Food

After reading this entry you are never going to believe that I actually came home 7 pounds lighter!  Seriously, it had to be from all the walking we did...and those stairs!...because I ate so much that I could never get away with eating here for very long!

Breakfasts

Some hotels had it included.  Usually it was coffee/latte/cappuccino with a croissant, but some had huge buffets.  yes, hate to say it, but once and only once we did have McDonald's.

Italy=Pasta

counter clockwise-Pesto lasagna, pesto linguine, 4 cheese pasta, gnocchi, spaghetti with shrimp, 

Italian pizza (top) and Greek pizza (bottom)

both good.

the Italian one looks like it is sour cream on top, but it was really cheese.  They are huge too.  I never was able to eat more than half, but I saw most people eating a whole one all alone.  

Granita...my favorite Italian drink...crushed ice flavored with lemon juice.

Greek food

fish, boned at our table then lemon juice mixed oil poured over it.

served with grilled vegetables and finished with watermelon for dessert.

All the while, listening to live Greek music.  NICE!

I loved the serving dish as much as the chicken stew inside it.  It was topped with toasted goat cheese.  Really good!

a typical meal.

chilled red wine!!! seriously...it was served chilled everywhere in Greece.

fried cheese balls for starter, dolmades, which are grape leaves stuffed with a rice mixture, main course chicken souvlaki finished with baklava for dessert.

I love cheese and Greece made me love it more!

One of my favorite foods...fried cheese, it is called Saganaki.  served hot.  Sometimes it comes flaming and they put the fire out with the lemons.

Gelato...Italian, but served in Greece too.

Granita again. only this time with a touch of strawberry.  oh and notice the dish of olives. yum!

Wine and beer while we watched the sunset.  Notice that the beer is twice the size of my wine. Oh and what a fancy cup I have for my wine, not chilled because we were in Italy for this.

Greek Salad.  I didn't know till then that it does not have lettuce.  Just  cucumber, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, olives and cheese.    The tomatoes especially tasted so good in Greece.  Fresh and just the way a tomato is supposed to taste.  All of the fresh vegetables tasted so good.

Pork  Souvlaki.  not my favorite

pork gyro.  it was cooked like this, then shaved off and served with pita bread

cheese pie.  yes, I like cheese

Cheese balls...did I say I like cheese?

I wanted a iced Americano...turns out they call it Coffee Freddo  :)

our hotel restaurant specialized in crepes.  I had a ham and cheese one.  Not exactly what I had imagined.  I had them once at a crepe place in DC and it was rolled and sooooo good.  This was a let down, more like a funky quesadilla.  oh well.

this is how my chilled red wine was served in Sifnos.  Cute little pop cap bottles.

so the meat crepe for last night's dinner was not a hit, but the dessert crepe for my lunch the next day was fantastic!  chocolate banana!  isn't the boat serving dish so cute for the fries?  yes...a healthy meal!  haha, we are on vacation!

a lunch on Santorini, fried zucchini, saganaki (fried cheese) with bean salad, anchovies and spread to go on the bread.

We loved this place most of all.  It was on Santorini, called Avocado.  We stopped in for lunch and went back for dinner.  I ordered a pear, salami salad...it came with honeydew melon instead of pear...with not a mention of the substitution.  But I loved it anyway.  For dinner I had a chicken stew wrapped in parchment paper (bottom left) and John had grilled shrimp and fried potatoes.  Both times they served a type of grapa shot with the bread and a fish dip and olives.

Moussaka...Greek!

a layer of eggplant, spiced meat, potatoes topped with bechamel sauce.  I loved it.  But as with most foods in most places it is made differently and I had some good and bad versions of it.  Most were good, once it was really bad.

One of the coolest places we ate.  It was at the top of the town of Olympia.  All set in a garden.  Literally!  there were pepper and tomato plants growing around the olive and pomegranate trees along with herbs.  I had a salad that was so good.  It was one of those salads when you are done you think you should not have ordered a main course to go with it.  But I managed it all down.  I had stuffed tomato and bell pepper with roasted potatoes.  You can see the cook headed in with a load of sticks for the fire stove.  I loved that everything was fresh grown there and it really tasted like it too!  And the view was awesome.

The price of food is expected to be high on vacation, especially in touristy areas.  But we were a little unprepared for the cost to be quite so much.  We spent no less than $25 for lunches and $60 for dinners. Most menus had the same items and same prices no matter where we were.   Normally when we travel, we have a late breakfast/lunch and an early dinner and then a snack or so.  But even then we spent about double on food than what we normally spend on vacation food.  Most places do not take charge cards.  Since the Greek financial crisis, they just want cash now.  We talked to a lot of people there about it and they told us that it was that they just don't trust the banks anymore.  Once a waitress said, "if we don't have cash, we don't go out!"  Good thing for ATMs...we just didn't expect to use so much cash.