Blogs from Crete, Greece, Europe - page 34

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

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 pleasure The weather here is now a constant 35oC. I went snorkelling yesterday (saw loads on green/yellow fish and crabs etc) for about an hour. My back is now bright red! I was talking to the owner of the local taverna about it and when we left, after our usual on the house shot of Raki and choc cake, he gave me a tub of natural yoghurt to smother on ... read more

Those of us that chose not to tackle the Samaria Gorge had a free day in Hania. We decided to start with the Agora which is a fabulous flea market type building full of little stalls selling everything you can imagine from meat and vegetables to tourist souvenirs. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where they are set up and you can have a souvenir shop next to a butcher. There were several leather shops with some nice purses and wallets, spice shops with packets of local spice for souvlaki or salad, bakeries, butchers, fish shops, clothing stores with t-shirts and the typical Greek shirts, everything was available. It was cute at the fish shop as there was a skinny cat hiding behind a bucket waiting for the little fish to fall ... read more

We set out in search of several mythical caves today. Our first stop was the Eileithyian Cave which is visited so seldom that we had to call the guard to come and open it for us. It had no lights so we had to explore by flashlight and candlelight. It had a fig tree, symbol of fertility, growing at the entrance that we had to duck under to enter. All 28 of us plus our guide, Lina, and the guard, Yanni, fit into the cave but the tall people had to watch their heads. The cave was fairly wide but not very tall, like a womb, very appropriate for the Goddess of Childbirth. Yanni said that even today some pregnant women come and make offerings, we saw some feathers and flowers, to ask for safe carriage ... read more

Jan and Rodger did a day trip to Agios Nikolaos and here are their comments on their day……..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 the airport. Further out we came to the sea and followed the coastline past sandy beaches and numerous resorts, The beaches are all set up with sun lounges and umbrellas all sprouting like mushrooms, all different colours. One suspects you would have to pay to use them. No one on the beach as it was windy. Further ... read more