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

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 hours in the room, we thought we should "splurge" and try and get a little sleep. When reading reviews of our hostel on hostel world (every backpackers favorite website, www.hostelworld.com) people said it was in a bit of a sketchy area, but they didn't mind the hostel itself, because it was really close to the train station. Because we needed to take the train to the airport early the ... read more

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 towns/sites. 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 wouldnt drink from the local river. When they excavated the site they found vases, flasks, hair pins, marble "board games" and loads of other stuff. Went to the local waterpark and am battered and bruised from all the slides and rides. The temp is usually around 30oC but we were walking around in 36oC on Wed! There is always a cool ... read more

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 open-air restaurant, which did not have a printed menu and was like Nicholas’ restaurant in Santorini where they suggest some alternatives; you order and it’s delivered. The whole areas down to the sea side are full of walkways with an occasional motorbike wandering about but the cars have been locked off. There are lovely squares abutting the walkways with open-air restaurants around the plazas and under ... read more

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 enough another came in 15 minutes. Arriving in Iraklio at 12:15, we decided to take a taxi to our hotel, Pension/Hotel Rea, for 7 Euros. I think they charge extra for luggage. The hotel wasn't anything special and was a bit run down, but clean and, at 34 Euros a night cheap for Iraklio. It is only one block ... read more

Nothing much to report today. We had a minor disaster last night. We arrived at the airport at 20:30 for our 23:30 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 19:30!!! 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 ticket with and they stated they had been looking for us for 2 days. This would have been an impossible task as there must be 3000 hotel and apts in Rhodes. Their advice for us was to book another flight out of Rhodes and try to get a refund from the missed flight. Luckily there was an Olympic flight leaving at ... read more