Our next stop in Santorini was Kamari. The towns of Oia and Fira are built into spectacular cliffs, which makes for stunning views but terrible/non existent beaches (although we did hike down to one in Oia, but it was a long downhill hike… and then a long, uphill hike in the hot sun) but Kamari is a cute little beach town that follows right along a black sand beach. It is, also, very seasonal. As we arrived, many of the stores and restaurants were closed or closing up for the winter. This was both good and bad- good, because we got a sweet deal at the place we stayed. Bad, because it meant the restaurants that were still open were desperate for our business.
The walk from our hotel to the beach (actually, from our hotel to anywhere, really) crossed the paths of two such restaurants. Each of these restaurants had a man stationed out front whose sole purpose was to drive business into the restaurant. Every single time we walked past, they would call out to us, asking where we were from, giving us their card, offering us discounts, pressuring us to come into the restaurant. It got to the point where it was wildly uncomfortable to walk past them, we all hated doing it. However, it seemed that no matter what new and unique way we tried to come home we ended up walking right past those two restaurants- one time we even ended up coming up the street between the two- our nightmare!! Other restaurants did this as well, but usually they could be assuaged with a simple “oh, we already ate” or “we ate there last night, it was very good”. The restaurants near us were not so understanding, every time we walked past they insisted that we stop and eat, or for our next meal, we stop and eat. It was really uncomfortable. To make matters worse, we went to one of these restaurants, Honey & Thyme. It was fantastic! Every choice we made was hailed by our waiter as an “excellent choice”. We asked if there was anything on the menu that wasn’t an excellent choice and he assured us that everything was very good. We were brought bread with 4 different spreads, a roasted eggplant spread, a tomato spread, a fava bean spread and a beet spread. They were all excellent. We had an appetizer of phyllo stuffed with goat cheese and served with tomato jam. I could eat that for every meal for the rest of my life and be happy, they were that good!! Nick and I made the excellent choice of moussaka for our main course, while my mom had the excellent pork gyro platter. The food was absolutely amazing! Eating at one of the two restaurants that harassed us day in and day out was a mixed blessing. This helped reduce the amount of harassing we got from the man outside Honey & Thyme, but increased the amount of harassment we got from the restaurant next door after the man watched us walk past him and into his competitors establishment. He even pulled Nick over afterwards and lectured him, saying “its about respect”… (update, Nick and I went to his restaurant after my mom left and it was very mediocre.)
Other than the restaurant harassment, Kamari was wonderful! It was the end of the season, so it was not very crowded, but it was still warm enough that we were in shorts everyday. Nick even went swimming several of the days we were there! My mom and I sat on the beach, it wasn’t quite warm enough for us! We spent several days wandering around Kamari, sitting on the beach and trying to avoid the vultures in front of the restaurants. After a few days, my mom went back to Denver, but we had had an excellent adventure with her in Istanbul and all over Greece!! Nick and I hung out a few more days before heading off to Bansko Bulgaria.
The beach is nice, but I am a mountain lady at heart and was ready to go enjoy fall in the mountains. We flew from Santorini to Athens and then spent the next 12 hours in the Athens airport. It is not a very big airport, and we quickly got bored. So, we jumped into a cab and went a few kilometers down the road to an IKEA where we wandered round for a few hours and ate lunch in the food court there. Sometimes travel is not glamorous, but IKEA was definitely more fun (and the food was cheaper) than the airport! From there, we flew to Thessaloniki and then took a private charter the four hours to Bansko. It was an exhausting day. But, we woke up to snow covered mountains in the morning- a wonderful and very welcome sight. Nick then hung his swimsuit up to dry- it was still wet from swimming in the ocean only days before.
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