cheese and one of the Naxian cheeses is Mizithra. We’re pretty sure that a Naxian salad is a Greek salad with Naxian cheese and Cretan rusks (dried bread).
After lunch, we met our host to check in to our room. It was very cute, spacious, and cozy. We took a quick nap, then spent some time walking around and shopping. We were staying in the “old town” of Naxos, which is full of narrow, winding, stair-filled paths--usually only a few feet wide--without any real streets between them. It was chaotic and super fun to navigate, made more challenging by the fact that cell reception ranged from “very bad” to “nonexistent” in old town.
We soon fell in love with the vibe of Naxos—not too crowded, cute shops with handmade art and gifts, delicious restaurants, and so much history and culture. We stopped by a restaurant near our house, Labyrinth (a fitting name), and had a glass of wine and a potato appetizer. We then attempted to find the major tourist attraction, Meatloaf, by the dock but were unsuccessful. Meatloaf, of course, is the name of a very friendly fat cat who hangs out around the water. However, we made friends with a scruffy old orange cat near our house, who we named Veggie Loaf. He lived on a porch, but would come down to greet us every time we saw him (and politely yelled for scratches).
It was approaching sunset, so we got an Aperol spritz to-go and went to the temple of Apollo. It was definitely one of the most beautiful views we’d seen so far on the trip—the beautiful sunset through the arch of the temple with the waves in the background cannot be beat. The temple itself isn’t ruined, but unfinished! The construction was started by the “tyrant of Naxos”, and soon after it started, he was overthrown by the Spartan army.
For dinner, we found a cute outdoor patio in the old town, and had one of our our favorite dishes of the whole trip, fried zucchini balls with a yogurt sauce. We walked back to the house and petted about a million cats on the way home, including Veggie Loaf.
Day Two
The next day, Jack made coffee in the apartment before we drove to nearby village of Eggares to go to an olive oil museum. The museum was run by a run by a local olive oil producer and was very small, just one room. The tour guide walked us through the entire olive oil making process, featuring old tools that were used in the olive oil production process. The best part was after the tour, when we were able to try up to our heart’s content of flavored olive oils, olives, marmalades, spreads, and desserts. We sat outside and made friends with a cat and worked on our postcards. We were intrigued by some of their menu items, especially the spicy olive oil margarita, and ordered that, a zucchini salad, and an orange olive oil cake. Everything was delicious! Jack went inside to make a few purchases and made friends with the employee whose family has owned a hotel in Naxos for generations. Jack mentioned we were on our honeymoon and she gave us a free tote bag and bottle of wine, with the stipulation that he shares it with his new wife.
In the afternoon, we decided to go to Alyko beach—a popular beach on the west side of the island surrounded by ruins of an old hotel. The beach was SO WINDY. We walked around the ruins of the hotel and were amazed with all of the unique graffiti. It was also kinda spooky walking through the empty hallways. Fact about how old the hotel is and what happened.
We wanted to go to this place for dinner because Jack’s coworker recommended it and it had a lot of yummy looking vegetarian options. We got there around 8pm and they said they were booked until 9:15pm. We decided to put our name down and go grab a glass of wine at a wine bar. We went back to the restaurant and got some spicy cheese spread (which was actually pretty spicy!), fried cheese with honey (which has now become one of our favorite dishes in Greek cuisine), and stuffed bell peppers with potatoes on the side (we later found out that Naxos is known for its potatoes, which makes sense as Hannah declared these the best potatoes she’s ever had). We wanted the vegetarian Moussaka, a popular Greek zucchini casserole, but they ran out at that point. We also got a fancy bottle of wine—(explain how the wine is made and what is special about it).
Day Three
Before we came to Naxos, we’ve heard tales far and wide of the magic of Kitron, a liqueur made from Kitron leaves, a citrus fruit that looks like a large lemon, and is produced only on this island due to a Protected Domain of Origin (P.D.O.) status. Hannah decided it would be a good idea to schedule a tour and tasting (which is putting it lightly) at a Kitron distillery at 10:30am. The distillery that we went to, Promponas, is a family-owned business over 100 years old.
