SANTORINI WINE

December 4, 2019 By GEORGIOS GEORGIOU

Visit Santorini for Christmas Holidays

The countdown to Christmas and New Years Eve has already begun. The Municipality of Thira along with the Santorini Municipal Athletic Cultural and Environmental Organization could not remain a shareholder in such a beloved period for young and old alike.

With the aim of staying on the island these days to give them the opportunity to let in the magic of the holidays and to feel the message of love and solidarity invite all Santorini residents and visitors to participate in this year’s events.

Private Guided Tours in Santorini at Christmas

Who says that winter does not have its own unique beauty. Visit the most popular destinations in Santorini with a private guided tour. Make the most of your stay on the island! See below the 8 most wanted Santorini private tours and decide which one suits you best.

Christmas in Santorini!

From December 12 until December 16, Santa Claus and his elves will visit Kindergarten and Primary School on the island bringing the Christmas spirit to schoolchildren, loaded with sweet surprises and taking pictures with them.

Also, from December 13 until December 15 there will be free children’s theatres. This is the Christmas play “The Spirit of Christmas“.

The show is based on the masterpiece of Charles Dickens and is the world’s most popular Christmas story by Uncle Scrooge! It combines theatre, dance, music with Mozart and Beethoven, Christmas songs with guitar and percussion, great classical texts in theatricals full of children’s messages, laughter and interactivity.

Why visit Santorini for Christmas Holidays

Christmas is mostly a time for shopping and gifts, food experience tours and wine with friends and family. Cities have traffic jams and lots of noise. In Santorini things are more simple and romantic during December and especially on Christmas Eve.

Locals celebrate a lot, with an emphasis on their traditional cuisine. The traditional Santorini fava and tomato bites from the traditional tomatoes of Santorini take the lead. They are served with the famous, tasty Vinsanto wine of the island.

An advantage could also be the fact that the prices during this period of time are really very low!

The sequence of performances is as follows:

Cultural Hall of Commerce
Multipurpose hall of Messaria Gymnasium
Kallistis Thiras Fireplace
Fira Christian Home

But… the heart of Christmas will be ringing for another year at the “Christmas Village”. From December 17 until January 3, daily 12:00 – 21:00 all the magic of the festivities will be at KTEL Central Station in Fira.

Train, ice rink, bungee trampoline, playgrounds, Santa Claus, face painting, candy wool, popcorn, fairy tales and many more surprises awaiting us all to celebrate Christmas and the coming of the new year together. Book a Santorini Private Guided Tour and spend your holidays on the island making it worth!

See more about Santorini Private Guided Tours:

March 12, 2019 By GEORGIOS GEORGIOU

Santorini: A Great Gastronomic World

Santorini is not just the most emblematic island of Greece. It is also the home of a gastronomic cosmopolitanism, a paradise for lovers of special, elegant and authentic flavour.

The cuisine of the island is based mainly on its agricultural products, fed with its volcanic soil, the coolness of the sea and the Aegean sun.

The theatrical land offers not only a spectacular sight. The villages of Santorini also give birth to products blessed by nature – excellent fresh products – for original, tasty, healthy foods with divine flavours, simple, primary.

With an immediacy that penetrates the mind and touches the heart directly!

The famous Santorini Gastronomy

So let’s go around the “temples” of pleasure, where thousands of people from all over the world are bowed every year.

There are too many options to taste the famous Santorini gastronomy. Greek restaurants with traditional recipes, creative with new refined ideas, taverns with local appetizers…

Discover the hidden in the hinterland or by the sea taverns and let yourself in the moment where flavours and aromas, married harmoniously, are recorded indelibly in your memory.

1. Meet the Santorini fava

The best of Santorini’s diet, is “the fava“, as the locals call it. A gift of nature on the island – a product now Protected Designation of Origin – is an ancient fruit with a distinct natural flavour.

A taste that the Minoans enjoyed several thousand years ago is still unparalleled in our dish. Taste the freshly sprinkled with just it aromas and a bit of butter as an appetizer.

“Married” with tomatoes, onions and capers, with eggplant sauce or pork chunks as a regular meal. Fava-soup, fava-meatballs, fava-rice, fava in omelettes. Fava everywhere!

2. Meet the legendary Santorini tomato

Another favourite product of Thira, is the legendary Santorini tomato. Red, smoky and aromatic is the king of the local traditional salad with lobster, katsouni (a dry cucumber), capers and goat cheese.

