Agia Pelagia

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Some catching up to do.
Firstly,

Apologies to Sherry and Chengwai from Malaysia who we ran into at Delphi and said we would add you to our blog. It is now done.
Secondly the name of our suburb in Athens was Exarchia (where the anarchists reside)
Thirdly we have had a small hiatus from our frenetic travelling in Crete.
We arrived on Thursday. The car could not be organised until saturday morning. Meanwhile Liz and i came down with a 24 hour virus which laid us low. We did nothing but sleep, drink tea (we have a jug) and watch the most appalling Greek television. Subscription tv is everywhere in Europe and when you see free to air you can understand why. Let me tell you about Fortress of BOYAN (or close anyway) filmed on an old fortress in the mediterranean or atlantic or somewhere where there is water all around the fort..
It is a cross between Survivor and the friday night challenge on Big Brother. It's hosted by a guy channeling Eddie McGuire who has a blond assistant who has 3 roles:
1 she displays her more than adequate cleavage
2. she runs between the activities with the teams
3. she smiles.
Unfortunately she has difficulty coordinating all three or, on occasions even two, so most of the time she just cleaves.
there are 2 teams: black and white. On the episode we saw the black team were led off presumably to do a separate set of challenges.
There are about 10 challenges per episode. A team member is selected to try to overcome the mostly physical challenge like make your way across various obstacles in a certain time without touching the ground to get a key. The aim is to get all 10 keys which will unlock the secret to that week's prize.
But the really exciting part of the show are the three extra characters who inhabit the show.
Firstly there is the "professor". That is the name i gave him. it's all in greek so i have no idea what his name is. He is a cross between Professor David Flint and John Michael Howson. So he comes across as an effete fop (Flint) who makes lots of dramatic hand movements.
There are two intellectual challenges (and i use the term very loosely). the prof sits up in a tower with a large book and the challenger is brought before this fount of knowledge who asks them to explain the theory of relativity. Actually he gives them a riddle to solve. If they answer correctly they are given a key. if they don't then the key is dispatched to Davey Jones's locker where it disappears off the face of the earth because we never go back there for the rest of the show. (are you following this?)

Which brings me to the best characters on the show. The challengers are led to the prof by one of the two vertically chall.... bugger it by one of the two dwarves on the show. This is their role. They have one further role. As each key is captured by the team, the team dwarf high fives (or is it low fives) the team and then holds the number of fingers up for the number of keys the team has captured. So we know that they can at least count to 10.
When they have the required number of keys (i lost count) they go and get a whole pile of coins that have been locked up. But they have to carry the coins without any aids and put them in a treasure chest (have i mentioned that this show is big on props?). Now you or i would take off our t shirt and fashion it into a sack. If all 8 members of the team did this then you could get all the coins in one trip. easy. But no. one of the guys picks one of the girls up in his arms and gets the rest of the team to shovel money onto her stomach while he holds her. they got about half the coins.
Honestly this show was a hoot. (and i didn't even mention the wild tigers specially flown in to prowl the fort)

Agia Pelagia is really quite beautiful. We have a lovely hostess: Krystal who is very down to earth and very accommodating of our requests. The beach is a sliver of ripe fruit (sorry got carried away). Actually to call it a beach is more than it deserves
The first night Liz said something about waves breaking. Actually the word she was looking for was lapping. the ripples were lapping the shore. All 3 centimetres high of them.

There is a row of about 12 restaurants. Most of the restaurants in Greece think foreigners can't read any language cause they put pictures up of the meal. I feel like i'm back in kinder. Our general rule is we don't eat at restaurants with pictures.
The restaurants all front onto the promenade; all 1.2m width of promenade - it's wide enough for 2 people to walk side by side. One step down from the promenade is the san......sorry, the gravel, which graduates into pebbles along the water's edge, which is only 3 or 4 metres from the promenade.
along the beach are set 2 rows of evenly spaced blue and yellow beach umbrellas, underneath which are deck chairs. We haven't ascertained whether you pay for their use, but we assume that in a country which charges for the use of a toilet, you must pay for the use of a deck chair.
This beach is a popular one; most of the people staying here are non-greek europeans, all sunning their pale skins for hours every day; bright red is the colour du jour. Meanwhile we are wearing hats and slapping on 50+ blockout!!
Yesterday we went to Agios Nikolaos. Paul, from the sound of it it has become very touristy since your days here. we will send you some pics when we get back. we also drove back over the plateau of Lasithi. Very nice scenery.

Today we went to Rethimno to see the Venetian fort and also the Minoan Necropolis (which was closed).
Tomorrow it's Knossos.

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