Thassos, Greece- Day 5

Visiting Panagia was one of the things we just had to do in this vacation. So, we actually dedicated one day to this little trip.

So we were again on the bus and in about 15-20 minutes we arrived. Panagia is a beautiful little village, let's say, that you can go to for shopping, just for a nice walk and taking pictures or to find out more about making olive oil.

I really enjoyed shopping in Panagia because you find many small, family shops, where you can buy homemade olive oil (each family says they have the best oil), homemade drinks, soaps or home accessories. 

As far as restaurants go, I have to say you can find other places with a lot more options, but the food we had was good.

Let's just start with the environment, to create a context. :) Panagia is a typical mountain village. The streets are narrow and they give you a home and comfort feeling. I have to say you can really walk a lot to see the village, you climb up and then go down a lot and everywhere you see beautiful houses, with lots of plants and grape vines. Also, olive trees, pine trees, pomegranate, lime and fig trees everywhere.

What I liked the most were the houses painted  in the traditional Greek blue or the ones with the facades constructed from beautiful local stone.

For a break we stopped at Elena's, a tavern that serves traditional food, so we went all traditional. We ordered Greek moussaka and eggplant stuffed with minced meat. 

Obviously, the moussaka had aubergines and both of the dishes had bechamel on top,  so they tasted almost the same. It was ok, although they didn't put so much effort in the kitchen to make the dishes appealing. Serving fries with everything must be really convenient, but if the moussaka had a potatoes layer, I honestly don't see the point of chips. 

Anyway, the dishes had a nice, home-cooked-meal-approach and that was exactly what we asked for, to try something cooked the way the locals would serve it in their homes, for their families.

After lunch, we rushed to a place we just had to see. It was a place where they show you how they make olive oil. In the front, there was a big room with a nice little showroom.

Here you could buy all sorts of olive oil and olive oil products. Olives, balms, small olive wood decor, soaps, olive seed bracelets, etc. here, I bought  some *healing* balms, magnets and an amazingly moisturizing olive oil liquid soap.

You could also learn more about the production process  through a screen, see some tools and other interesting things. Information is the key....even in your time off, I guess!

In the back of the building, you could actually see how the oil is produced traditionally.....

...and how it is made in factories.

Also, we discovered how smooth and amazing olive tree wood (is that how you call it?) is. Honestly, it is really cool. *childish excitement here*

We also bought some other stuff in Panagia, that we couldn't find in Thassos City, so the trip was very pleasant. We had some homemade olive oil, some pomegranate drink made with Metaxa (will try that in a super-cold evening), a lot of handmade pillow cases and a wooden Pinocchio puppet (adorable) for my nephew.

I loved Panagia, really loved it. We both did actually, we wanted to move there immediately. It was such a cozy but fascinating place, I always had the feeling that I somehow interfere in locals' lives, but they didn't seem to mind that. So full of life, but peaceful, if that makes any sense.

When we got back to our room- surprise- a storm started. The view from our balcony after the storm left you breathless. The mountains you could see above Skala Potamia seemed to be steamy, with clouds rising up in the mountains.

And, not very far away, above the water we spotted a little (I have no idea if it was little or big, just guessing) tornado. Can you see it?

We started to doubt the weather to come in the next days, but, as it turned out, we had nothing to be afraid off.

Stay tuned for the next story,

Thassos, Greece- Day 4

Our fourth day in Greece is going to be all about food, so, considering the type of the blog, it should be just as the foodies like it.

Naturally, we started our day at the beach, taking advantage of such a beautiful weather.

For lunch, we came back to a tavern we already visited once. We had again some fried eggplant, so you can imagine how good it was.

To make sure we will remember that garlic salad we mentioned, we got it also as a separate dish. If you are concerned about the garlic smell, don't be. The  yogurt and the olives actually decrease the garlic flavor and make it less pungent. It is just delicious, maybe we will recreated one day on this blog.

I also had some homemade chicken soup, so soothing and comforting.

After some walking on the beach and a bit of getting to know Golden Beach better, we decided to try another nearby village for dinner.
Ever since our bus trip we had our eye on Skala Potamia, which is the closest to Golden Beach and it seemed more "alive". We had already heard of a nice restaurant there, Theagenis, which was supposed to be really easy to spot, nice food, good prices and live music. You can actually walk from Golden Beach to Skala Potamia, but we went by bus and, in 10 minutes maximum we were there.
It proved to be more developed than Golden Beach, way more shops and taverns.

We did some shopping and encountered 3 little adorable kitties (of course), walked alongside the fishing boats until we reached the pier.
We arrived at the tavern right on time for the start of the live music program, around 20:30.

The tavern is really nice, the live Greek music is the main attraction, but the food is also very tasty, the service was really good and the pricing ok, similar to other taverns on the island, that don't offer the same service.

We started our dinner with Mezes, a plate of  mixed traditional appetizers. It turned out to be a great way to get to know more about the Greek cuisine. There were some wine leaves stuffed with rice, tzatziki salad, garlic salad, fish roe salad, eggplant salad, and some sort of a potato salad. Everything was delicious.

