Kathy was feeling better so we embarked on our adventure to Fira and Akrotiri. We jumped on the bus and arrived in Fira around 11am. We began with a visit to the Museum of Prehistoric Thera (Thera is what the Greeks call Santorini). The museum features artifacts from the Minoan civilization that preceded the Greeks (around 3000-4000 years ago). We saw many interesting pieces. I joined the guided tour without paying and got caught by the guide when she asked a question and of course I had the answer!
Afterwards we walked around Fira for a few hours. It’s definitely a lovely town, but not nearly as beautiful as Oia. Kathy bought some sandals and we strolled through the narrow and crowded walkways.
We had lunch at Naossa Tavern: a Greek salad, tomato Kefthethes (deep fried tomatoes stuffed herbs, cheese and onions) and fried phyllo dough stuffed with feta cheese. Decent but not great.
We then got on the bus for Akrotiri, another village in Santorini which is famous for its Minoan archeological site. Unfortunately it has been closed since 2005 (part of a roof collapsed and killed a British citizen). We walked along the shore and headed for Santorini’s famous Red Beach, named for its red volcanic rocks and cliffs facing the beach. It’s a bit tricky to get there. You hike up a fairly steep hill covered with loose gravel. It was totally worth it, though.
We spent about an hour or so swimming in the Agean Sea taking in the amazing views (and I’m not talking about the topless women). Kathy was a little reluctant to get in the water because it was a little bit chilly but I convinced her. We collected a few red rocks to take home with us.
My guidebook told me that Megalochori, Santorini’s main wine producing region, was about two miles away so I thought it would be fun to walk to one of the vineyards for a wine tasting. Wrong! Although the map said that there was only one main road to to Megolachori, this was not the case. We quickly got lost. Kathy was not amused (it was pretty hot and we ended up walking about 2 miles). At that point, I thought it was probably best to catch a bus instead and we ended up killing about 45 minutes waiting at some random bus stop in Akrotiri. It seemed like the middle of nowhere but it was totally safe. The bus finally arrived and we decided to skip the wine tasting and go back to the hotel. We were pretty tired from all the walking and the heat.
We took a final dip in the hotel pool and the jacuzzi in the room and then got ready for dinner. We ate at the Red Bicycle, another place recommended by our guidebook and popularized by Giada De Laurentis of the Food Network. It was our best meal yet in Greece. Kathy had a salad with figs to start and I had fig tart with cheese. For our main course we both had risotto—Kathy had mushroom and I had shrimp. They were both very, very good, but as it has been a recurring theme during the six years we’ve known each other, Kathy’s was better.
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