Crete

Tuesday, August 23

Our Airbnb was a nice short walk from the port and we had an easy self check in of finding the apartment and the keys in the lock box. The apartment was really nice and well furnished with everything including strong wifi, a coffee maker, and coffee.

We decided to go out to dinner and worry about getting groceries later. The forecast predicted rain later in the evening and for the next several days. I brought a sweater with me to dinner in case the pre-rain wind made the air cold, but otherwise didn’t think it necessary to bring a rain jacket.

We went to a restaurant called Katsinas that looked authentic and not too pricey. When we arrived we had to wait for one man to finish his drink before nabbing the last outside table. I thought about asking to sit inside, but the temperature outside was so nice.

We ordered food by filling out a paper form. We put a check next to stuffed grape leaves (dolmas), mixed eggplant, garlic dip, Greek salad, fried cheese, moussaka, and house wine. The waiter said the food was made by his mom and we weren’t sure if she was back there cooking or if the recipes were hers.

Pretty quickly they brought out the salad, dolmas, and dips. It started to sprinkle rain so we got the busser to put up an umbrella for us. Then it started to rain harder. The table was slanted ever so slightly downhill so I started to get a lap of cold rain water. The rain started coming in from the sides. I stood up to look for a solution and noticed that the people at the other outside tables- which were protected by a big awning- were looking at us. One woman was motioning for me to come sit at the empty chair at her table with her family.

I asked the waiter if we could move to one of the tables under the awning that someone had just left (they had left to go sit on one of the few inside tables). He said, “no” for some reason I couldn’t hear or understand. Then it was ridiculous. It started raining SO hard. I was considering whether to just run home or steal the open table. Then Carl stood up, saying “huh uh ooo! Wowooo! Uuoooh!” because cold water from the umbrella had just dripped down his back. I can’t remember if the waiter let us or if we just did- but we took the abandoned table.

We looked around to see the people we thought had been well protected under the awning were also getting wet and that the people on the outer edge had pulled their feet up because there was a river of storm water running under them.

Our food was a bit wet, but we finished off that first course. It was really good. But then we sat, and waited. They never brought the rest of the food. We debated whether we should ask for it. But then it was after 10pm and we didn’t really want the rest of it anymore. Eventually I caught the waiter’s attention and got the check.

He didn’t realize we never got the rest of the food. He told us we just owed him €20 and he apologized because of the chaos from the rain. We felt bad because the food had been really good, and we wanted to try the other things, but the service had been abysmal. So then we walked home and went to sleep.

Wednesday, August 24

Rain was predicted for the middle of the day. So we decided to have an easy going morning, check the forecast, then attempt to go out to Knossos palace.

We did a great job of sleeping in and having a lazy morning. At about 11:30am we set out to get ‘breakfast’. We found a café that didn’t look authentic at all, but had breakfast and good looking drinks. We got some dessert churros (because why not) and a croque monsieur that was actually pretty good. I got a cocktail and Carl got a ‘Greek’ (Turkish) coffee. We sat outside and people watched.

Afterward we walked across the main square to a church we had watched tourists going into. The church used to be a mosque that was converted into an orthodox Catholic Church. It was very pretty and there were many modern style paintings inside.

We walked around a little bit and then decided it was time to head to Knossos. There is supposedly a public bus that goes there but we would’ve had to walk for a bit to get to the stop and we weren’t sure it was even the right stop. So we got a taxi for €14. It was easy to get the taxi and she dropped us right in front of Knossos palace, so it was worth it.

The line to get in was long, but it went by quickly. Once we got inside we got out our headphones to listen to the audio guide app we had downloaded the night before. This was our first time doing this, and it worked out really well.

The palace of Knossos is considered one of the oldest cities in Europe. It was developed sometime in the Neolithic period and become the center of Minoan culture in the Bronze Age. The British archeologist Arthur Evans bought the site to excavate it in 1900. His study and renovations were controversial because although he made the site famous, he took some creative liberties in restoring things that made them likely inaccurate.

One of the most interesting things about the site is how little is actually known about the culture that created and inhabited the palace. They had a writing system that’s been discovered but not yet successfully translated. Our feeling was that people (archeologists) were just making things up as much as Evans did. Still though, the site was impressive.

Knossos showed evidence that Minoans had a plumbing system with flushing toilets. This would’ve been about 2,000 BCE. Our audio guide made a point to note whenever Minoan civilization far outpaced that of other parts of Europe (like the Brits), which was often through the tour.

