Blogs from Chania, Crete, Greece, Europe - page 7

Alright, I am super behind on this, because we have been on the go! Anyway, on our last day in Crete, I hiked the Samarian Gorge. This is the largest Gorge in Europe, and it was definitely one of the best days yet in Greece. This was going to be a close call, because we had to make our boat at 8pm. Our hotel receptionist told us there was NO WAY this could be done, but we decided that we still needed to go and we took the chance. There were 5 guys and 4 girls in our group who decided to do the Gorge. We split up though (The guys were extremely concerned we would slow them down...lame). We woke up around 5am and caught a bus up the mountain. This took an hour or ... read more

Our general feeling for Crete was that we needed more time to fully appreciate it. The impression is that it can be quite self-sufficient with it's resources and that the beaches and resting places for tourists need to be discovered by us. Alas, that may never happen but I think Crete might be a great vacation destination in and of itself. I've learned that some of my Hiraklion, Crete pictures were likely Chania. No matter, I'll let it stand and add a few new scenes here. ... read more

Chania is a favourite and we had decided to have one night there before leaving Crete for Piraeus. We had a wonderful little hotel right in the middle of the old town and managed to find some parking (after many attempts) close by. The hotel itself was above a trinkets shop, but was really traditional. We had a four-poster and two single beds. Chania was hot, though. It was upper-30s and had almost no breeze, with heat radiating from the stone of the buildings. I think everyone had had enough of the heat by this time, so we spent a slow time, meandering. Asha and Jay made their first, fully-independent purchases and treated themselves to a jumping spider (air-powered) each. They were very pleased with themselves. They were also very pleased with the little budgies in ... read more

We have been busy the last few days. On Wednesday we went to the Palace of Knossos. This is an ancient minoan palace. It has been reconstructed in parts by Sir Arthur Evans, an archeologist. It was very difficult to visualize what the palace looked like all those years ago. Many original items that were found at Knossos have been placed in the National Archeological Museum. Many columns and walls were reconstructed according to what Arthur Evans thought the original purpose was. It is hard to be a tourist in Greece as they do not have as many maps/signs/markers as we do in North America at tourist sites. You have to depend on your guide books or spend extra money to have a guide show you around. It was nice to see but not as impressive ... read more

Being our 34th anniversary, we wanted things to go well. I'd kept Manoli from knowing about my special Taste of Crete cooking class until today, just telling her that we were going to be busy Tuesday. While we waited for the 7:15am bus to Hania, I filled her in. More on that tomorrow. We needed to catch this bus to Hania and hope it wasn't too late to catch the 8:30 bus from Hania to Omalos and the Samaria Gorge. Well, when the bus finally arrived at 7:45am, I was doubtful. Happily, we made it to the Hania bus station by 8:20am, bought our tickets to Omalos/Samaria @7.50 Euros each and were on our way, finally. After a very harrowing trip up (2,000 meters I think), which I wouldn't recommend to the faint-hearted, we arrived at ... read more