The greatness of simplicity! Enjoy it in fluffy tomato balls or in a piece of “Thira” type tomato juice.

3. Meet the Santorini white eggplants

Similarly, the delicious white eggplants that impress with their silky texture are also excellent in a plethora of deep-tasting Mediterranean dishes.

It is worth even trying it plain in a simple eggplant sauce or in a Santorini moussaka, a hug with small potatoes and round courgettes that are being produced in the island. Let all summer sit on your plate!

4. Meet Santorini fresh fish

When the appetite “wants a fish“, choose from an abundance of fresh sea treasures from the nearby fishing grounds.

A delicious idea is the local Mprantada. It is accompanied by a garlic sauce with eggplant. You can also try smelt pies, or savoir fish, fried with vinegar and garlic.

5. Meet traditional Santorini treats

Leave space in the end for a sweet spoon of small tomatoes Jams, garnished with cinnamon and whole almonds. If you are lucky, you will try melletinia, a traditional Easter candy, or sugarplum, a classic wedding treat.

Apart from the traditional desserts, you will also taste “sophisticated” flavours such as tiramisu with roasted eggplant, almond praline and sunflower sauce or kantaifi sauce, with an improbable mizithra mousse. All Divine!

The famous Santorini wines

An excellent food company at the table will keep you the famous Santorini wines. Asyrtiko, Athiri, Aidani, Mandilaria, Mavratragano are just some of the dozens of native varieties that have been popular over the centuries on the island, sinking their roots deep in the volcanic soil.

The Thira vines shaped on terraces to facilitate the cultivation and knitting of the bunch-shaped stump to protect the fruit from the “great” winds and the relentless Cycladic sun, are characteristic elements of the environment.

The peculiarity of Santorini’s soil and microclimate, coupled with the constant effort of local producers to harness their land, yields high yielding wines with a strong structure, cool acidity, intense metallicity and aromatic complexity.

In the picturesque village of Pyrgos you will find the winery of the rural cooperative and there, on its picturesque balcony that looks like it hovers on the Caldera, you will say goodbye to the beautiful sunset with a glass of Vinsanto wine – this sweet diamond of the Santorini vineyard – or a cool Assyrtiko.

Most wineries can be visited on the island. One can choose Santorini tours to visit Santorini’s sightseeings and wineries.

Take a Santorini private tour

Santorini private tours offer tasting tours of production sites and vineyards; visits to museums and traditional canaves are some of the options that will give you an intoxicating experience.

Santorini Full Day Private Tour
Santorini Sightseeing Private Tour
Santorini Private Custom Tour
Popular Destination Santorini Private Tour
Santorini Private Tour and Food Experience
Santorini Exclusive Shore Private Tour
Santorini Impressive Caldera Private Tour
Santorini South Part Private Tour
Santorini North Part Private Tour
Santorini Historical Private Tour
Santorini Sunset Private Tour

Unique wines and splendid flavours make up the magical world of Santorini island. So Santorini puts its personal stigma on the gastronomic map of the planet.

Six Things You Should Not Do In Santorini!

Santorini is not just the most beautiful island of Greece, it is the most beautiful of all the world! However, the most important is to have a great time, and that can be achieved without spending a fortune. Follow my tips!

In the following article I pinpoint the 6 most common mistakes, that you should try to avoid!

1 Do not go to the famous Santorini Sunset

All tourists are flocking to take a seat in the castle of Saint Nicholas, with their cameras in their hands, trying to capture every moment, losing however, the precious feeling of the sunset.

Relax! The main purpose is to have a romantic and peaceful time, under the gentle sunlight that sets, otherwise its meaningless!

There are so many places with magnificent and equally spectacular views of the Santorini sunset, apart from Oia. The chapel of Saint John, Pharos, the Baxedes area and the chapel of Saint Lia, in Finikia. Also in Imerovigli, Skaros and Fira, at the old mines, the view is dreamy!

So, do not push each other and ruin the magic of the sunset… Prefer a Santorini tour and let the professionals schedule your best sunset evening. See our Santorini Sunset Private Tour.

2 Do not go to the famous Santorini beach

The beach with black sand is not unjustified one of the best beaches of Santorini, but it is usually flooded with people and you cannot even cross it, or enjoy it.

Swimming is a moment of pleasure. You should prefer beaches with less people such as Kouloumbou beach or Vlychada, which have the same lunar landscape with black sands and black-red pebbles.