We walked around the site, listening to our guide, for about 2 hours. It started to sprinkle rain a few times but just as soon as we put our rain jackets on, it would stop again.

We got the bus back into Heraklion city center. We thought about going to the Heraklion archeological museum to see all the artifacts pulled from Knossos, but we were mildly burned out on history and had two more days to visit. So instead we got ice cream.

As we were eating our ice cream we got an email from the tour operator for our gorge hike scheduled for the next day. They said that, because of weather, the park where the gorge is would be closed, so our tour was effectively canceled. We looked around us at the blue skies with some clouds, noting that the weather forecast had said every day would be thunderstorms and rainy, and accepted our fate.

We went to the grocery store to get stuff to make dinner and found a wine tasting tour for the following day. We predicted (accurately) that the weather was going to be great, so we might as well go drink some wine outside.

Carl made a yummy pasta and Greek salad and we drank our rosé from the wine tasting in Santorini.

Thursday, August 25

At 10am the driver picked us up in front of a hotel next to our Airbnb. He was friendly, but not overly talkative. He stopped at a five star hotel to pick up the other tour participants. Two boys – probably 17 or 18? – got in the car with us. They were from Salzburg, Austria, where The Sound of Music was filmed.

It was about an hour to the first winery. The tour description said we’d drive by two historical sites, including Knossos. We did drive by them and, when the driver said absolutely nothing about them we just said, “oh. There they are!”

At the first winery, Domaine Paterianakis, a woman showed us around the grounds a little bit and showed us the cellar. Then they sat us all at the same table for the tasting. This is about when we realized how young our two Austrian friends were, and how high. One of them had straight blonde hair and he was nice and talked with us. The other one, with curly black hair, kept his sunglasses on for the whole tasting, even though we were inside.

The woman that gave us the tour then began to pour wines for us. She poured the smallest amount, explained it, and left. They provided a little bit of olive oil and very hard, crouton-like bread that I was worried I would crack a tooth on. So we had some awkward quiet times as we sipped our wine, crunched loudly on dried bread, and then looked longingly at our empty glasses.

Halfway through the tasting the primary staff person left and instead the daughter of the winery owner served us. She was very nice and obviously very knowledgeable about the wines.

The wines were nice, but we didn’t like them quite as much as Santorini. Most surprisingly the dry Muscat was not too sweet and it was our favorite. They also gave us a small taste of Raki, which is like grappa (they said Raki is the Turkish term and the Greeks are supposed to call theirs something else, but I can’t remember the Greek name so Raki it is). It was actually really good!

After the tasting, Carl went to buy the Muscat and I followed the Austrians outside to help them take a picture. Blondey gave me his phone and I waited for Curly to join him in front of the vista. Blondey said, “it’s ok, I’ll do some photos by myself first”. So I was the photographer for Blondey’s winery photo shoot while Curly just stood there and watched. I did get one of them together, and then rushed back to tell Carl about it.

Our driver picked us up and took us to the next winery, Lyrarakis. When we arrived there were more people there waiting to do a tour of the winery. The larger group of us then followed a staff person around, through the vineyard grounds.

The vineyard itself was gorgeous. They had planted roses at the end of each row as a kind of organic disease alarm. The clouds above us grew darker and darker and threatened rain, but it never did. Instead, the occasional light that poked through a dark cloud provided the most magical lighting as we wandered around the gardens.

In one part of their garden they had rows of each type of grape variety. They let us try each kind of grape (lucky it is almost harvest time!). We liked the Vidiano, which is a green grape that makes one of the most popular white wines in Greece.

When it was time for the tasting, we got the last table in the back, looking out at the view but also at the back of all the other participants. We enjoyed the tasting but none of the wines blew us away. They again served us hard bread, oil, and tapenade this time.

After the tasting we went back to the vineyard to have our own little photo shoot. Then we thought it was about time our driver should be picking us up, but we didn’t see him. Instead another man, the owner of the tour company apparently, drove us. We awkwardly admitted that we had left our purse and bag in the other driver’s car and the owner said, “ok, ok, ok, no problem, no problem”. So I tried not to be stressed as we drove on to the next place: lunch.

