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Published: September 16th 2009
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Day 485
After a hot night it the tent, we started the day with a swim in the pool. Refreshed we set off on our tour towards Agios Nikolos, with a switch of driver and navigator and advice and directions from our camp site and the petrol station attendant, we hit the road. We took the scenic route first, single lane windy mountain roads (fortunately not too much on coming traffic) past the tiny villages , stopping intermittantly for a pic or two until we arrived at Plaka a beautiful little fishing village after lunch by the shore we caught the 10 minute ferry across to the island of Spinalonga, once a fortress for the Venetians and Cretans but more recently up until 1957 was used as a leper colony. We wandered around the small island, past the former leper houses, bakery and church barely recognisable as the island has fallen to ruins. Back on the mainland we continued on past the very Elouda to Agios Nikolaos. Here we stopped for a swim and an early dinner making back to camp via the freeway. Back all in once piece.
Day 486
Early start, we packed up and headed for Knosses,
Crete's most famous Minoan fortress, built between 7000 and 3000 BC and discovered in 1900's. It was been partly reconstructed to to depict what Minoan palace might have looked like. We arrived early and bought a book to self navigate our way around the ruins sneaking onto the end of a English speaking tour when possible. We roamed between the old buildings, ancient mosiacs and giant jars for a couple hours til both the sun and the ruins had taken their toll (there's only so many ruins you can see before they all start to look like giant piles of old rocks).
We hit the road again stopping briefly at a small inland lake until we stumbled across a Domaine Zachariousakis winery. We pulled in for a tour of the winery (just days before harvest) a delicious light lunch, three tastings and magnificent views of the countryside. Impressed we purchased a bottle and continued on our way to Matala. The first camp site was closed and looked like it had been that way for some time, the next camp site we took the lady's advice to have a look around first and quickly agreed it was the filthiest camp site
we'd been to and continued on to Agia Gallini. Compromising on beach for facilites, unlike the sandy packed Matala beach, Agia Gallini was rocky and windy!!! We skipped the beach and headed into town for dinner and a meander around the very small town of Gallini.
Day 487
After the windiest night we'd spent in the tent, we were happy to wake up with it still standing. But we decided to hit the road again leaving the south coast for Hania (or Chania depending which sign you read). We hit the highway straight up past Rethmynon with stunning views of the coast, arriving at Hania Camping. We checked in and were squeeze between a couple tents and struggled to get our tent upright into the rock hard ground. Fed up we left and stumbled across a little cafe/bar home to the most friendly and enthusiastic Greek bar tender on Crete (or entire Greece for that matter). After whipping us up a couple burgers and local brews, he threw in a couple beers on the house and we promised to return that night for one of his famous cocktails.
We hit the beach, for a swim and nap. With our
daylight hours dimishing we returned to camp to finish putting up our tent, tent up we took our picnic dinner down to the rocks on the beach along with our bottle of wine and enjoyed sun set.
On our way home we returned to the bar for the strongest long island iced tea ever, a few free shots (more than enough to help us sleep) and some funky loud music .
Day 488
Rueing our decision to drink ourselves to sleep we bounded out of bed at 5am and were at the bus stop for bus to the Samaria Gorge. Considered one of Europes most spectacular gorges, a 16km hike (predominently downhill). After a well needed kip, indepth instructions of where we needed to be by when from our very intense guide we arrived at the gorge entrance. Amongst the hard core hikers fitted with backpacks, poles and hiking boots we were about to put our casual shoes to the test. Despite the morning haze the gorge was beautiful. We began our hike, feeling every single rock beneath our very thin soles... But kept to our strict schedule (easily an hour ahead), stopping to admiring the staggering cliff face
and for prepacked lunch. Shortly after lunch we passed through the gorge at its narrowist just 3m, looking up into the spectacular multicolour cliff face was dizzying (or was that the remnant of that long island iced tea?) We arrived into the port town just after 1pm stopping by the beachfront for a cold drink. We killed a hour on the beach with scorching hot black sand but refreshing crystal clear water before our ferry (about 90min) and bus back to Hania (2hrs) passing more lush scenery. We had a lovely dinner at Andreas bypassing our complimentry cocktails and crashed!
Day 489
Well rested we hit the road again for Gouves, a small village the port side of Heraklion. We arrived at Camping Creta (a lovely small, clean and friendly site) just before lunch put our tent up (hassle free) and made our way into town quickly releasing there wasn't much to see other then a lovely beach. Lecture notes in hand (don't ask) we hired a couple lounges and spent the afternoon there; reading, bit of body surfing amongst the waves (a rare thing in Greece) and beach tennis. After watching the sun set over the ocean we
headed back into town (the long way) to the local Chinese restaurant for a fantastic meal and chat with the lovely Chinese owner.
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