Category: Cyclades islands

Arriving at Parikia port on Paros

The Seajets passenger ferry Superjet enters Parikia Bay as it heads to port at Paros island on October 13 2013

The town of Parikia looms larger as Superjet approaches the ferry quay. I shot the photos above, as well as two of the videos below, from the Blue Star Ferries ship Paros as it departed Parikia en route to Athens.

This is a short clip of Superjet that I shot from the Blue Star Paros.

This video (Part 1 of 2) shows views of Parikia and some of its waterfront on the south side of the port. I shot this clip from a deck of the Blue Star Paros as it approached and prepared to dock at Parikia en route from Naxos to Piraeus.

This is the second clip I shot from the Blue Star ferry. It shows parts of Parikia and the bay on the north side of the port.

For a completely different perspective, here’s a video shot from land, showing the Paros docking at Parikia. It was filmed by YouTube member Steffen Mork.

February 10, 2014
Caldera cliffs and cruise ships

Two old Louis cruise ships rest at anchor below the caldera cliffs on Santorini. I shot this photo on one of our first visits to the island, in 2004 or 2005. Louis Cruises has since upgraded its fleet with newer ships. These vessels are positively tiny compared to some of the megaships that stop at Santorini nowadays. Click on the photo to view a full-size image.

February 9, 2014
A little white church in the valley below Lagada

Dark grey stormclouds swirl above Lagada village as a spring storm moves across Amorgos. Although the weather looked bleak the morning we arrived on the island, the clouds cleared away during the afternoon and left us with sunny skies for the rest of our visit. Click the image to view a full-size photo.

February 8, 2014
Our best food & drink experiences of 2013

A Mythos beer and Greek salad … part of our afternoon “snack” at Paradiso Taverna during one of our Naxos beach walks in October 2013

Good eats: In my recent post Our best hotel experiences of 2013, I described the various places we stayed at in Mykonos, Ios, Naxos and Glyfada during our two trips to Greece last year. Today it’s time to talk about the food we ate while we were there.

We love to eat, and one of the reasons we keep going back to Greece is that we immensely enjoy the food there, whether it’s traditional Greek cooking, salads or vegetarian fare, grilled meats or fish, seafood or international cuisine.

We eat well on our holidays, and we always come home wishing we could recreate some of the most memorable meals in our own kitchen. We try, but the recipes either never turn out right or we simply can’t replicate the wonderful tastes and flavours we enjoyed so much in Greece. And, of course, that’s largely because we can’t possibly reproduce the unique charm and character or the extraordinary locations of the places where we had dinners or drinks — or even just a cup of coffee.

Last year, we had remarkable meals or drinks at dozens of different restaurants, bars and cafés. Individual dishes at certain places were outstanding, while in other instances it was the physical premises or scenic location of a particular restaurant that gave us a dining experience we won’t soon forget.

Below are descriptions of the restaurants, bars meals and drinks that impressed us the most — our best food and drink experiences of 2013.

Best beach taverna

Nikolas Taverna on Mykonos and Paradiso Taverna on Naxos (Tie)

Paradiso Taverna has over a dozen tables grouped around a tree on Maragas beach on Naxos. This is one of the most-photographed sights on the island, and this scene has even been featured on Naxos postcards.

Nikolas Taverna also has tables on the sand, in this case at little Agia Anna beach between Platis Gialos and Paraga on Mykonos. The trees shade the tables part of the day, but there are more seats on the sheltered outdoor terrace (left) for people who don’t want to sit in the sun.

One of the things we like most about Greece, and especially its islands, is the opportunity to have a “Shirley Valentine” moment — that is, enjoy a drink or meal right next to the sea, at a table either on a sandy beach or on a terrace mere inches from the water. It’s something we can never do at home, where strict government liquor laws and rigid municipal licensing regulations require restaurants serving alcohol to keep their dining areas enclosed by fences or waist-high barriers — and well away from the water’s edge.

So we’re thrilled when we find tavernas that have open seating close to the water — especially if those tables offer views of marvellous scenery or striking sunsets. And if the restaurant kitchens happen to serve delicious food, too, we will feel like we’re in paradise.

