Sun, sea, ouzo and food … proved to be a wonderful way to spend a week. Lisa and I took our annual beach vacation on the Greek isle of Crete and it was great. It was mostly spent on the beach but we took two days of adventure in a small open SUV scouring the mountains. If you’d like to see some of the pictures click on the title above.
Our hotel, the Creta Royal proved to be as nice as the reviews we’d read. The food was magnificent with two restaurants; the main restaurant was open air but well appointed with plenty of shade while the beach restaurant was simply a great view. No food poisoning this time; alcohol poisoning might be declared from the cumulative effect of the week; but neither of us seems worse for wear and only one early morning run was soured by any overindulgence. The location was lovely, with a nice beach, pools and gardens. And it was also appropriately quite; little if any of the loud night “shows” often found in the resort hotels frequented by Germans. This one had quite an international (European) mix of guests with German, Swiss, Dutch, Italian, Austrian, and French among the languages I picked up on. There was even a second American showing up our last day (we are, by the way, generally very easy to pick out in a European crowd).
One odd evening event in particular will be memorable; a middle aged woman at the next dinner table asked if we’d watch her purse while they fetched their appetizers. Lisa agreed of course and while we were enjoying the wine and main course a young, tall blonde woman walked up and, ignoring all signs that the table was occupied, proceeded to pick up most of the silverware and walk back to her table. Both of us were initially speechless, at first I was trying to remember if the neighbors who’d requested our security services had any kids along, then wondered if the woman was part of the staff (the dress was way too flashy and there were only a couple blonds on the staff anyway). After she left I had to restrain Lisa from going over and grabbing the instruments back and instead explained to the waitress the situation and asked her to replace the stolen goods. The staff didn’t seem amused but let it go of course; Lisa and I had fun all week grabbing our silverware every time we saw the “blond thief”.
We went to rent a car for two days of travel around on our own; I was very surprised Lisa didn’t veto my request for a convertible or small open jeep … she normally detests a draft or even open car windows. The convertible wasn’t available so we wound up with a Suzuki Ventura, about the size of the old Army M151 “jeep” … and come to think of it, it handled much the same as an old Army jeep and didn’t even come with a radio. If you think of visiting the Island and covering it in a day or two you might think again with Crete’s 3,220 sq. miles of mountains; we didn’t reach most of our intended destinations in the end but did have a wonderful time. Of course Lisa says we’re not renting another car without air conditioning … sigh.
The neighboring city of Rethymno was of some interest; the ancient Venetian fortress was cool and we particularly liked the small alleyways with Turkish (Ottoman) wooden overhangs in the houses. The old city has lots and lots of outdoor (street) restaurants and shops and the narrow alleys make it a veritable labyrinth. As a matter of fact we got lost coming out and had to walk the long way around the fortress … for the record, Lisa had been right and if I’d listened we’d have saved a mile hike. Our big shock was the parking ticket at €80 ($112) on our return to the Suzuki parked just off the beach. Highway robbery of the more “legal” kind, it was more than a bit annoying since we parked in a marked place and there were none of the normal International signs indicating we’d need something special. From there we went into the mountains and wondered around some small towns where Lisa met a kitten named Lisa. An old man who had lived in Canada gave us great directions to some waterfalls where we enjoyed a nice taverna lunch on the cheap (the other tourists were actually Greeks). He also wrote a map to an ancient church with ruined cemetery dug into the mountain rocks. Not in the tour books, it required a hike down a stone paved road that had to be over a thousand years old and led to a huge ancient tree cut in half to allow the road through. On the way back we took a circuitous route (Lisa navigated, but in her defense reading road signs in the Greek alphabet can’t be an excuse since they frequently don’t even post those) to the Moni Arkadiou Monastery which provided some of the neater pictures. Still an active Monastery, it plays a particularly strong role in Greek history with the Turks; Crete being so strategically set in the Mediterranean it’s been occupied by many countries over millennia with the usual disastrous affect. So for day one of our tour we didn’t make it to the city of Chania (we were there the last time) or any of the other places planned but did come home with some pottery, linens, avocado creams and some ok pictures.
The second day of driving was to the southern coast. First through the Kourtaliotiko Canyon to the Preveli Monastery where the monks have a long history of fighting occupiers (I found the picture of the head Monk from the 18th century of interest, around his robes he had belts of ammo and held a rifle). They hid a group of 70 some British and Ausie soldiers who had escaped after the Germans took the Island in 1941 before they were evacuated by submarine at night. Unfortunately, they forbid photography inside, but a more scenic place is hard to imagine, unlike the other monasteries we saw, this one sits on a cliff with a fantastic view over the Libyan Sea. From there, it was on to Plakias and then Lisa’s tour of the Moon. We took some the curviest mountain roads you can imagine through an absolutely desolate mountain desert … nothing but rocks and olive trees we literally drove 45 minutes without seeing a car or person. At one point I commented that we were on the Moon with olive trees. But once we cleared the desolate part, the villages were awesome. No tourist traps here, the little store/bar had tables out front and the less than friendly barkeep spoke no English or German. It was interesting having driven through town and seeing maybe two people on the way in, after we’d sat down all the old folk turned curious and came by to say hi and ask where we were from … or rather one guy did who could almost speak English and then relayed it to half a dozen others who came up and asked (something like, “they’re American and German”). After they were so friendly and on our way out of town, Lisa passed on the news from the tour book that the Germans had burned these villages to the ground and killed all the men … hmmm, glad the hospitality thing held.
The rest of the week was pretty lame. Eat, drink, sun, swim, workout a bit and read. The trip back was uneventful other than requiring an early wakeup we were not used to. Life is good.