For the main course, I went for red mullet, but I was surprised to find lots of tiny fishes on my plate instead of one bigger piece. The dish itself was very tasty, I must say. As we got used to by now, in most Greek taverns, they give you really big servings.

Talking about big servings, Mr. G. ordered a lamb stifado and got more that he thought. It was actually a leg of lamb on a plate. It turned out to be delicious, Greek lamb stifado is a sort of lamb stew with small, whole shallots, tomatoes and served with potatoes and rice.

Besides the big serving something else is a tradition in Thassos, you always get a complimentary (usually sweet) treat, at the end of the meal, before they bring you the check. It is not much, usually some ice cream, small piece of cake, but it always puts a smile on your face. At Theagenis it was baclava.

We walked back to the villa after dinner. We tried to walk on the beach as much as we could, but being really dark and not knowing the way at all we feared that there might be a dead end somewhere so we got back on the main street. We also spotted Captain, a restaurant that serves great sea food, that our guide recommended in Skala Potamia.

There you go,  a day filled with sun, sand, water and great food.

xoxo,

Thassos, Greece- Day 3

After going to Limenas in the previous day, we decided to relax completely for one day and just enjoy the beautiful beach and the sea. We had breakfast at the villa and headed straight for the beach. We had coffee with our feet buried in sand and it was magnificent. It was a super sunny day, we got tanned and played some water tennis or whatchamacalit.

There is a reason why Golden Beach is known for one of the best beaches in Thassos if not the best.  Even if you chose a different resort at least for one day you should try the amazing sand from Golden Beach.

The sand is just perfection and the beach is quite vast.  The only downside to Golden Beach is that maybe because it wasn’t such a  popular destination until recently it is not very developed as far as shopping opportunities and nightlife goes.  

The restaurants, or better said the taverns, are great, similar to the ones in other resorts or villages.

After our first session of natural tanning we went again at Vigli, not only for the view, but this time for some quick lunch also. We chose to share a pizza at the café bar to save some time that we would have spent waiting in the restaurant.  Everything was ok, of course we got to pet a cat after eating, I truly believe it helps with digestion, we had a beer each and headed back at the villa for a shower.  

The second part of the day we also spent at the beach until dinner time and there was no regret.

I have to say that in September, in the evening you might need a cardigan , but it was no colder than that. For dinner we went to a family tavern on the beach, but unfortunately I don’t remember the name.

We had some eggplant as a starter, fried and served with an amazing sauce, that they called garlic salad. This sauce was so amazing that it was something we had to try at home, as soon as we arrived. The eggplant was just fried and the garlic salad had Greek yogurt, olive oil, garlic, walnuts and olives or olive tapenade. Seriously now, the dip is amazing.

For the main course, I had some lobster salad, which was ok, but you can tell it wasn’t actually their specialty and my lovely husband, always craving for fresh fish had fresh tsipura on the grill.

Oh, and we drank Retsina wine which is ok, mainly because it is not that easy to find some nice wine in a casual tavern on a Greek Island. It’s fine and one good thing about it is that you can find it in restaurants in 500 ml bottles. For the rest of the vacation, retsina remained a good alternative considering that usually, when you ask for a glass of wine, you get sweet or semi-sweet wine which is not our favorite to be served during dinner.  

That was us for today.

Thank you for reading our rambling,

Thassos, Greece- Day 2

If it is just a bit cloudy you can spot the Athos Mountain from the beach

In our second day in Thassos we decided to go to the capital, Limenas or Thassos Town for some gift shopping. First we sun bathed a bit and drank our morning coffee on the beach and then got into the bus and arrived in Limenas around 2 p.m.

Limenas is a nice city and it is definitely the place to shop for gifts for your loved ones.

Nice entrance guarded by lime trees

We didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing because we were hungry and really wanted to check out the gift shop street, which turned out to be pretty big.

We had lunch at a really laid back restaurant on the shore with the traditional white and blue accents.

We had "a nice talk" with some kitties and some nice food. Mr. G. had Kleftiko, a traditional greek dish and I had some simple, fried sardines.

Kleftiko (Stolen Lamb) is made with slow-cooked lamb, sealed in a paper or foil pouch. The slow cooking and the wrapping make the meat tender and full of flavor. At this restaurant is was served with roasted potatoes and rice.

The sardines don't need many explanations, but deserve the attention because it is such a simple dish, perfect to be enjoyed at a seaside tavern.

We said goodbye to the cats and went shopping. We got some olive oil, some pine honey (people from thassos are very proud of their Thassian pine honey), some Retsina (Greek wine) and some other knick-knacks.

In a hurry to catch the last bus to Golden Beach, we took some photos of places we had to see on another day. And we actually came back in one of the next days because there was so much of the town we felt we missed.

The bus that takes you through different villages and to Limenas really comes in handy and it is affordable. For 2 Euros you can go from Golden Beach to Limenas in about 30-40 minutes. The downside is that the last bus from Limenas to Golden Beach was at around 6 p.m. so you actually have to sacrifice a day at the beach for isiting the capital.

Hope you enjoyed Day 2,