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Superb food and good service

Two remarkable places that we have particularly enjoyed on past vacations are Nikolas Taverna at Agia Anna/Paraga on Mykonos, and Paradiso Taverna at Maragas beach on Naxos. Both have provided consistently good service and superb food, as well as exquisite settings, and both lived up to our high expectations for more of the same when we paid them repeat visits during our holidays in 2013.

The family-run Nikolas Taverna is situated on a small, quiet strand between Platis Gialos and Paraga, two of the most popular beaches on Mykonos. Our favourite place to sit is at one of the tables on the sand, under the row of trees in front of the restaurant. There are nice views toward Platis Gialos, and the setting is profoundly serene and relaxed … it’s a pleasant spot to mellow out while enjoying the fabulous home-cooked Greek cuisine or fresh seafood.

Paradiso Taverna is situated at Maragas, in between two of the most popular beaches on Naxos — Plaka and Agia Anna. Paradiso has a large, tree-sheltered dining terrace in front of the restaurant building, and more tables directly across the road, under a distinctive, eye-catching tree right on the beach. Both spots offer excellent views of the beach, sea and nearby Paros island, and both are good places to watch a sunset, too. The food is as delicious as the scenery.

If you get the chance to visit either Nikolas or Paradiso for a meal, don’t just order off the printed menu — take a few minutes to go inside the kitchen to see the various vegetable, meat and seafood dishes that have been specially prepared for that day. Everything will look appealing, so don’t be surprised if you have trouble deciding what to order!

Two new beach tavernas we discovered

Mikri Vigla Taverna at Parthenos beach on Naxos

Honourable mention goes to two beach tavernas we discovered for the first time in 2013 and hope to revisit in the near future.

We stopped into Mikri Vigla Taverna just for a cold drink and a snack while mountain biking down the southwest coast of Naxos on October 6. We ordered only a Greek salad since we weren’t very hungry, but when we saw the food in the kitchen — as well as what people at the tables next to ours were being served — we regretted that we didn’t have bigger appetites. Everything looked tasty, portions appeared to be quite generous, and all the customers kept commenting on how good their meals were. It was the last day the taverna was open for the season, and the staff kept apologizing for having only a “small” selection of items to choose from. However, we were impressed with the large number of dishes that actually were available — we would have been spoiled for choice had we wanted a more substantial meal.

On October 14, we went to Aperanto Galazio with two friends from the Athens area. The restaurant is located on the beach at Varkiza, a town on the Athens Riviera. We sat on the shaded outdoor dining terrace just steps from the sand, enjoying the beach and sea views while we dined on eight delicious items, including taramosalata (a fish roe dip), Greek salad, stuffed tomatoes, zucchini fritters, calamari, fried potatoes and red and white wine. The food was excellent, the service was great, and the total price was a very pleasant surprise: just €35. We had been expecting the lunch to cost considerably more given the substantial amount of food we had ordered.

Aperanto Galazio restaurant at Varkiza beach on the Athens Riviera

Please click on the link below to see dozens more photos and restaurant reviews on page 2 of this post.

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February 7, 2014
Our memorable meals at L’Osteria da Claudio and the Delfini Hotel restaurant on Sifnos

The outdoor dining terrace at the Delfini Hotel on Sifnos. The Delfini restaurant is open to the public as well as to guests of the hotel, and serves excellent home-cooked Greek cuisine and seafood dishes.

Clear windscreens shelter Delfini restaurant guests on windy evenings, but still allow views of the sunset and Kamares Bay

Fond food memories: An online conversation about Sifnos restaurants a few days ago prompted me to pore through my travel journal and hundreds of photos we shot during our four-day visit to the island back in 2007.

Good food was the topic of our message exchange, and it also happens to be something for which Sifnos has long been famous.

While researching islands to visit on that trip seven years ago, I learned that Sifnos has been well-known for fine cuisine for hundreds of years, largely because the excellent pottery and ceramics produced on the island gave Sifnian cooks an early edge in developing culinary techniques and honing their kitchen skills. I also read that many of the top chefs in Athens and elsewhere in Greece got their training and started their careers on Sifnos.

