Telegraph-Travel-Santorini-July2020
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*** telegraph.co.uk/travel Sunday 5 July 2020 NICK TREND VIVA ESPANA! THE HISTORY MAN Foreign holidays are back! Here’s how Twenty reasons why we can’t Simon Schama reveals the highs to make the most of your travels wait to get back to Spain and lows of his travelling life page 7 page 4 page 8 Travelon Sunday KATIKIES HOTEL – STEPHANE FRANCES/ONLYWORLD.NET – STEPHANE HOTEL KATIKIES Santorini resets for summer As one of the first to return to this glorious Greek island, Rachel Howard discovers that its long-lost go-slow charm has been restored IGLETS FOR SALE”. Scribbled in fishing, hunting and boating equipment) minister, staged a press conference against finished airport was deserted. In the island Greek, the sign pinned outside the and a handful of supermarkets, takeaway the flattering backdrop of Santorini’s world- capital, Fira, every jewellery shop on “Gold shop struck an unexpected note on souvlaki stalls and coffee joints, almost famous sunset to announce that Greece was Street” was closed. Almost every hotel was ‘PSantorini, where most signs, neatly every shop and restaurant on the island was “open for business”. When I arrived a couple still in hibernation. Without the usual ar- painted in English and sometimes Chinese, shuttered last week. of days later, there was little evidence to mada of catamarans and barrage of cruise point you in the direction of a “verry nice On June 13 – two days before Greece’s bor- back this up. With all international flights ships, the submerged caldera looked naked, sunset” [sic] or the “best volcano view”. ders partially reopened after almost three grounded until July 1, and only three domes- Apart from the pet shop (which also sells months – Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime tic flights a day from Athens, Santorini’s half- Continued on Page 2 2 *** Sunday 5 July 2020 The Sunday Telegraph COVER STORY ESSENTIALS GettinG Where there to eat Greece is As Santorini’s included on the wines have list of countries grown in stature, from which UK local wineries visitors can have developed return without increasingly the need to sophisticated quarantine; this tasting rooms. applies from Vassaltis July 10. Direct Vineyards flights to Greece (vassaltis.com) resume on July has the most seeing 15. Aegean exciting food red Airlines (aegean and wine A sea of dried air.com) flies pairings, while tomatoes in the several times a Venetsanos village of Oia day to Santorini. (venetsanos in Santorini Information: winery.com) has discovergreece. sensational com/cyclades/ views. The santorini wine list at Oia Vineyart Where (oiavineyart.gr/ to Stay en) ticks off the Of the seven island’s greatest suites at The hits, served with Vasilicos Cycladic meze Continued from Page 1 precarious moment for travel. The (thevasilicos. and heaps of complete absence of tourists on an is- com), the most charm in a its navel of solidified black lava land that has become wholly reliant on intimate is Efta, courtyard and smouldering with even greater in- tourism felt both wonderful and sur- a romantic nook roof terrace tensity. A single white sailboat real. The Instagram pin-up of the Greek on the rim of the hidden in Oia’s inched across this expanse of silvery islands, Santorini welcomed more than caldera; if you backstreets. blue – a spectacle that was mine, all two million visitors in 2019. want to make a Aktaion mine, as the only guest at The Vasili- That’s a lot of people for a small is- grand gesture, (aktaionsant cos, a seven-suite hotel poised on a land with a population of around book the orini.com) in cliff edge. 15,000 – and a huge strain on the is- Belvedere for its Firostefani has “We were a socially distant hotel land’s fragile infrastructure and eco- huge terrace. been serving long before social distancing,” said system. This year, nobody knows how Don’t miss the white aubergine Artemis, the hotel’s upbeat somme- many tourists will turn up. Anecdotal tour de force, a rolls with feta lier, gesturing towards the huge ter- evidence suggests that around one five-course and mint since racotta terraces, screened by giant third of hotels on Santorini will open degustation 1922; here, the geraniums and volcanic boulders this season. The rapacious hoteliers menu available caldera views that glistened in the sunshine. with multiple properties intend to for just two come without On cue, a squabble of seagulls per- open only one, rewarding the lucky tables at a time the sky-high formed a slow-motion dance routine, guests able to make the trip with up- (including prices. gliding in concentric circles, before grades. Although cancellations out- non-guests, if Overlooking the landing on one of the whitewashed weigh reservations, most small hotel you ask nicely). fishing harbour roofs in single file, then