We first did a tour of the distillery, with an amazing tour guide, Sophie, who was the daughter of the current owner and brought so much personality and fun to our experience. The tour group was small, just us and another American woman from Arizona. Much to Jack’s enjoyment, she made our tour into a competition by asking the three of us trivia questions throughout where the winner gets an extra shot of Kitron at the end. However, she was a bit of a misandrist and started the women at 0 points and Jack, who was a very good sport and loves a challenge, at -3 points.
Kitron is made by distilling a base alcohol with the Kitron leaves, which have a very strong smell and flavor to them. Then the base liquor is diluted down to the desired ABV, and sugar is added to sweeten it. The distinctive green, yellow, and clear color come from food coloring that is added. The colors are part of the PDO definition of Kitron, and cannot be changed while still calling the drink Kitron.
We also were able to fill and place the label on our own Kitron bottles. During the tasting, we tried six different drinks: Ouzo, Raki with Kitron flavor, Raki with honey, cinnamon, and cloves, white Kitron, green Kitron, and yellow Kitron. Kitron is a We also had a variety of Naxian snacks and desserts including bruschetta, cheeses, olive tapenade, pepper and Kitron marmalades, chocolates, and candied Kitron rinds. She gave us extra tastings of our favorites and even let us try the homemade limoncello. Each time we tried a new drink, we had to cheers and scream “Yia Mas” at the top of our lungs, and if we weren’t loud enough, we had to try again.
After the tour and tasting, we quickly rushed back to Old Town Naxos so that we could go to the Archeological Museum before it closed in the early afternoon. We saw a lot of interesting artifacts, mostly pottery and ceramics, and ran into a few archaeologists from the US who specialize in ancient Greek ceramics who were able to answer all of our questions. We then promptly went back to the house and took a much needed afternoon nap.
Day Four
Today was our day to drive around the island! We left the house around 10:00 and went to our first stop—the temple of Dionysus. Little did we know that basically everything in Naxos is closed on Tuesdays. At the temple, we were able to walk the back way around through a potato farm to see the backside of the site from a bit of a view. We missed the small museum that was next to the site so instead we read the Wikipedia article in the car on the way to our next stop.
We quickly stopped for coffee and, say it with me, “Greek salad!” before driving to the temple of Demeter. This site was a pretty far walk from the admission gate to the actual site—we considered jumping the fence but thought it would be smarter to just get some pics from afar and once again read the Wikipedia page in the car.
Our next stop was the village of Chalkio, which is home to the oldest and only other Kitron distillery on the island, Vallindras. We quickly did a self guided tour of the distillery and tried some of their liqueur. We also realized that the village was home to several shops with handmade art and gifts. We did some shopping and bought a table runner from a woman who showed us her loom and explained she’s been weaving for decades!
On the next stop, we finally got to the main event: Mount Zas. This mountain is one of the many alleged birthplaces of Zeus. We opted for the shorter but more intense hike that started at a natural spring and stopped by the Cave of Zas on the way up the mountain. The cave is home to several different species of bats, and hikers are encouraged not to explore too far into the cave. We quietly looked inside the cave and continued on our hike. Archeologists have found evidence of human use of the cave dating back to the Late Neolithic period (~3100 BC)
Most of the hike ended up being less walking and more rock scrambling! We agreed that it was maybe the toughest mile either of us had ever hiked before, partially because we were hiking during the hottest part of the day were a little low on water. However, the whole journey was beautiful and making it to the summit was breathtaking and absolutely worth the trek.
The next stop was a small chapel nearby–we started the walk to the monastery that a sign claimed was 1km away, but after walking over 2km and the monastery still not in sight, we decided to turn around as we were in desperate need of water at this point. We were pretty tucked at this point, so did some quick driving through the last few villages. When we got back to our house, we decided to get some pizza for takeout while we finished packing for Athens. We walked down to the port, ordered our pizza and Greek salad ofc, and did some quick shopping while we waited. We took the pizza back to our house, petted Veggie Loaf one last time, and enjoyed it with the complementary wine from the Olive Oil Museum.
