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Published: July 18th 2010
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Olive Branch
As olive-lovers, it was cool to see all the olive trees We slept in a bit to complete the recovery from our Samaria gorge hike. We were just about dressed and ready to leave when the morning manager called to ask if we would be coming down for breakfast before they closed up, so we hurried down to the small all-glass restaurant. There was a buffet composed mostly of foods locally made or grown: fresh sheep’s milk yogurt, local olives and honey, grapes from the vineyard. At the table they brought us some home-made phyllo cheese pastries and then (somewhat incongruously) pink jello. It was a lovely breakfast with great views and warm hospitality. We packed up the car for a day out and headed first to Knossos - the site of a very old ruins (>3500 years) of the palace of the Minoans. Legend has it that this is where the half-man, half-bull Minotaur inhabited a labyrinth until he was finally done in by the Athenian hero Theseus. The kids were good sports about visiting another archeological site, but Andrew did at one point lobby us with “Come ON guys, you’ve seen enough ruins. You need to have some fun!” We opted to join an organized tour of the palace which
Knossos
Sonia explores the reconstructed portions of the palace of King Minos was helpful, although it was challenging to understand our guide’s accent or hear him over the unbelievably loud crickets. After about 40 minutes of trying to listen, the kids could take no more and we felt we had gotten enough, so we ditched the tour and struck out on our own. The palace is vast with over 1500 rooms laid out in a pattern so complicated that it is worthy of the term labyrinthine. Most (perhaps all) of the art has been removed to museums, though there were some instructive reproductions set in place. Parts of this site are 1500 to 1000 years more ancient than the ruins at Delphi or in the Acropolis, and there are clearly some interesting architectural features to observe, but without good guidance from a person or book, this site was difficult to really grasp. As a result, this was not our favorite of the sites we visited and perhaps we will need to try again with a pre-arranged guide on another occasion.
We hopped back into the car and headed out on a cross-island drive to a highly recommended beach on the southern shore. The drive was more than an hour but offered
Aaaagh!
Andrew bravely puts his hand into the hole despite the potential for Minotaurs to be inside an opportunity to go up into the central mountains and descend into the largest plain in Greece. We stopped a few miles from our destination for lunch at a pretty roadside taberna in Agios Ioannis. Lauren ordered a potato omelet that Sonia observed to be (like many things we have eaten in Greece and Turkey) very similar to food her mother makes. The potato in the omelet is actually French fries, which Sonia had previously believed to be a culinary oddity unique to her family (Lauren ate every last bite and said she found it strangely difficult to stop). While eating our lunch we were visited by a bee the size of a hummingbird. He didn’t really harass us, but Andrew was ready to take the rest of his meal in the car and was concerned that a sting from such a large bee could be lethal. We completed the remainder of the drive and arrived at Matala beach - a small cove with crystal clear water, sandy beaches and reasonably large waves. It is also known for its sandstone caves which were used by a hippie colony in the 60’s and 70’s. There is still a small hippie contingent
Euro-driving
John by the rental car. Driving in Greece wasn't as frightening as he had feared. and we were treated to some drum music while Lauren perused the craft stand. We had arrived at the beach at around 5pm which was excellent because the air was still quite warm but the sun was low enough in the sky to not be oppressive. We enjoyed the ocean although the waves were at times a bit large. Afterwards we hiked up and had a look at the caves as the sun started to sink lower in the sky. On the drive back we decided to pick up some snacks at a supermarket and have a light dinner in our suite which made for an easy and relaxing end to the day. Tomorrow we are off to Athens for the final leg of the trip!
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