The owner was a very friendly, talkative guy. When the Austrians both wanted to sit in the front seat with him, he just laughed it off and said it was fine. Blondey did a good job asking the owner about how he runs his business. Like he asked how the lunch restaurant is chosen for the tour. The owner said that his 10-year old son picked it out. “My son says this one is good, this one is shit, etc, and I trust him. Here in Greece we say listen to little kids and to crazy people”. Honestly this left us very curious as to how the restaurant would be.

He took us to a little, historic town that we read about in the tour description but otherwise did not get to see at all. We were led to the restaurant where they sat us outside, under a trellis covered in grapevines. There was a standard menu as part of the tour so we said, “bring it on”.

They brought us a white wine, Greek salad, tzatziki, and dolmas, my favorite! The second course was meatballs and French fries. We’d asked for souvlaki but I think the waiter switched our order with the Austrian’s. It didn’t matter because the meatballs were good.

While we ate, two little orange kitties came over and played and begged for food. They were very cute and made me miss my Bubbs (who I get to see so soon!) The Austrians gave the cats some meat and I think they regretted it instantly as the cats then tried to jump in their lap. I also gave them meat but they seemed to understand empty hands meant “no more!”

For desert they brought chocolate cake, banana ice cream (too bad for Carl), and a carafe of ice cold Raki. This Raki was not as good as the one from the winery. In fact, it tasted like it could remove my nail polish. The Austrians didn’t even touch it. But Carl and I are always ones to get our monies worth, so we squeezed our eyes shut tight, and threw back 2.5 shots of it. In case you were wondering, the banana ice cream was an awful chaser.

After lunch, our original driver picked us up and he still had our stuff in his car-yay! It was about an hour drive back to Heraklion. He went to the Austrians hotel first and they shook our hands to say goodbye. At the last second Blondey asked if we had Instagram. So I gave him my account and now we are friends.

When Carl and I got back to our Airbnb we hung out on the patio for a while, until the sun went down. Then we had leftovers and drank our dry Muscat while watching Netflix.

Friday, August 26

We didn’t have to check out of our Airbnb until 11am so we took our time to pack up and eat breakfast. Then we hiked over to the bus station. We’d seen on google maps (and Airbnb host confirmed) there was a cheap baggage storage place at the bus station. It ended up being €3 per bag per day. So we slapped the receipt stickers on our bags, left them in the luggage room, and set out to enjoy our last day on the island of Crete.

We hiked uphill to the Archeological Museum. The museum holds all of this artifacts found in Knossos as well as things found from similar archeological sites all over the island. The museum was huge, full of stuff, and things to read. There were a few points where I had to take pictures of the descriptions because my brain just wasn’t processing information anymore.

The museum was laid out chronologically which made it really interesting to see how the artifacts, like pottery, weapons, ceremonial offering art, etc., evolved over time and also the similarities that connected the different civilizations.

By the time we had finished the two floors of approximately 20 rooms we were done learning. We went over to the main city area and found a touristy restaurant to eat.

We ordered a sampler menu that came with Greek salad, dolmas, moussaka, stuffed tomatoes, and meatballs. We also got a carafe of house wine, which was surprisingly nice.

Afterward we walked the touristy streets again. The day before I had seen an interesting looking necklace in one of the tourist shops. It looked like two bees around a flower. In the museum we had seen the original version of the necklace, which is called the Malia Pendant, and was described as two bees depositing honey into a honeycomb. The pendant was found in 1930 in Malia, Crete and dated 1800-1650 BCE. So we went back to the tourist shop to see if I could get a replica.

The woman working at the shop was very nice. She let me try necklaces on as she talked to Carl about traveling and New York. Her shop has items from all kinds of local artists. I decided to get the necklace.

We had about an hour or so before we planned to take the bus to the airport. So we found a brewery. The place was very homegrown, off a random side street back toward the museum. We were the only people there. We got an IPA and a hazy IPA. They were both good! We sat there and sipped and enjoyed the WiFi.

Then we got a bus to the airport, which was a super short ride. The Heraklion airport is old and it felt like we had gone back in time as we looked for our flight on the old style departures list. Eventually we were able to check in our bags (Volotea airline special) and went to the gate to wait.

There were a million people buzzing about the departure gates. We ended up getting some delicious gyros while we waited and tried to not constantly be in the way of people pushing by.

But finally we boarded and the flight was another incredibly short one-as soon as we got up we headed back down. Next (and last!!) stop: Athens.