Eat yourself fit with chocolate breakfast cereal!

Picture postcard churches.

A caper plant. Very common here apparently.

I'm going to go and see if I can find a wild one and scrump some to bring home. I wonder if it would grow round the bottom of our house.

Fava beans.

They look like lentils to me. It seems they grow them on Santorini and they were a staple part of the diet. On of those bowls contains the pods.

Wall paintings from that buried town I went to yesterday.

Pretty amazing eh?  Considering they are at least 3600 years old.

An ouzo still.

I might make one of these in the garage.

A mystery

Clumps of unidentified caterpillars have amassed on the branches of some gum trees around our house. Birds are staying well clear and so am I. Australia is scary.

View from the highest place on the island at 566 mtrs

Black beach.

The sunbathers look like sausages in a non stick pan

Akrotiri town

It was buried, Pompeii style, under ash when the Santorini volcano erupted about 1500 BC. They've excavated it and covered it with a roof. There is three acres and you can see the streets, the drainage system and stuff they left behind. No skeletons though so they must have had enough warning to get away.

Tomatoes drying in the sun outside a little farmer's house.

Tomatoes growing in pumice with no signs of any irrigation.

I can't understand how they were growing. I dug a hole to see what was underneath and it was just more bone dry pumice.

Rabbit stifado

They seem to be a bit  mad on rabbits here. This is another proper Greek taverna and the girl who has served me says that this rabbit is from her grandfather's farm. I said 'was it a wild rabbit' and she didn't understand, but she came back a few minutes later and said that it wasn't wild, and there are no wild rabbits on santorini (you stupid Englishman because there is  nothing but volcanic ash and stones for them to eat). She's 6th form age and I think she looked up the word 'wild' in a dictionary.

My free half bottle of wine.

The cable car from the bottom to the top.

Not much sign of skis though

Funny they don't sell these in Morrissons.

The panorama from Santorini.

The accommodation in Santorini.

I had a minor argument with the woman over this. I specifically asked her to point to where it was on the map and how far it was from the centre. She pointed on the map but when I got here it was obviously much further than she had indicated. She'd said 700 mtrs from the centre. I got out the GPS on my phone to show her that I knew it was much further and told her I was going to look for another place. So she dropped the price and gave me half a bottle of the local wine. As it turns out she's done me a favour because Santorini town centre is not very nice. It's full of over priced shops and restaurants fleecing the tourists.

The approach to Santorini

Cheese making

I have the magic substance to make cheese. In that little pot is about a level teaspoon of a white powder that looks like salt. From what I can work out I need to add a small pinch to 5 litres of milk and leave it overnight.
I guess that it is an enzyme but I don't know, I'll have to Google it when I get home and I have a proper internet connection, it's too difficult on the phone.
From what I could understand from the old woman you can save some of the liquid and use it to make the next batch so it must reproduce.
The basket is to squeeze the resulting solids (curds?). There were some baskets made from what looked like very thick grass in the shop but I didn't think I would manage to get one of those home.
I've also bought a cheese which is triple wrapped in my rucksack because it's a bit smelly.

Raki

I've been given a glass of raki to finish my meal. It's the local spirit. The last time I tasted anything like this was 40 years ago when some Irish labourers gave me a swig of their poteen from a lemonade bottle. It tastes like its 95% alcohol. It's quite horrible, like something you would clear the drains with or strip paint. I've had to drink it, and smile, because the taverna owner thought he was giving me a special treat.

It's called a kouros. 600 BC

Apparently it was going to be a giant statue of Apollo but they must have got bored and never got round to finishing it.

Where have I been today? Everywhere!

I hired a motorbike and I've done 180 km (110 miles). Now I have severe bottom fatigue.

Lunch

I'm in a tiny village on the opposite side of the island and well away from the tourists, the only people here are Greeks.
It's orange pie. Very delicious. It seems to be a sort of very sweet, orange flavoured, egg custard mixed with filo pastry.

Breakfast

The old woman has made the jam, the cheese, the egg is from her own chickens, the plums, grapes, water melon and tomatoes are from her garden. She was very interested in the photos of my allotment although she had no idea what rhubarb is.

Thomas and Kat's Beetroot

Coming along nicely :)
Had to do a little thinning out to let them grow bigger, they where a bit squashed!

Last Nights Tea

I made cottage pie last night using our allotment ingredients. Crushed potato topping with a side of broad beans- Yum!

Prize Courgettes🏆

Courgettes doing well!
Have had some for tea- mum had them steamed an I had mine fried :)
Found a delicious recipe for stuffed courgette flowers, shallow fried. Maybe we will have them tonight with salad?

Sunset

I was going to get the sun actually setting but I had a little snooze and missed it by 10 mins

Amuse bouche

Naxos delicatessen

I've bought some cinamon, a mixture of olives and some cheese. Those round things on the floor are cheese.
After I've done a taste test I'll decide whether to buy a whole one and transport it home.
The water bottles contain raki which looks as though it is probably alcoholic.
I fancy buying one of those little stew pots because I had pastichio out of one the other night, but it'll probably just end up gathering dust in back of a cupboard. Being on holiday seems to affect one's judgement, that's how these souvenir shops manage to make a living.

The folk museum.

More like the contents of a house clearance. We threw better stuff in the skip from Granny's house. And it cost €5 which is an outrage.