http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Greece , Crete , Heraklion en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:04:04 UTC Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:04:04 UTC Hey there folks thanks so much for the feedback from all the prayers are working barb and mum cheers Julia loved the Evie update thanks Moods team.A few milestones here we took a road trip a few hundred kms up the island to pay our respects to the kiwis who will never leave Crete they are in a stunning locale in an area called Sudha Bay a natural and strategically important harbour that has be http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-322327.html Hi allThanks to those who gave us feedback on the blog to date awesome cheers. Thanks for getting the angels on our side Barb they have been used a couple of times already with sudden ferry ship evacuations at Piraeus port see a photo of the near last supper attached Voyage eventuallly went ahead and we arrived to a stunner of an early morning in Crete Iraklion harbour see photo enter a http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-321330.html Bonjour tout le mondeVoila maintenant 10 jours que je suis en Grece et je quitte ce soir pour Berlin. Je suis en Crete depuis 6 jours et c'est superbe. Je suis arrivee ici apres 7 heures passees en bateau assise sur le pont sur une chaise de patio en PVC blanche. C'etait pas si pire que ca puisse paraitre.J'ai passe 4 jours a Amourada pres d'Heraklion. J'y ai visite les ruines du palais de Knoss http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-312754.html Well everyone we're back from Crete and we had a blast. It was a tad too hot for our liking and we were glad to be saying goodbye to the sun for a bit. It didn't rain once Anywho our hotel was right on the sea and it was gorgeous and had some relaxation time got a sunburn in a few places and got some beautiful pics. I've posted some here so you can take a look.In terms of what's happening n http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-312741.html Hey everyoneHope all is going well back home We're having a great time here in Crete. Our camera finally bit the dust so we bought a fuji for a special price. Our hotel here is all inclusive so we've been taking in way too much food and booze. Last night was a Greek holiday of sorts when they celebrate the virgin Mary. The hotel hosted a great party including a live traditional band greek foo http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-312368.html Day 38 WednesdayIt is almost the end of our Greek sojourn. All too short of course. But this was really just a preliminary visit for both of us. Hopefuly there will be more.Tomorrow begins the journey which will take us to Turkey. We have been just organising this all stage by stage as were were not really sure how things would be given that this is high summer. That has not really been a pro http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-308986.html Yesterday we had to leave Santorini. Our package gave us a transport down to the ferry terminal about 5pm. On the way attempting to communicate with the husband owner of our rather nice Holiday Beach Hotel I realised the answer to my musing yesterday of why all the womwn we had spoken to immigrants married to local Greek men and whty the Greek mothers had allowed their sons to marry foreigner http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-308735.html Yassas HelloWell the Summer Holiday I had been waiting months for is all over so if you have time i'll tell you a bit about it Actually I should warn you it's not a bit it's alot so grab a drink and take a seat if you're interestedOur trip started on Friday the 11th of July with the ten of us catching the Gatwick Express 12 hour from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport. From there we fl http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-302843.html In order to leave Santorini and get to Ios we had to get ourselves back down to the port. Lucky for us George or Mike if you prefer real names arranges this for you. Unlucky for us it wasn't George who would be driving us but his brother. We'll call him George II. So George II shows up and doesn't seem particularly happy to be driving us and two other people to the port on this particular d http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-292921.html As promised the Greek Adventure Part 1. Jetlagged After super Jono that's pronounced Yono in some countries ie whatever country I'm in made the train and comfortably ate our victory sandwiches we rolled into Frankfurt's main train station around 9pm. We found a reasonable hostel where we could get a decent night's sleep and get a private room. Considering we had only about a total of 6 http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-290086.html Crete is a really nice place. I would recommend it to anyone. There are places like Malia which is full of English kids showing my age now getting pissed everynite but there are so many really nice towns and sights to visit which more that make up for the Malia's. The Greek people are so kind and generous its made the start of our adventures a pleasureThe weather here is now a constant 35oC. I w http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-289311.html We've been here just over a week now. The tans have gone from lobster red to a suttle brown now so we are starting to blend in. We've got a hire car and have visited loads of good townssites. Visited Knossos palace the other day. Was built around 6000 years ago and the stuff they did and had are amazing. This was all 4000BC They had proper water pipes running around the palace because they would http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-287680.html Jan and Rodger did a day trip to Agios Nikolaos and here are their comments on their dayhelliphellip..Rodger and I had a sleep in as we had decided that the trip to Chania was too long a day for us. We went to the bus station to take the local bus to Agios Nikolaos a pretty port town on the eastern end of Crete. The bus left at 10.30 a.m. and wound through the outer suburbs of Heraklion past http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-286944.html An exchange I had with a dirty old Greek man while walking up 25Augustus Way Dirty Old Greek Man How are youMe Good.Dirty Old Greek Man Do you speak EnglishMe No implied by shaking headDirty Old Greek Man You from JapanMe Dirty Old Greek Man you ignorant slut. I just told you I donrsquot speak English how the fuck am I supposed to comprehendanswer that Or at least thatrsquos what http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-286574.html Greetings from Athens I promised to keep this blog a bit shorter than the last so hopefully this wonrsquot be too long. As many of you know Irsquove been in Greece for the last 12 days or so doing a onecourse study abroad