Day 17, now without Bill

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Well, since Bill was gone I decided to take on an adventure that would eat up most my day. (I was much more successful at that than I had planned.)

We never made it to the south side of the island so I decided to give it a shot. There are a couple of things that you should know here. First, there is no direct way to the south side of the island. Second, the main roads go from 4 lanes to 2 down to 1 with pedestrians everywhere so traveling anywhere takes a bit of time.

I headed to Matala. (Oh yeah you should know that road signs are sporadic at best so you really have to be prepared going out and ready to turnaround a lot.) Matala is about 100 km from where I am staying, so I thought that I could do this in a couple of hours. Well, as it turns out it took me 3 hours.

So, let me tell you what’s in the middle of the island, olive trees, windmills and very small Cretan villages.

I made it to Matala and I was a bit surprised. You drive and drive and then out in the middle of nowhere comes up this nice little town. This town in the middle of nowhere has all the comforts of home (sans Starbucks); it is very different than the 50 villages you pass on the way to get there. I went down to the beach and laid there for awhile. As you can imagine yes the beaches are absolutely amazing.

I only stayed there a few hours because I had a 3 hour drive back. I left at 11am and got back at 8pm. I’d say that I definitely ate up the day, tomorrow something very close possibly with no driving. Oh I should mention that today I think I drove down a road that is not meant for car traffic at all. There was some kind of street fair and people had to move their tables and chairs so I could make it through. I couldn’t tell if they were upset or if it didn’t bother them. I prefer to think that they thought silly Brit and went on with their day.

Well after doing a couple of days worth of updates on the blog I decided to walk over to a pub and watch the England vs. Andorra game (commentary in English). It is very different than watching a game in the UK. People were very into the game but very calm and certainly not very vocal with the exception of the few English blokes in the bar.

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Photos

More Olive Trees
They are everywhere in the center of the island

Comments

[Alex]

Look at that ocean!
The Red Sand Beach photo is my favorite - looks so inviting!