However, you could definitely choose Santorini tours that offer sightseeing, combining visits to most of the well known beaches with access by the sea. See our Santorini Exclusive Shore Private Tour.

3 Do not try the most famous Santorini cuisine

The most famous local dishes of Santorini are the tomato balls, the fava, the garlic pasta and the fresh seafood!

The island’s food can be for either economical standard, as long as you pay attention in which tavern you will have your meal or dinner. In many cases, people have been fooled of tourist traps and have eaten an indifferent dish, but paid a fortune. There are many taverns with traditional Santorini cuisine, at very economical prices.

You could also book a Santorini tour and allow yourself to enjoy a wine tasting trip to the most enchanting Santorini cuisine. See our Santorini Private Tour And Food Experience.

4 Do not taste the most famous Santorini Wines

Santorini produces many famous wines, including the Boutari and Gavala vineyard. Of course prices on liquor stores are overpriced, so I would suggest you visit one of the wineries through a Santorini tour to learn about the vineyards and of course to buy at a much better price the wines you prefer and you have already tried free of charge at the vineyard. See our Santorini South Part Private Tour.

The Wine Tourism Cooperative Union, SantoWines, is located at the centre of Santorini, on the edge of the caldera and offers a unique opportunity to visit and taste most of the fine wines while admiring the beautiful sunset under the imposing view of the volcano.

5 Do not go to the most famous Santorini destination

The truth is that all the islands of Greece, not only Santorini, cannot have just one favourite landscape. We certainly do not get to visit everything we want, but everything is worth it and every single place has its own beauty and peculiarity.

If you limit your visit only in Fira and Oia as they are said to be the most cosmopolitan places in Santorini, this will prevent you from enjoying the other villages and settlements of Santorini, which have their own beauty that fulfils this wonderful island.

You can rent a Santorini Taxi and visit as many places as you want. I would suggest beautiful places like Imerovigli, Megalochori, Pyrgos and Emporio, or you could even go for sightseeing to meet the ancient civilization of Santorini with a Santorini tour. See our Santorini Historical Private Tour.

6 Do not hang out to the famous nightlife

Too many bars, and pubs for every taste! In every settlement you will hear about the most famous one and where most people gather. But, why not make the difference and visit a more chill out bar! Vacations, are a chance to escape from intense rhythms and have fun…

A more special suggestion is to go to a particularly beautiful cinema or just have a drink in Cine Camari‘s beautifully landscaped ground. This place is majestic! See our Santorini North Part Private Tour.

Nothing is missing out of the imposing beauty of Santorini. I hope you take into consideration my advice and have your best holiday ever, at an island which is regarded as a relatively expensive summer destination.

See more about Santorini island:

June 24, 2018 By GEORGIOS GEORGIOU

Tradition tours in Santorini

Make a traditional exhibition in Santorini with Santorini tours!

Santorini is one of the islands that have held on their rich tradition over the centuries. Today the tradition of Santorini is kept alive in several aspects of everyday life, mainly through traditional products and through festivals.

The historical vineyards of Santorini

Both the local products and the festivals of Santorini maintain an unbroken line of life with the past of the island, both recent and distant. It is a fact that the cultivation and production of wine in Santorini was already known to the inhabitants of the prehistoric settlement of Akrotiri, something that was known to the public from the excavations.

This means that already in 1700 BC in Santorini, people drank the same (naturally) wine that fills the glasses of locals and visitors today. It is even certain that the current vineyard of Santorini is the continuation of that, which was planted on the island after the Minoan eruption of the volcano, around 1200 BC. Therefore it is about 3200 years old!

You can enjoy the combination of history and tradition in Santorini by booking now a Santorini historical tour.

The traditional products of Santorini

Feta, barley, anhydrous tomato, goat and other products produced by this dry and soiled (and at the same time endowed) land of Santorini, are among the finest and most sophisticated flavors of Greece.

The tradition of most of these crops also starts from prehistoric times, with the famous frescoes of Akrotiri Krokosyclektery demonstrating that in the 17th century BC the Santorinians knew this rare plant and exploited it.

At the feasts of the island, one can still see today how the tradition of centuries is kept alive through the spirit of the people. The music played by local organists with their traditional instruments, the food that is shared by the faithful and has lived for decades, the joy of which small and large people participate, proves that tradition continues unceasingly.