program that lasts a month. So far wersquove already been to Crete Santorini Naxos the Peloponnese and Athens. Itrsquos been exhausting moving from hotel to hote http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-280494.html Mr. Tountas took us up to the bus stop on the National Road to catch our bus to Iraklio Heraklion. We thought the bus would come before 10am so when a bus showing Iraklio stopped we started to board but the driver's assistant saw our tickets and told us No wrong bus line. Next one in 10 minutes. I was under the impression there was only one bus line on Crete KTEL but we waited and sure http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-278729.html Today we rented a car because Crete is kind of hard to navigate by bus. We drove about 45 minutes to Agios Nikolas a harbour city. The highways are quite nice here with plenty of signs. We found out the lines on the roads are just a suggestion. People pass you at any time no matter who is coming in the other lane. The drivers expect you to merge over to the shoulder so they can pass. At Agios http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-278384.html Nothing much to report today. We had a minor disaster last night. We arrived at the airport at 2030 for our 2330 flight to Crete. I could not find our flight on the board. When I finally found someone to ask we were informed the flight left at 1930 I had checked the airlines web site earlier in the day and the flight was still on schedule. We called the travel agent we booked the tick http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-277972.html So it has been a whole week since my last entry I have actually been unable to reach a computer in that time and Samaria Gorge seems like a long while ago. When I last wrote we were just leaving Chania to go to Kissamos Kastelli a town on the west coast from which we could reach a few good beaches. Right after I wrote that entry we went to the tourist office and found out that those beaches a http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-276090.html Some catching up to do.FirstlyApologies 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 resideThirdly 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. Meanwh http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-272788.html We arrived at Heraklion about 8.30 pm and two swish Mercedes took us to the Olympic Hotel in central Heraklion where we booked in and headed off over the reconstructed streets for dinner. The road in front of the hotel extends through the maze of walkways to the harbour and is the main street in front of the hotel is the day market street. We were directed to a local openair restaurant which di http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-270481.html Hi AllWell slowly but surely I am getting this blog up and running. My server has not been working and so this is the first time that I have been able to get on line. With 4 days remaining in the trip it is really difficult to know where to start. Sorry there are no pictures but I just couldn't manage that at this time. So I will just hit the highlightsIstanbulOur guide Ozlem met us at the http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-263738.html On Monday the carnival festivities continued. It was clean Monday their 'kickoff' to Lent. So we had the typical meal for that day in a small town about a mile or so from Katalagari. The meal was mainly lentil soup which I wasn't a huge fan of but it was ok. And then a bunch of pickled veggies like pickles of course carrots peppers cauliflower and then a couple that I didn't know what http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-255474.html Now we are in a town south of Heraklion called Katalagari. The town is tinyhellip it isnrsquot even in the guide book. So at first we were a little hesitant because we are going to be here for five nights. When we got here we walked through the town and there was almost nothinghellip It was a small church and a mini mart but then we got to our hotel. It is amazing It is like a little reso http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-254606.html Well on Monday we got to sleep in which was amazing before we got started seeing more sites. We went to a historical museum which was ok. It didn't really have anything that was super exciting but it wasn't boring either especially because Olin was telling us about everything there. One cool exhibit that was there was all about Nikos Kazanzakis. We are reading Christ Recrucified by him and t http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-253454.html Iraklion is a great city I have found the people here to be much more friendly than in Athens as far as just people on the street. Since coming to Crete our group has been accompanied by Olin Storvick a retired faculty from the Classics department at Concordia. His life is truly interesting and he has so much information to share that it has been great having him along to explain certain si http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-253071.html Yesterday we saw more Minoan palaces. They were pretty neat but they kinda looked the same. One great thing about them was that they hadn't been restored at all so they were exactly how the archaeologists found them. I thought that was so cool It was great seeing Knossos the other day though because they had restored a lot of that so it was nice to be able to have a picture in my mind of how t http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-252009.html 22208 The full day in Delphi was spent by first going to the site itself. We walked from our hotel to the site and took a tour. I will admit it was not what I was expecting. I thought it was just a few ruins or what one usually sees on postcards of Delphi. It was much much more. There were many treasuries the Temple to Apollo as he provided the oracles the visions a stadium for games a http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-251656.html it's March 1st How time has flown by Internet access in the outer lands of Greece was not great but now I'm on Crete and it is wonderful to be in contact with the world once again. Since last writing from Meteora there has been much to see and do. A brief run down would include staying at Meteora Areopoli Olympia Delphi Tolo and now Iraklion Heraklion. The places I've seen and th http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-251655.html We are in Crete Yay And we have good internet for the first time in about a week. The last hotel we didnrsquot have it at all and the one before that we could barely pick up a signal from someplace else. But anyways Irsquoll start with Wednesdayhellip We went to Epidaurus in the morning and performed our pieces from ldquoAgamemnon.rdquo I think our Ingrid Rachel and me scene we http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Greece/Crete/Heraklion/blog-251402.html