Day 6 - Oia and Winery Tour
I was up at about 7.30 am this morning and climbed the 130+ steps up to the main alley…. I found an excellent cafe shortly afterwards to enjoy a lovely cappuccino with a lovely view of the area near our apartment. Also as it was early there were no tourists!!!!
After coffee it was back to the apartment balcony for breakfast. The breakfast food is yogurt and cereal with a fruit bowl (maybe) some continental sliced sausage, cold boiled eggs, cucumber with sliced breadstick and a waffle. Too much for breakfast so we save some for either lunch or pre- dinner drinks!
The weather today was warm with a haze …temps in the high 20’s.
Christopher and Neat had organised ( and paid) for a trip to a local winery near Thira which is a short car ride from Oia. The plan was to meet a driver who would take us to the winery where we had a wine tasting of local wines with a light lunch which was matched with the wines…
The driver was full of knowledge about Santorini even though he was from South Africa and we learned a lot about the local economy ( mainly tourism) the fact that prices for accommodation have dropped since the recent earthquake and that Julia Roberts and Robert DiNiro have expensive holiday homes on the island.
At the winery we were met by a lovely host who gave us a quick tour of the winery and showed us to our table overlooking the caldera…. Great view.
We sampled 4 wines from the vineyard which were very good… the wine industry in Santorini is quite big really and there seems to be plenty of good wines we have found. The grapes a grown on the ground without trellis and formed into the shape of a bowl…. This approach helps to retain moisture on the vine as the island is very dry. The soil is very rich being volcanic which makes for a good rich grape. The grapes are picked and placed in large areas to dry in the sun ahead of crushing. Some grape varieties stay for days in the sun whilst others are only out for a day or so.
The results are quite striking!
After enjoying the wines and lunch we decided to take the local bus back to our apartment…. It was a bit of an adventure as we needed to catch a bit along the side of the road to Thira…all sounds simple but the traffic was horrendous… we were told by our South African friend that there are no traffic lights in Santorini…which is true but it makes for interesting times at busy intersections!
The bus to Thira was good and full of tourists like us…At Thira we were met with a bus interchange with my guess of 20 buses and we needed to find our bus to Oia… it was after a lot of walking and asking we found our bus… the route the bus took back to Oia was incredible as it was along the high point of the former volcano cone. This provided some lovely views!
After arriving back we relaxed in the apartment spa and nearby hotel pool ahead of dinner at a local Trattoria restaurant. Dinner for me was mousaka with local wine.
Great way to finish the day!