You Care What We Think: Santorini Honeymoon

It was our last full day on the island, so we were going to do a lot of things today. We had arranged to have breakfast brought to us in our private pool area (because we’re baller like that). It was another perfect day in paradise.

We rented a different car (our Micra had already been rented out that day) to drive up to Oia. This time, a manual (stick) transmission. I got to impress D.Rough with my Mario Andretti driving skillz. We took the scenic route just to ensure we saw as much of the island as possible. There isn’t much in the way of directional signage, so we got a little lost, but we managed to do just fine (despite some amazingly steep hills with cartoon-like bands to navigate).

We passed through some really quaint small towns along the way. We were really glad we took this route.

We stopped at a beautiful church to take some photos and they were having a festival. We listened to the music a bit and watched the live band and dancers. How’s THAT for a Greek experience?!?

We got to Oia and decided to do some walking. We hadn’t actually seen it during the daylight and this was our last chance. It really is a pretty little tourist town. Every photo you take could be a postcard on a rack somewhere.

We needed some lunch and our friends from Lucky’s (Avi and Ben) told us about these small shops in the bay at Amoudi – down a HUGE set of winding stairs from Oia. We headed to the port at the bottom and, after taking photos of the donkeys we passed, found the restaurants they were talking about.

We saw a guy pull a fish out of the water and cut it up on the cement stoop right next to a restaurant, so we thought we’d better try that. It also looked the nicest and had the most Greek people there. Dimitri's Amoudi Taverna. The waitress was very nice and formerly American, so she took us back into the kitchen and showed us the case where they kept all the fresh fish. We saw the one the guy had just cut up and picked that one for lunch. Then we also had some greens, the biggest baked beans we ever ate, some delicious octopus, and the Grouper the guy had just cut up. Amazing meal. Right on the water. Literally.

The,n we actually had to go BACK up the stairs. Which was a bad idea, since we had booked a couple’s honeymoon massage with Antonio at Caldera Massages Studio & Spa, thanks to my friend Coach. We showed up to do our massage soaked with sweat and breathing hard. Quite funny, but the no one said anything about it. I won’t go into detail on the massage, but it was fun to do.

Couple’s shower (how long are you supposed to spend in there while the masseurs wait? We had no idea!), followed by a 1+ hour synchronized couples massage while wearing paper thongs they provided, then a bath soak for two in a hot bath with mud, honey, milk, and some essences of something-or-other, then finally a “Healthy and Tasty Break” for two – which was decidedly unhealthy and delicious!!!!! Greek Cheese Pie covered in tzatziki, Bulgar Salad, and Tiramisu cheese cake. I could eat “healthy” every day in Greece!!!

Despite having this “snack”, we had made dinner reservations at one of the nicest restaurants in town (Mike at the hotel made them for us before we left – I told you it would be “no problem”) called Ambrosia. We left the Spa and immediately ran to make our dinner reservation. We didn’t know theese two activities were going to conflict like this. We were greeted by a fabulous man with flowy hair held back by sunglasses, and a colorful scarf. We knew we were going to like this place. We had already missed the sunset (since we forgot to bring the directions to Ambrosia from the Spa), but we still had the best seat in the house (thank you, Mike) – right on the edge of the balcony, overlooking the town of Oia and the waterfront.

We had an incredible meal served by a delightful Romanian server who took care of us. After I impressed him with my wine ordering ability (Sigala barrel from Santorini), he helped us decide on a few entrees, since we had already just had immediately prior to this, our huge healthy snack which we couldn’t even finish. Absolutely the most romantic dinner we’ve had here. The restaurant even had blankets on the backs of chairs for when it got cold. Which was funny because we didn’t have time to change after our massage and I was still wearing shorts and a t-shirt (whoops!). Candles, roses, music – the works.

We had lamb chops, mixed seafood linguini, and a fantastic bottle of wine (which we bought more of the next day and brought back to the U.S. with us). We ended with a nice glass of Visanto (Santorini dessert wine) and a very delicious and fancy white chocolate mousse with dark chocolate leaves covered with Anglaise sauce and strawberries. Brilliant dessert!