New-Yorker-blog-karenrobbins

Yes, Virginia, there is more than one North Pole. In the United States there are actually four places with the name North Pole.

The most unlikely place is North Pole City, Oklahoma, which is actually located within the Oklahoma City area. After researching, I think it is mainly an area that thrives on Christmas revenues during the season.

The next two are a little more believable as North Poles since they are located a bit farther north and  might even generate the snow to make them more believable. In Idaho, just a little north of Coeur D'Alene. There is a Christmas cruise you can take on the lake there to visit the North Pole. I guess it must be something like the Polar Express but on the water.

North Pole, New York, is located near Lake Placid. Again, an area that is prone to snow. The Olympics were held near there. Its claim to fame as far as I can tell is a historic amusement park called Santa's Workshop. I found mixed reviews on it.

But the town I like best is nearest the real North Pole. It's North Pole, Alaska. Now we're talking snow. The Christmas season is busiest for the post office there that puts its postal stamp on letters sent to them for that purpose. There's an opportunity to get a letter from Santa sent to you from the Santa Claus House. The history of North Pole, Alaska, is recounted at the North Pole website and is quite interesting.

I'm sure there are several more North Poles tucked away that I haven't found yet and some that appear and disappear as the Christmas season grows and wanes each year. But that's the magic of the season and the legend of Santa.

Here it is. Friday the 14th with only a little over a week for Christmas shopping. Thankfully mine is done. I'm not bragging just needed to have it done early so we can travel. I thought you might need an idea or two or three so I'm listing my own books as ideas for last minute gifts. There's still plenty of time to get them delivered from your favorite online bookstore.

Of course top of the list is In A Pickle especially if you want to give some humor mixed with tender moments and a little suspense. Here's the back cover blurb:

Sadly it was our last day on Santorini. We were scheduled to fly back to Athens at 7:30 p.m. There was still a day to look at a few places we hadn't seen yet but a lot depended upon whether we could leave our luggage at the B&B. We didn't want to leave luggage in the car that could be seen. Our host was so gracious. She suggested that since they weren't expecting anyone until late that night, we could stay until 6 in our room.

We packed our things, leaving some clean clothes out to change into before the flight home and started out to explore the part of the flat side of the island that we hadn't seen yet. The road we took followed the eastern shoreline. We passed through one area that appeared to be somewhat industrial. Then a section where it looked like the wind had carved a modern sculpture out of the sandstone.

As we neared the airport, we found another black sand beach only this time it truly was sand. Obviously this was also the windward side of the island. The surf pounded against a small breaker of boulders that protected the beach area. While the sand was nice, the beach area was not nearly as nice as the one by Kamari we had seen the day before. But if you were looking for a place with fewer people, this would be it.

The main sight for our day's outing was the wine museum. I expected us to spend a couple of minutes looking at a few old wine presses and then move on. I was pleasantly surprised. The museum was built below ground level and took you through several long hallways punctuated with vignettes of historical wine making processes. Many of them even had animated models in them. (One animatronic female was going through the motions of kneading bread.) The price of admission included an audio guide in several languages and was narrated quite well--just enough to tell you what you needed to know and not so much that you were tired of standing to listen.

The museum traced the history of wine making on Santorini from the viewpoint of the Koutsoyianopoulos brothers who founded the winery. They were in a sailboat trying to make it to another island to sell their oil when a storm blew up and they put into the safe harbor at Santorini.

At first they used Santorini only as a market place for their olive oil that they produced on mainland Greece but eventually due to the "clever sharpness of their minds" they started the first winery on Santorini in 1880. Between the two brothers, they had twelve children, two of whom they say became scientists which probably led to some of the advancements made in the wine making there.

One of the old wine presses in a display showed someone helping to crush the grapes with his feet and sure enough, there next to the display was a picture of how they did it back then.

The tour answered one of the questions we had about the vineyards we had seen on the island. Most of them did not have posts and wire for the vines to be tied up on. As we read and looked at the displays we discovered that the winds that whip across Santorini at times are not good for the grapes and so instead of tying them up, they wind the vines in a circle, almost making a basket and the grapes are protected in the center. It cuts down on the amount of grapes produced as opposed to the other method but otherwise they would not have good grapes if any for their wines.

