Imagine a beautiful, classic Greek fishing village, right on the water, Greek music coming from all the seaside shops, the smells of Greek food wafting out on the sea breezes. Imagine whitewashed buildings with blue accents….wait, stop, hold on a sec, we aren’t in Greece……we are in Tarpon Springs…..Florida?
That’s right people, you too can experience the flavors, sights and sounds of Greece, here in the United States, in Florida. Roberto and I went to Tarpon Springs last week on a whim and found a wonderful place to get down with our Mediterranean selves!

Tarpon Springs boasts the largest Greek population in the United States, as it makes up about 1/3 of the community. Its inhabitants are the descendents of Greek sponge divers that came to Florida from Greece around the turn of the century. This influence has become the backbone of Tarpon Springs and the art of Sponge Diving still exists today.

We began our day in Tarpon Springs at the >Tarpon Springs Castle Winery, located at 320 E. Tarpon Avenue. We were driving by and spotted Diana Marks putting her sign out for wine tastings. It was almost the noon hour, so we decided there was no time like the present to experience some new wines. When we entered the winery we were greeted by Diana, who gave us a history of the winery and how the wines are produced. Diana and her husband Joe make wines in the old world tradition. The entire process of wine making is done without preservatives, sugars or chemicals and is personally supervised by the family. This attention to detail and the care that is put into the making of these wines is clear when you taste them. Each of the nine wines we tasted (a variety of reds, whites and dessert wines) were distinctly flavorful with a clean finish. You could really taste the grapes as they were intended, not the fillers, sugars and chemicals which are components of many other wines. The tasting itself was a great bargain at $5.50 which includes a wine glass with the winery’s emblem on it to take home. We really enjoyed Diana’s company and her wines. It was a great start to our Mediterranean Day!

After our wonderful time at the winery, we headed down to the Sponge Docks, where all the action is. For a weekday, in a low tourist season, it was fairly crowded. There were lots of people out and about enjoying the sunny day. At this point we were getting pretty hungry and so we started our adventure by walking up and down Dodecanese Blvd looking at all the restaurants. Many claimed to have the most authentic Greek food, or the Best Gyro in town, but we settled on Mykonos (15 N. Pinellas Ave.) which was recommended to us by Diana. She told us that when the Patriarch came to town, this is where he ate. So we figured, what is good enough for the Patriarch is good enough for us!
We were very happy with our choice. The restaurant is family owned and had a wonderful ambience. From the minute you walked through the doors, you felt like you were in Greece. The smells of the wonderful food were overwhelming, and as we stood waiting for a table, we saw all the wonderful dishes coming out of the kitchen. Another good sign was all you could hear was Greek being spoken. Therefore its claims as being “Florida’s Most Authentic Greek Cookery” seemed to be right on the mark.

For my lunch I enjoyed the Kalamaria Charbroiled. This was charbroiled whole squids with olive oil and lemon. It was served with a Greek Salad and Greek style French fries – oven roasted fries dressed with olive oil and oregano. Roberto had the Gyro platter, which he got with a chicken orzo soup and the Greek fries. It was so delicious and fresh and simply made, that is was beyond excellent. The Tzatziki (yogurt/cucumber sauce) that came with his gyro was the best I had ever had – and that is saying a lot as I am a huge fan of it! They were also so generous with the portions that we ended packing up half of it to take with us.

After lunch we walked around the sponge docks checking out all the shops – mostly of sponges, shells and Greek paraphernalia. It was at one of these shops that they were selling tickets for a boat tour to experience a live sponge dive in the traditional manner circa 1905. It was only $8 and a new experience so we decided to go for it. We had a great time. The narrator of the St. Nicholas Boat Lines was great – he is one of the oldest active sponge divers and he was in his 70’s. What also made him unique is that unlike majority of Tarpon Sponge Divers, he is not Greek, but Cajun. We came to find out later that our Sponge Diver was also not Greek, but Turkish! So it was kind of funny – all this stuff about the famous Greek sponge divers, and we never even met one! Anyway, our diver, in a huge orange diving suit, equipped with boots made of iron, with help from two seasoned, sunburned Greek Grandpas, who were there to keep everything running smoothly, got a huge copper helmet screwed onto his suit. He is then is draped with several weights. Between his suit and the weights, he gets over 170 pounds of extra weight in order to help him sink to the bottom of the bay where the sponges are.
So he dives in the water and after watching him descend the depths, after a few minutes he comes up with a black sponge. It gets passed around the boat so that we can all feel it, pretty slimy. Then we learned how sponges are processed, what varieties there are, and what they are used for. All in all it was very fun and informative.

After the sponge diving experience we are off to Hellas Bakery, the largest and best bakery in town, according to the locals. Hellas bakery has a huge variety of Greek and non-Greek pastries, as well as many varieties of coffee. I just had to have a Frappe the famous Greek iced coffee. It was foamy, sweet and delicious. Along with it, we got a Baklava Napoleon and a fresh Strawberry tart to take with us to Fred Howard Park and Beach.

Tarpon Springs is located on the Gulf side of Florida, about 30 miles or so from Tampa. So its shore boats some beautiful serene beaches. We spent the rest of our day, eating our pastries, wading in the water, hanging out with little crabs, and watching a pod of dolphins, yes, wild dolphins swim about 50 feet from shore. It was a wonderful end to our beautiful day in Tarpon Springs!

Bookmark to:

Trackback URI | Comments RSS