Relaxing in Oia
Some of the best vacations happen when you just do nothing... especially when you have perfect weather and a perfect location. After a full day of touring yesterday, I joined Mrs. SFO777 in simply relaxing and pretty much doing nothing for the next two days. Our morning routine... breakfast in our suite overlooking the caldera.
A little later in the morning, I walked up to main square and and around the resort for some pics.
Since we were now on a late breakfast routine, we decided to go with late lunches as our only other meal of the day. And after two nights of wonderful haute cuisine, we were interested in getting back to the basics and more traditional Greek food. Today we chose Lauda Restaurant located in the Adronis Boutique Hotel, a short walk down the pedestrian way. As with many places in Oia, Lauda is difficult, indeed impossible to find on your own. We checked in at the hotel front desk and then were escorted down winding stairs, like this... As with many hotels here, elevators are simply not practical given the terrain and the "hanging off a cliff" location.
But once we arrived, it was well worth the effort.
Amazing menu, but we didn't need to go past the first page and the set Greek Lunch menu.
Our Greek Meze starters. OMG.
And the Greek Salad to die for.
Simply spectacular.
After an incredible two hour food and wine orgy with wonderful service, now we had to find our way back up to street level.
Back at street level, we explored more of Oia and then headed back to our hotel.
The next morning, more of the same as our perfect weather continued.
Now that's relaxation.
Around 2pm or so, we decided to actually use our rental car and explore a little more of the island eventually winding up in Imerovigli, where we thought to have lunch. OMG, if we thought Oia was difficult to navigate. At least Oia has a street. Most of Imerovigli hangs on the side of a cliff with only steep pedestrian walkways. With our iPhone map function completely useless here, we threw caution to the wind and proceeded, mostly letting the force guide us.
Someone wants to get out of here. "Do you know where you're going?" Uh, not really but I can't tell her that. LOL.
The problem was that it was hard to tell which pathways went anywhere or were just dead-end cul de sacs. After 20 minutes or so of winding up, down, up, down... finally a promising sign.
By this time, we'd given trying to find any of the restos on our list and were happy just to have escaped. Mrs. SFO777 wisely suggested, let's go back to Oia. Twenty minutes later, we parked our car in the Canaves lot (which really isn't near Canaves) and walked back. Lo and behold, we found one of the restos on our Oia list, Laokasti. By now it was 4pm and we had no problem getting a table.
More great wine, food and service.
OMG, the food was simply amazing starting with the best Greek Salad I've ever had.
Wonderful local mushroom and pork dish dish.
And our mains. BBQ chicken for Mrs. SFO777...
And my amazing lamb dish.
Wow, another simply fabulous meal... with wonderful genuine, friendly service. Amazingly, the total tab for this meal was only 97 euros. Meanwhile back at our hotel, as the sun sets, may as well open our complimentary cheap champagne.
