Crete
The first part of our stay was in Chania, the second largest of Crete’s cities and perhaps its prettiest, we started out by discovering the waterfront areas. Three harbours conveniently run one into another and mainly are a long string of upmarket restaurants and bars with an outlook over the harbour or sea, they are interspersed scenically with remnants of Ottoman or Venetian history in the form of boatyards, hammans and prominently a lighthouse. The harbours are the focal point of the old town and the central part of the old town is given over to a meandering of lanes mostly filled with pleasant shops and well worth an evening stroll.
We kept to our plan of doing the most arduous part of our holiday first, it required a very early start as we took a bus to the start of our trek, high in the Lefka Ori (or White mountains) for the famed Samaria gorge. The first part of the trek is a very steep downhill but is mostly protected from the sun by the trees of this beautiful national park. The rest of the trek is over very rocky and uneven terrain along the gorge which narrows with spectacular effect at certain points. The trek completes at the sea in Agia Roumeli and a slow but scenic ferry ride takes you to the landing point for the bus back. Keep a look out for the very attractive village of Loutro on the ferry ride!
Our next day involved a brief visit to Maleme at the behest of my brother-in-law who is an expert on war history, to see the landing point for German paratroopers in the battle of Crete and the now standing German war cemetery. Maleme is also a quieter resort area but near to the popular areas of Platanias and Agia Marina.
With the exertions of our last few days behind us, a little bit of indulgence at the spa of a nearby luxury hotel beckoned and combined with a visit to their beach and their good food we were nicely refreshed.
The restaurants and old town of Chania had left a nice impression on us and we looked forward to our next stop in Rethymnon.
Rethymnon and Chania actually hold a lot of similarities with their strong Venetian and Ottoman characters still to a small degree intact, with perhaps Chania being the more charming. Rethymnon does however have a very long and broad beach that curves nicely towards the old town and harbour and is lined again with a string of bars, restaurants and shops. Our days in Rethymnon took on a more leisurely look with later starts and more reading by the pool, with the exception of a day to Heraklion, Crete’s largest city and its nearby ancient Minoan site of Knossos.
Knossos is Crete’s number one visited site and is a mixture of archeological wonder and Greek myth and legend, bringing back memories of the stories of King Minos, the Minotaur, Theseus, Ariadne and Daedalus and Icarus. Heraklion itself is sometimes overlooked as a place for tourists but our brief visit found it to be a pleasant place for an afternoon or a day with a visit to the Heraklion archeological museum the main highlight.
There is much more to Crete than we had time for, and just the thought of some of the remote beaches like Elofonisi, the resorts of Agios Nikolaos and Elounda, more gorges to walk and historical sites to see like Spinalonga, made us realise that Crete is almost like a country of its own and why people can come back and experience a whole different holiday the next time they visit.