Best time to travel to Greece

The best time to travel to the Greek Islands is end of May beginning of June and September to mid October. In May and June the water it’s still not so hot but the island are quite the service stuff is not tired yet from the crowd so you can have a very peaceful holiday.

Me personally prefer September. Water is still warm, crowd is less and full services are still in operation. Weather is perfect not so hot like in August and not cold like in October in day time bearable hot and in the night cool. I wish it could stay like that the whole season. Most of the taverns and restaurant have a person outside in the door that welcome people but it is not like host. Here we call it “kamaki” which it’s not so good word but it is used for the job that persons does. Basically they are trying to pull passing people in by advertizing the menu or offering some free wine with the diner or just trying to get friendly with you so you choose this place for dinning. This is not legal job but it is done everywhere. Sometime it is very annoying but no place could work without kamaki. The restaurants and taverns are so close to each other and they offer similar food so it is very difficult to choose where you will be dining and usually the kamaki is the face that you remember from the place and then comes the service and the food.

Nightly percent of the service stuff in the restaurants and hotels are not Greeks. All those people are seasonal workers that go to their countries during the winter or Athens. Very few of them stay in the Islands during the winter period working mainly constructions. You will be wonder or how many people with different nationalities could work in one restaurant and they all find a common ground for six months , seven days per week 10 to 12 hours per day. English is universal language and if you speak it you won’t have any problem communicating. Of course many of the service stuff speak more than one language so don’t be wonder when the waiter/waitress speaks with you English with next table customer Italian and give the order in Greek and still hasn’t spoken his/her native tong.

About Beaches they range from pebbles to fine sand so having beach shoes with you could be useful. I will cover Beaches in my next blog entry. They are many different type of Beaches and each Island have his own distinguish look.

Come to Patras Carnival

The Patras Carnival, is the largest event of its kind in Greece and one of the biggest in Europe. It is 160 years old. The events begin on 17th of January and last up to Clean Monday. The carnival of Patras includes balls, parades, hunting of hidden treasure, kids’ carnival etc. Its characteristics are spontaneity, improvisation, inspiration and volunteerism. It is a lot of fun.

Greek Wines

Let’s start with Resina. What the local people said about this wine is that you either love it or hate it there is no middle with it. As a wine it is not very expensive and while in Greece it is good to try it. Resins are used for the preparation of this wine and it is store in a pine barrels.

Now a day’s Resina is offered mainly to tourists. Greek people drink Ouzo, Raki (Tsipouro) and red or white wine mostly. Some taverns offered their own wine which doesn’t damage the Greek wine reputation in either way.
Greek wines today share the same high quality like some of the best wines of the world. Getting popularity: the Asirtiko, the Roditis, the Moscofilero, the Agiorgitiko.

Island of Santorini produce many different wines from very dry to very sweet. While here try the “Santorini” wine from Boutary winery which is fresh, dry white one. Another great taste wine is Niktery from Santo Winery, which is barrel aged white wine, Mavratiro-barrel aged dark red, sweet wine and Caldera – red dry. There is another sweet red wine that taste like a sherry called Visanto.

Santorini have 13 Wineries which are promoting high quality wines.
• Gavalas Vineyard
• Gaia Wines
• Santo Wines
• Canava Roussos
• Argyros Estate
• Kasteli Wines
• Domaine Sigalas
• Antoniou Winery
• Volcan Wines
• Boutari Winery
• Hatzidakis Winery
• Santorini Winery

The wines are made naturally withought any chemicals. Many factors affect the production of the wine such as volcanic soil.

You can do a tour so you will see how the wine is made. All local travel agency can offer you a winery tour. It is basically a Smart busses that will take you with one ticket all over the island. You can get out of the bus and take it again when you are ready. You will be able to taste 6-7 different wines and have a portion of chesses looking at the Caldera 300 meters above the water.

If you decided to taste the house wine in the taverns you may find your favorite wine as well. Usually prices are very low for Santorinian wines but don’t think that the quality is low as well.

You can check this book and become an expert:
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Hinges of History)"