Aegean Odyssey Day 14 (Santorini)

Sadly, today was our last day with Richard and Laura! A week with them went by pretty quickly and was over too soon. 

We met for breakfast at 10 a.m. and, as it was damp on the terrace of the Atlantis Hotel, we ate inside for the first time since we arrived. Richard and Laura checked out right at 11 and then we moved their luggage into our room for the day and, after chatting awhile, realized we still needed a picture of all of us on our premium balcony. I approached the desk clerk, who was hanging around by the bar entrance, and he seconded a guest who was having a cup of coffee there for the task. I lined up the shot and even took a sample (top right), but somehow the settings got changed after I handed over the camera and the one with all four of us did not come out quite as crisp (below right). 


We then decided to head out and wander around Fira a bit, heading up to the area of the cable car that goes down to the port and scouting the locations of two of the three museums in Fira I still wanted to visit, the one for Classical antiquities and the Zantozeum. After circling back toward the hotel on a side street that took us past the Highlander -- where Richard and I resisted the urge to step in for a quick one -- we decided to have a bite at Ampelos, the place we had met the Allans for our first drink of the vacation with them a week earlier. I had a delicious artichoke heart stew with peas, carrots, potatoes, and Santorini tomatoes, while Diane had a Caesar salad, Laura had the fresh fried calamari, and Richard enjoyed a pork "Slovaki." We induced the waiter to shoot a brief video segment of us giving our famous "Yamas, Ya' Bas'!" toast, which was one of the trademark watchwords of our vacation together (bottom). While we were sitting there, we were amused to look over at the Naoussa Restaurant and see one of its waiters escorting customers from the nearly-empty terrace down the outer stairway toward the vault we had been taken to! Someone else apparently had not measured up to the stringent standards they expect of paying guests. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking water and wine on our terrace at the hotel and, among other things Richard and I agreed in principal that we were overdue to embark on some sort of project together and would look at doing so once he completed his doctorate and I had cleared my slate a bit. We put the Allans in a cab to the airport at 7:30 and wished them a safe, speedy, and comfortable journey home, where they were looking forward to several days of primitive camping in the sunless and drizzly hills of their rugged homeland.  

Around 8:30 I went and got us some takeout from Chinese Famous Foods a few blocks away. Suffice it to say that this restaurant has zero ambience but I had a nice chat with Orestes, the young Albanian/Greek guy that takes orders for the older Chinese men that run the establishment; among other things, I learned that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant had visited Santorini by yacht last year and that he had gotten his picture taken with them.  And, lack of ambience aside, we were pleased to discover that the food was excellent and thoroughly enjoyed our numbers 1, 24, 43, and 53 (hot and sour soup, pork with mushrooms and bamboo shoots, stir-fried noodles with vegetables, and fried rice).

Dozed for a couple of hours while the thoroughly mediocre street musician that has plagued us this week droned out the handful of songs he knows, again and again, for about three hours over by the bell tower of the Greek Orthodox cathedral; waited in vain for Bono to arrive and slap him with an injunction preventing him  from continuing to ruin With or Without You. Then, got up, worked and played my Grepolis computer game for about three hours, and then had a beer on the terrace and turned in. 

Naoussa Restaurant (Santorini, Greece)

With as many restaurants as there are in Santorini, one would think that proprietors would do everything they could to please the people who walk through their doors and not deliberately offend paying guests. Unless you want to quite possibly be treated badly, however, and maybe still not get anything to eat, you will want to make a point of avoiding the Naoussa Restaurant here. 

As guests of the Atlantis Hotel next door, my wife and I and the other couple we are with here had had our eyes on Naoussa for several days and, after a day exploring the island, decided to get cleaned up and go over there for dinner one night. When we got there, a man who we understand to be the owner sized us up and asked us if we had reservations. This seemed like an absolutely absurd question, as the place was almost empty and not more than half the tables actually had anyone sitting at them! 

We told him we did not and, at that point, everything might have ended well enough if we had just walked away. The proprietor, however, a fellow that looked something like a little Mickey Rourke, offered to recommend "another restaurant," which immediately got my hackles up, as the last thing I need is someone assessing which restaurant is appropriate for me. 

Declining his offer for guidance to whatever restaurant he thought would be more suitable for us, we started to leave and -- ideally just would have -- when the maitre'd said that yes, they actually did have a table for us! He then had a waiter lead us down a set of stairs to the lower level of the restaurant, which was also about half full and, while not as airy, did have one side open to the sea. One of the tables had children at it and this was the clearly the area intended for parties that the restaurant did not want displayed in it most public areas and I was trying to figure out which of the empty tables they would seat us at. 

They led us right through through this area, however, right past a laundry room and into a stifling vault at the back of the restaurant that was clearly being used as a storage area! At that point, thoroughly disgusted, with my wife beginning to gasp from the close atmosphere and the waiter starting to clear debris off the unused table in this grim space, we did finally all just turn around and walk away. 

A little research revealed that three other restaurants are affiliated with Naoussa Restaurant, Ellis Restaurant, Daphne Family Tavern, and Olympos Family Greek Tavern. While I have not eaten at any of them and cannot comment on their food I would not go to any of them for fear of suffering the same humiliating treatment as the result of a prevailing attitude shared by all of them. 

I am not sure what prompted the staff at Naoussa to treat us the way they did but I really don't care that much about the reasons. I put up with this sort of horrible crap for years when I was a soldier or a student backpacking around Europe and I am done with it. A restaurant that acts this way toward potential patrons does not deserve business from anyone. It bears mentioning, in any event, that our group consisted of two young to middle-aged couples and that we had gotten cleaned up and dressed for dinner and were not in any way grungy, attired in beachwear, or the like. We also had money that we did not and never will spend at Naoussa or any of the other establishments affiliated, and have a platform for warning other people about what they can expect from this strange and unfortunate place. They can be sure that the comments that appear here will also be reflected on TripAdvisor and a number of other travel-oriented sites.