We saw the progression of storing the wines in wine skins and then to bottles. Before the donkeys were carrying people around, they were carrying wine skins.

 After WWII, they began bottling their wine but they did it manually as there was no electricity on the island until 1967. 1967? I did a double take and sure enough a little farther on was a display of old electrical boxes from when electricity was first introduced to Santorini and the date was 1967.

We spent much more time there than we expected. It was all done very well and was quite interesting. Back in the gift shop and main tasting area that had lots of tables to accommodate tours, we sat at the bar to enjoy a taste of the wines made there. Our 7 Euro ticket to the museum included a taste of four different wines: a white, a red, and two dessert wines one of which was extremely sweet.

As I looked over some of the fancy bottles they now have I thought to myself that they had certainly come a long way from those old wine skins.

By the time we were done, it was time for lunch and we decided to return to Kamari and eat at one of the restaurants along the beach. We picked one arbitrarily--they all looked good. On the menu was moussaka, another Greek traditional dish and something we'd never had. Now I knew it had eggplant in it and neither of us is fond of it but we were both game to try the dish. We ordered one to split in case we didn't like it and Greek salads on the side.

We should have ordered two. It was heavenly. I can't begin to tell you exactly what it tasted like. There was some mild cheese, a little eggplant, a sauce with meat (kind of like a Bolognese sauce) and it was baked like lasagna in a small casserole. Later, before leaving for the airport, we ordered moussaka again at a restaurant near our B&B but it wasn't quite as good. It was a little dry and didn't have the beautiful flavor of the earlier one.

AT 5:30 we checked out, thanked our hostess, Maria, again for taking such good care of us and with a small tear in my eye, we left for the airport. We would spend the night at the Athens airport hotel and fly home in the afternoon. It had been a wonderful three weeks exploring Spain, the Black Sea, and the paradise they call Santorini.

With a little fear and trepidation, I looked at the mountain ahead of us as we drove from Imerovigli to our planned outing for the day. Profitis Ilias (Prophet Elijah) is the highest point on the island boasting a view from almost 1600 feet above sea level. The mountain gets its name from the monastery that was built there in 1712. We've driven up mountains in several countries and more than once to the top of Haleakala on Maui. How bad could this one be?

I read somewhere on a travel site that if you were prone to motion sickness and wanted to make this drive, you might want to take something before you start out. Good advice. The switchbacks were some of the best I've seen but thankfully the road leading up was good and we didn't pass any huge tourist buses.

We arrived at what looked like a parking area and nuzzled into a spot. The view was spectacular and we weren't even all the way to the top yet. Not knowing if it were possible to drive to the monastery (it was) we walked up the rest of the way. The walk was kind of fun since we were enjoying the warm sun and the cool breeze from the ocean. In the middle of summer though I don't think it would have been as enjoyable.

The courtyard to the church at the monastery was open as was the church and we slipped in through a doorway in the wall that surrounded it. The monastery actually looks like a fortress of sorts but I think if you build something that high up in the middle of an island that lies in the middle of the sea, you want to buffer the wind.

There were only a handful of people wandering around and the courtyard was so peaceful, you wanted to linger. We enjoyed the views. Now more familiar with the island, we could pick out points of interest where we'd already been.

Inside the small church, the gold accented icons and furnishings gleamed in the morning sunshine that peeked in through small windows. At one time the monastery apparently owned its own ship and conducted private business for the monastery. Later it became a school where the Greek language and literature were taught. Today it houses a collection of artifacts from the Greek Orthodox religion.

On our way back to the car, we were stopped by a couple on a four-wheeled ATV. They asked if we spoke English. Bob's answer: No. American. They got it. The Aussies always do. We had a great conversation with them about what we'd seen and tried to help them navigate their map. Bob tried to get them to convince me that the ATV was the way to see the island but somehow looking at the wife on the back I wasn't convinced--not at my age anyway.