swooping off owners are gamely soldiering on to For something of Vlichada, one at a time. I could have sworn self-contained, To Psaraki they were two metres apart. try Vora (topsaraki.gr) Sheltered below the 200-year-old (voravillas.com), is the monastery of Saint Nicholas, The Va- three ultra- quintessential silicos is situated at a safe remove exclusive villas seaside taverna; from Imerovigli, a white tumble of dangling over order the interlocking roofs and balconies, the precipice, or smoked eel and domes and chimneys. A quiet study Cycladica lentil salad and in good taste, the hotel’s tiered suites (cycladica.com), swordfish are expansive in comparison to most a cluster of skewers. yposkafa, the humble cave houses beautifully Pentozali, a burrowed into Santorini’s challeng- restored cave Cretan kafenion ing landscape. houses in Oia, in Mesaria Once the summer house of a char- owned by a village, serves a ismatic art collector who fell for San- family of few delicious torini in the 1980s, The Vasilicos still architects who dishes under the feels like a home; not least because of have worked eucalyptus the endearing staff, who walk the hard to preserve trees, such as tricky tightrope between obliging the village’s lemony greens and familiar with finesse. This com- architectural and beef ragout bination of peaceful seclusion and men of the cloth heritage. with spaghetti. genuine warmth felt just right at this Greek Orthodox priests in the capital, Fira HARDING; ONLYWORLD.NET ROBERT PRESS; CAMERA IMAGES; AWL 4CORNERS; ALAMY; XINHUA/SHUTTERSTOCK; avoid laying off loyal staff. Both busi- shining eyes and a cloud of white hair, ness owners and seasonal workers are she was embroidering sequins on to a nervous about the possibility of tour- velvet altarpiece, destined for a church ists importing Covid-19 to an island festival. Her husband sat behind her, that bypassed the pandemic thanks to a quiet but comforting presence. an early and draconian nationwide Their house sits at the entrance to lockdown. The Greek government’s Emborio. Zampeli has a habit of plying U-turn over its initial policy to test all passers-by with homemade biscuits. incoming travellers for Covid-19 – opt- Once, she was making a batch of to- ing for random spot tests instead – is a mato fritters when two foreign women high-risk strategy, especially for more peered into her porch, tempted by the isolated islands than Santorini, which aromas. Zampeli offered them a taste. have limited healthcare facilities and Suddenly, 30 people were clamouring transport links. around her front door. “I didn’t realise Right now, though, Santorini feels it was a tour group. When I came back like the safest, most beautiful place in inside, the whole tray was gone,” the world. There are no sunbeds on the Zampeli said. black pebble beaches; only a few fami- This kind of spontaneous generosity lies picnicking on meatballs and water- squids in is what the Greek hospitality industry melon under wonky parasols. In Oia, It’s still possible to eat cheaply in Santorini was built on. “Now, people want gold, the usual crush of people, filtering the not god,” Zampeli said matter-of-factly. sunset through their phone screens, outcrop from which you can dive into Long before the lure of the tourist has vanished. There are no Asian cou- the caldera. dollar, Santorini’s most successful ex- ples posing for faux wedding shoots, Papagiannopoulos lives in the dust- ports – cherry tomatoes, wine, and no blonde influencers straddling coloured kastelli (fortified castle) of pumice stone quarried from the teeter- whitewashed walls in hot pants. I Emborio, a medieval village marooned ing cliffs – brought great wealth to the seemed to be the sole resident of Im- above the (now empty) fray of Perissa island’s landowners and shipowners. A erovigli, apart from a shadowy figure beach. Churches almost outnumber terrible earthquake in 1956, which de- listening to a tinny transistor radio be- the houses. There is only a smattering stroyed hundreds of homes and caused hind the lace curtain of a tiny house of Airbnb rentals amid the pressed dozens of casualties, signalled a sharp cloaked in bougainvillea. plaster cottages, but the quaint village decline in the island’s fortunes. Tour- “It’s an incredible privilege to see has become a favourite backdrop for ism kick-started Santorini’s economy Santorini like this – I’ve never experi- wedding photographers. again in the 1970s; it has since altered enced anything like it in my lifetime,” “Only one bride and groom have the landscape almost beyond recogni- said Yannis Bellonias, as we surveyed come by all month and they were tion. From Emborio, you could once the empty fishbowl of the caldera from Greek,” Georgia Zampeli confided, as see a sea of red tomatoes as far as the Vora, three high-impact villas carved we chatted over homemade baklava in shore.