Crete
Crete was our next stop on our honeymoon! We spent only 2.5 days on the island, staying in the capital city of Heraklion. Crete is the largest of all the Greek islands, and has a distinct architectural, cultural and culinary history from the rest of the islands and mainland Greece--it was formerly a part of the Ottoman empire, functioning as an autonomous state. Crete is also where the ancient Minoan civilization lived.
Arriving in Crete was a bit stressful. To pick up the rental car, we had to take a taxi from the port to the airport. There was a long line of people to take a taxi from the port, and a long line of taxis to take them. At the front of the line, there was someone--another taxi driver--who decided it would be his job to direct people into cabs. This chokepoint led to a very slow line, and apparently some of the other taxi drivers did not like it--we saw a few stop, get out of their cars, and argue with him in very animated Greek for several minutes. So, guess who ended up being our taxi driver? He pulled us off to the side where we had to wait for him to direct the last few groups into cars and wouldn't let anyone talk to us for fear of trying to split a cab. He explained all of the drama to us in the taxi, and after a somewhat scary first experience in Crete, we arrived at the airport to pick up our rental car.
This was Jack's first time driving outside of the US, and it was a bit challenging--road signs are often non-existent, parking on both sides of the street is omnipresent, and many roads are two-way but are only one car wide. Our car was nice (a manual, but a newer one that was very easy to drive), and Hannah was a great navigator, so we made it without any incidents more serious than a wrong turn.
Heraklion is much more populous than Santorini, and felt more like other European cities we'd been to in the past. For dinner, we went to a small restaurant, Lola--I think a single person was running the entire place. We had vegetables mille feuille and lahmacun, Cretan specialties, and we had a “raisin wine”, a white wine where they leave the grapes to dry slightly in the sun before turning them into wine. This concentrates the sugars and makes the wine a bit sweeter--although this one was still rather dry. We were happy to see more cats on our walk to dinner than we saw in all of Santorini and had fun pointing them out to each other while we ate.
The next day, we went to the Palace of Knossos, a site of ancient Minoan ruins that were in use from 1900 BC to 1300 BC. The ruins were excavated and reconstructed in 1900 by Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist with questionable decision-making and little actual knowledge of Minoan life. He coined the term "Minoan," presuming that Knossos is where King Minos (of Homeric stories) must have lived, and assumed the ruins to be his Palace. Modern historians and archaeologists question this assumption, along with most of his assertions about the form and function of Knossos.
The ruins themselves are sprawling and extensive. Many sections were restored by Evans, with questionable accuracy, while others lie in a more or less original state. The palace was orignally many stories tall, with extensive underground sections (it is situated on a hill that was essentially formed by many buildings being constructed on top of each other over centuries). The palace has numerous finds, including large frescoes and massive clay jars that would have been used to store grain, wine, water, and other goods.
The Palace was really interesting, but also really hot with very little shade. We were also surprised by a lack of staff--it wasn't a problem, but not having anyone present other than at the gate was very different to a typical museum experience. We were able to download the app for the Palace and read additional information about each notable site, which we of course did.
After the Palace, we walked briefly around the port area and stopped for a quick snack: oregano-flavored potato chips! We then visited the museum of Ancient Greek Technology, a small museum with reproductions of the technological wonders of Greek antiquity, including:
- A "vending machine" that dispensed a set amount of liquid when the correct coin was inserted.
- An alarm clock.
- A machine to accurately measure long distances.
- Many forms of rapid, long-distance communication (including early forms of encryption).
- Sundials and latitude charts that use the sun.
- Early maps of the Mediterranean.
- An advanced clock/calendar that would predict the dates of events like Eclipses or harvest days.
- The cranes used to build ancient temples.
- Ancient greek games.
One of the museum employees often grabbed us to show how various machines worked or let us use the machines ourselves. She was very impressed with Jack's prior knowledge, and Jack even beat another employee at one of the ancient games!