At the base of the mountain, we followed the signs for Kamari, the town where there was a large black beach. Kamari was definitely a beach town. The road that ran the length of the beach had lots of hotels and restaurants on one side and open air cafes and smaller restaurants on the beach side. It was too early to eat lunch but it was too inviting to pass up a chance to sit and enjoy the fresh air. We found a cafe with cushy chairs and ordered two cappuccinos.

The black beach is a little rough to lay on since it is mostly pebbled but there are lounge chairs and umbrellas for as far as the eye could see available for a rate of 5 Euros for the day. You pick your spot and go to the hotel or restaurant that hosts the spot and pay for the use of it. If I were going to spend a day at the beach in Santorini, this would be the place. There were showers along the beach and here and there a booth to change clothes in. And lots of places to enjoy snacks and a meal.

Apparently not having his fill of switchbacks and cliff side roads, Bob decided we needed to see the other port on Santorini. It's a newer one and has access by road making it a little easier to get tourists on excursions into a bus and on their way. If you have an excursion by coach, this is where your tender will bring you. Your ride up will be thrilling. This is also the port where the large ferries come in from the mainland and probably other islands. It's a pretty fast ferry but it still takes about five hours from Athens to Santorini. We had considered taking it but understood that sometimes due to weather the runs can be canceled and we didn't want to be delayed.

The temperature was climbing and we had already decided that we were going to spend the afternoon just being lazy. We drove back to Imerovigli and our B&B, Casa Bianci and parked. Just around the corner from the little school where we parked, we had seen a supermarket. At home it would be considered a convenient store but we found some great cheese, a fresh loaf of bread, and a sweet delicious apple to munch on for our lunch. It was our concession to our diets. Are you buying that?

The afternoon was spent reading and downloading another book from the library at home. (Love my Nook).  We took a short walk--after all, exercise and diet go hand in hand. We were being so good. Then we freshened up, put on long pants and grabbed a sweater for our evening in Fira. I know that sounds crazy but once the sun went down, we found the evenings cooled off considerably.

In Fira, we parked in the public lot and walked past the cathedral where people were already gathering for the sevenish sunset. We wanted to find the restaurant that had been top-rated on TripAdvisor.com. Unfortunately it was not along the cliff side where you had a view so we doubled back  to search out a spot for the sunset.

We were near the funicular that transports people up and down the cliff side to the old port. On a previous cruise stop, we had taken it to the top. It was the alternative to riding a donkey up a stepped trail with lots of those wonderful switchbacks. I remember the ride in the funicular well because the woman sitting next to me was so scared that she shook violently all the way to the top. Can't imagine how she would have survived a donkey ride.

There was a spot we claimed in one of the cafes where we ordered a couple of tropical drinks and again watched a beautiful explosion of color as the sun dipped below the clouds on the horizon. Then it was off to the restaurant. What we didn't know or expect was that it was also the end of the day for the working donkeys. As we rounded a corner, they were all waiting in a small courtyard to be led home. Suddenly, we found ourselves pinned against a wall as the donkeys began following their owner. Closer and closer they came to us. I wanted to stare one in the face and say, "Hey, look. I didn't ride your back today. Don't take it out on me."

They eventually passed and we crossed the street to our restaurant unscathed and hopefully not smelling like donkey. The restaurant was on the second floor and looked out over the corner of two narrow streets. We ordered a Greek dip called tzatziki that came with pita bread. It was a cucumber and yogurt mixture. Delicious. I was feeling a bit adventurous. Actually, we had tried to order one thing each meal which was truly Greek and I knew that sardines were a specialty of the area so when I saw them on the menu, I decided to try it out.

The sardines were grilled in olive oil and were a bit crunchy mostly because of the little bones in them. There wasn't a whole lot of flavor but they weren't bad--just not as good as most of the other things I'd ordered in the past few days. I smothered them with lemon and ate them all.

While we were eating, another bunch of donkeys were making their way home. They looked weary. What a life.

After dinner we strolled through some of the narrow pedestrian streets where shopkeepers were still open. I wondered if that was because there were still cruise passengers out and about or if Fira just stayed open late because there were so many people milling about.

This would be our last evening in Santorini. I wasn't sure I was ready to leave yet.