CRETE

Greetings friends and family!

I decided to revive my blog as several have asked for updates and pictures on what we are doing post house sale and road trip.  Sending via email, as we did during the road trip, limits any photos.

On return from our road trip friends on Lake Sammamish graciously allowed us to home-stay at their place while they were out of town.  It was wonderful to be in an actual home on the water after two months of hotel rooms and restaurants.  It reminded us of our place on Mercer Island.  Thank you so much.  It was a respite.  But only for 10 days.

Morning view from Lake Sammamish Home

A week ago Wednesday we took off for the EU.  We arrived in Athens in the evening and the next morning we flew to Heraklia on the island of Crete in the southern Mediterranean. Before the city states of Classical Greece, Herodotus, Alexander the Great, and even before the Mycenae of Homer's Iliad and Troy, the Minoans (1800 BCE) settled southern Aegean.  The City of Heraklia has an excellent archeological museum that covers this culture and artifacts which we toured on arrival. 

Famous statue of mythical snake woman I remember from Art education.  

On the morning of our departure we walked The Palace of Knossos, the main archeological site of this period.  Our limited knowledge of Crete was from our architectural and Western Civilization history courses.  But as a young person we didn't have perspective yet to make historical connections.  First there's Greek mythology of Western Civilization located on the isle of Crete: Minos (son of Zeus), the Minotaur, the labyrinth, and Dadelus and Icarus. (Remember all those? For a thoroughly enjoyable book to bring this to life listen to the audio version of Circes). The palace, which we studied in architecture, is also referred to as the Palace of Minos, though one is real and the other myth.

The site is unique in archeology because after its discovery in 1900, the British archeologist decided to reconstruct parts according to his hypothesis of what it looked like in all its bright colors.  He also described the use of the spaces, which has since defined future Minoan archeology, many of which are questioned by scholars today.  While a little Disney in character, it's an evocative place.

Reconstructed Palace of Knossos.  So remember this from school.

After Knossos, we drove to Reythemno, normally an hour drive W along the N coast.  Of course we took a circuitous route across the mountains to the S coast and returned.  It took about three hours.  The whole E - W spine of Crete is mountainous and rural, with peaks up to 7,500' and cut by dramatic gorges to the S coast.  In the winter the peaks are snow capped.  The landscape is classic Mediterranean; rocky, dry, scrubby and lovely. 

Crossing the Cretan Mountains

Arriving in Reythemno in mid-afternoon we drove our way along the Corniche row of restaurants to the end of the harbor where our AirBnB was located.  Our third floor room overlooked the bay and Venetian lighthouse.  It seemed so delightful on the website.  Unfortunately Reythemno is a college town, and even off-season there were lots of students that hung out in the bars and restaurants directly below our room until 3:30 am to the thump thump thump of the electronic "music".  Although our bedroom was in the back, and had several "sound proof" doors between us and the deck, the noise permeated the core of your body and gave our hearts arrhythmia.  For three nights we seriously got NO sleep until around 5:00 am. 

Nighttime view of corniche from our room 

Exhausted, the next day we managed to walk around the harbor to the lighthouse and the quiet back streets.  It's a cute town, but not worth more than a couple days; and be sure to sleep away from the Corniche. 

Our second day in Reythemno we drove across the mountains again to the hamlet of Hora Sfakion, population 265 in winter.  The weather was overcast with some drizzle at the pass, and the hamlet was all but shut down.  

Hora Sfakion

In summer it's busy with boat ferries to outer islands for swimming and bus transit station for one-way hikers of the Sameria Gorge. We planned to do this 10 mile downhill hike, but it was closed it for the season.  It's deep, steep, narrow, and rough; too dangerous in the wet, and not enough visitors to warrant services to return hikers to town. An interesting historical factoid is during WWII German paratroopers invaded the island and drove the Greek, British and ANZAC forces south through this gorge resulting in a Dunkirk like evacuation of over 40,000 troops from Hora Sfackion.  This occurred over several nights to avoid the German air cover.  There's a small monument here to their heroic retreat.

Our final stay in Crete was in Chania.  This time we drove directly there in one hour.  We highly recommend this historic and beautiful city.  Like all of Crete, the inhabitants and conquerers have left their mark over the millennia.  Minoan, Mycenae, Phoenician, Hellenic Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, Ottoman, and even briefly Russian and German.  Crete achieved its independence with Greece in 1821. However, the consistent architecture is Venetian with Ottoman infill along narrow cobbled streets. 

Narrow street of Chania with Mosque and Venetian Buildings

And while most  restaurants were closed, we found a charming Italian one at the harbor's end with one of the best bottles of white wine we've had, overlooking the lighthouse and mosque.

Alas, Robin likes her wine.

Our final day in Chania was cool and overcast. We again drove across the mountains to Elefonsis on the SW corner of the island.  It's out of the way and there's no real town here, but a long sandy beach with large areas for camping in tents or RVs.  The weather was perfect for late November on our last day in Crete.  It was 70 degrees and sunny.  The camping areas were virtually empty and with only a few couples walking the beach, which is known for its pink sand intermingled with black and beige.  The lapping waves sort the sand by its weight into stripes of color against the crystalline clear turquoise waters offset by black lava rocks.  

Striated Sands of Elefonsis.  

Though we didn't anticipate swimming, it was too inviting.  So Bill put on his best European nonchalant attitude and went swimming au-natural.   The water was about the temperature of Lake Washington in July.  After drip drying in the sun, and not impressing a middle-age german woman strolling by, (Guten morgan!) we packed up and returned, again via a different route.  

Next blog, The Cyclades Islands of Santorini and Naxos.  

Efkaristo for reading.