After the museum, we had dinner at Peskesi, a delicious farm-to-table restaurant--it was on every must-visit list and even in our Greek Island travel guide and was maybe the best place we ate at on our entire trip. We had various bean salads, our first fried cheese (which quickly became a favorite of ours), the most delicious potatoes we've ever eaten (until later on the trip), and some delectable complimentary herb-infused Raki (a grape-infused aperitif, similar to Ouzo). Near the end of dinner, a large group sat next to us--the same group that we sat next to two nights ago in Oia! It was a funny coincidence, and we joked that we would see them again in a few days in Athens at another fun restaurant. After dinner, we caught the sunset from the Venetian fort at the Heraklion port. Watching the sunset was one of our favorite activities on our honeymoon--I don't think we missed a single one!
On our last day in Crete, we went to the beach. We had a long drive to get there--nearly an hour--but it was absolutely worth it (and, driving through the mountains of Crete was quite breathtaking). The beach was only slightly busy, and the water was warmer than it had been in Santorini. We splurged on the beach chairs (only 5 euro for the whole day!) and spent the day reading and relaxing. We had a late lunch at the cafe at the beach before heading back.
On the way back to Heraklion, we took a detour to a charming village to the south to grab a snack and a glass of wine and walk around.
Finally, we dropped off the rental car, did a load of laundry, and went to bed; our ferry left for Naxos early the next day.
Permalink to this postSantorini
We spent the first part of our trip in Santorini, a beautiful, romantic island. Santorini is the caldera of a (mostly) dormant volano, creating its distinctive half-moon shape (it used to be a nearly full circle, but the north east side collapsed into the sea long ago). Santorini has striking sunset views, distinctive white buildings with blue domes, and fantstic wine. We flew into the Santorini Airport, and travelled from there to our suite in Firostefani (a small village just north of the main city, Thira) via bus and a ~2km walk rolling our suitcases uphill on a mostly cobblestone path. Our suite was a small place, just barely enough room for a bed, bath, and jacuzzi hot tub (ofc). But it was also quiet, bright, private (a rarity in Thira), and romantic for the start of our honeymoon.
When we arrived in Santorini, we had been awake for around 24 hours (not being able to sleep much on the flights)--Jack wasn't feeling well and Hannah was on the tail end of an illness. We had a lovely slow dinner with caldera sunset views at Onar, had a soak in the hot tub, and promptly slept until noon. Hannah briefly woke up around 5am (a rarity for her!) and caught the sunrise out of the east-facing windows.
That day, we briefly walked around Immerogivli (a village to the north of Firostefani) before our volcano catamaran cruise, which went to the Red and White beaches, the "hot springs" of the old volcano (just a section of the sea where there was more sulfur in the water due the volcanic rocks--it wasn't any warmer than the other cold swimming stops, but we're not complaining!), and finished with a beautiful sunset view near Oia.
On our third day, we spent the morning walking around downtown Thira, and visited the Museum of Prehistoric Thira, which focused on the pre-historic site of Akrotiri, the so-called "Pompeii of Greece." Highly recommend the museum--we loved how the artifacts of the area are on display in a museum on the island, as opposed to how so many priceless antiquities from Greece, Rome, and Egypt are on display in museums in England and the US. After the musuem, we had a bit more time than we had planned for, so we decided to make the short but arduous hike down to the Old Port of Thira. The Old Port used to be the main and only port, but these days is only used for the cruise ships that drop passengers off for day excursions in Thira. In addition to the donkeys, there is also a cable car going down and up (with a line of tourists wrapping fully around the central square!). Walking down was also relatively popular, but we were the only people we saw walking back up!
After the bonus hike, we went on a wine tour to three Santorini wineries: Estate Argyros, Gavalas, and Santo Wines. The first two are family owned and operated, with one representing a modern approach and complete ownership over the vineyards, and the second a more traditional style. Santo wines is a modern cooperative that will buy grapes from any grower on the island to use in their wines, and is the largest producer and exporter. Our favorite was Gavalas, which had a unique charm and heritage (earlier owners had to worry about the wine being stolen by pirates!), although our favorite wine was at Estate Argyros, and the best views were at Santo Wines.