I don’t know how accurate those stories are, but I can confirm that we did eat well on Sifnos; in fact, we still talk about the food we enjoyed there.

Two excellent dinners at Delfini Hotel

Two of those meals were in the restaurant of the Delfini Hotel where we were staying on the far side of Kamares Bay, directly across from the ferry port at Kamares.

Our room was situated right above the Delfini’s seaview restaurant terrace, and the delightful food aromas that wafted from the kitchen through our open windows enticed us to have our first dinner there instead of walking into town for the evening. We had home-made spinach pies, stuffed aubergines, a hearty seafood soup that was chock full of fish and vegetables, wine, and a yummy cheesecake for dessert. The meal cost €42 and was wonderful.

We walked into Kamares for dinner on our second night, and saw a queue outside L’Osteria da Claudio. We recognized several of the people waiting in line for a table — they, too, were staying at Hotel Delfini. They told us they had eaten at da Claudio before (some had been there more than once) and thought the Italian cuisine was amazing. The waiting time for a table inside the small dining room would be about an hour, but they said it would be worth it.

A sign at L’Osteria da Claudio, on the main street in Kamares. The popular Italian restaurant had many repeat visitors when we stayed on the island.

Please click on the link below to continue reading and to view more photos on page 2 of this post.

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February 1, 2014
Picture yourself … watching a sunset on Sifnos

This was one of the impressive sunsets we watched from the seaview terrace of our room at Delfini Hotel in Kamares on Sifnos island

January 30, 2014
Picture yourself … warming up at a beach on Ios

Another polar vortex has brought biting cold weather to the northeastern USA and Canada this week, so I’ve been trying to distract myself from the chill by looking at photos and videos of beaches. Like these of the long, gently curving golden sand beach at Gialos, the port village area of Ios. It was sunny and a toasty 28 degrees Celsius (84 F) when I shot these pics — nearly 40 degrees warmer than it is outside my window at the moment. If only I could be enjoying that sun, heat and sand right now! Click on the photo to view a full-size image.

January 23, 2014
Wine Enthusiast features Greece’s Aegean Islands on list of top 10 wine travel destinations for 2014

This is just part of the jaw-dropping caldera view that tourists enjoy while visiting SantoWines on Santorini. At upper right is the clifftop village of Imerovigli, while in the distance beyond the cruise ships is the scenic village of Oia. This photo appears in Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s profile of the Greek Aegean Islands as one of 2014’s top wine travel destination.

All about the Assyrtiko: A leading international wine magazine has named Greece’s Aegean Islands as one of the world’s top wine travel destinations for 2014.

The listing by Wine Enthusiast Magazine cites three islands in particular as great places for oenophiles to visit this year: Santorini, Samos and Crete.

“With whitewashed villages that cling to steep hillsides, which drop precipitously toward the deep blue sea, few people think of the Aegean Islands as a wine destination. But if you look carefully, you will see that the island of Santorini is essentially one large farm, Samos has terraced vineyards on Mount Ambelos, and Crete is home to a variety of white and red grapes,” writers Mike DeSimone & Jeff Jenssen observe.

The magazine’s profile of the Aegean Islands wine destinations includes tips on things to see and do, places to dine, where to stay, and of course where to taste the local wine.

It recommends visiting the SantoWines facility on Santorini (seen in the photo above) to taste wines while enjoying the fabulous scenery and watching one of the island’s legendary sunsets.

“In Crete, sit back in a comfortable reclining chair, sample a variety of wines and learn about the history of Greek winemaking at Boutari’s state-of-the-art theater. On Samos, visit the Malagari Winery, part of the Union of Vinicultural Cooperatives of Samos, to sample the local sweet wines and to visit the Samos Wine Museum,” the profile adds.

You can read the full Aegean Island profile, as well as the listings for nine other top wine travel destinations, in the Top Wine Getaways feature on the Wine Enthusiast Magazine website.

January 21, 2014