The wine in Santorini is quite unique, due to the volcanic soil. The pumice, ash, and basalt is up to 40 meters deep in some places and drains extremely well, which is good for making wine (it seems that grapes make the best wine when they are the most miserable). The vineyards have a number of adapations to growing in Santorini's hot and arid climate, the most unique of which is curling the vines into small basket-like shapes. They tuck the grapes inside the basket as they grow, granting them some shade from the sun and protection from the winds that can reach over 70 miles per hour. However, this shape means that grapes must be harvested by hand, at great labor and expense. Mature vines (over 50 years old) are not watered, and instead reclaim water from the soil, which it absorbs from the moist air at night (there is no natural spring or clean water on Santorini, making watering the vines very expensive).
On our fourth day, we finally spent some time relaxing on the beach. We went to Red Beach, called so due to the red pumice and cinder rocks that form it. Officially, the beach can only be accessed by water taxi due to the threat of landslides, but unofficially there is still a well-trodden path down to the beach. We got to the beach before the crowd (we were the second group there!) and managed to mostly avoid sunburn.
For lunch, we ate at a traditional restaurant that has been family owned and operated for over 100 years. It was the best meal we had in Santorini (and all the food was fantastic). Specifically, Santorini is known for its cherry tomatoes, capers and caper leaves, and fava beans. We're still early into the trip, but we don't think we'll ever tire of ordering a classic Greek salad with every meal!
For our last sunset in Santorini, we hiked from Thira to Oia. The walk is about 10km total, although we started part-way through, so it was about 5 miles for us. It has some serious elevation gain as well! We enjoyed local Yellow Donkey and Red Donkey beers along the hike. Donkey Beers is the first brewery in Santorini, established in 2014. They now have a competitor called Blue Monkey, which we tried on our last day in Santorini. The views along the hike were breathtaking, and the trail was rather quiet, with only a few people around us. As we entered into Oia, we saw several brides and grooms taking wedding pictures in front of the gorgeous sunset. We had dinner at an upscale restaurant, Mia's, featuring some very delicious cocktails.
We spent our final morning at the pre-historic site of Akrotiri, an excavation of a Minoan settlement on the southern side of Santorini. The city was evacuated after a large earthquake around the 17th century BC, which preceded a massive erruption of the Santorini volcano, the Minoan erruption, one of the largest in the modern era. The excavation began in 1967, and has since discovered a massive and advanced civilization. The excavations have uncovered large intact and well-preserved frescos, many on display in the museum in Thira, one of which features blue monkeys (the color blue is throught to have represented silver). Akrotiri was really interesting--the excavations were started recently, and are ongoing; they estimate only 3% of the city has been excavated!
Fun Facts We Learned:
(not fact checked, entirely from our memory)- Santorini used to rely heavily on donkeys for the transport of people and goods, due to the windy roads and steep elevation caused by the caldera rim. These days, you can only see donkeys on the path down to the old port of Thira, as a tourist attraction. You can pay to ride them down and up, although they're kind of menaces to those walking by.
- The island of Santorini has been inhabited many times in the past, each time being abandoned for hundreds of years due to natural disasters such as earthquakes of erruptions.
- Santorini is the third name of the island, and comes from an Italian church that was built and dedicated to Saint Orini (not sure how this is spelled--we learned this on our wine tour from Kostis).
- In most places, grape vines are susceptible to a American pest that can kill the rootstock entirely. To avoid this, almost all vines use a clone of an American grape vine that was found to be resistant to the pest, which saved the French and Italian vineyards. Thus, almost all grape vines are grafts of the desired grape variety onto the resistant root (as are many residential trees!). However, in Santorini, the pest cannot live in the soil due to the lack of moisture, so the vines in Santorini are 100% of whatever variety the grape is (likely Assyrtiko--this amounts for 97% of all grapes grown on the island)!
- Santorini used to have 4x the acres of vineyards as it does today. Tourism has led to more and more growers deciding that building hotels and cottages on their land is more profitable, leading to a decline in grape production.
