Rethymno – 31 December 2009

The last day of another year, and we choose to head west again to visit the third largest city on the island – Rethymno. This is also a Venetian town, like Chania, with the largest fortress the Venetians built anywhere. We parked on the far side of the fortress, and it seemed to go on forever, as we walked around it's base. We drank the best coffee on the island, sitting beside the small harbour.

Once again, the traffic was chaotic getting to the old town from the east, but leaving towards the west, was very quick and easy. We headed inland and followed the signs to the Arkadi Monastery. This was one of the finest Venetian churches built on Crete, and seems really amazing in it's isolated setting. It has had a troubled history, which was hard to imagine on such a beautiful warm winter day.

We wended our way back to Gourmes, via Eleftherna, the site of an old Doric and later Roman city, and Margarites, an attractive town where the industry is still pottery making. Unfortunately they weren't prepared for the tourists making the most of the sunshine and driving in the foothills to the mountains.

Chania – 30 December 2009

It was time to explore Western Crete, and we had been told Chania was the most beautiful town on the island. It largely escaped being bombed in WWII, so the old town is still made up of narrow streets, lined with Venetian houses. The harbour still has it's Venetian lighthouse, fortress and shipyards. This is definitely a place to relax, the only non-relaxing aspect, is the stressful drive in and out, through the modern town. I had investigated accommodation here, and although it would have been lovely, the 30 minute drive in and out of town would have spoilt the therapeutic effect.

After leaving Chania we drove to the nearby town of Souda where the Allied War Cemetery is a green contrast to the surrounding barren hills. About a third of the war graves are New Zealand soldiers, many of whom were defending the airfield, which fell to the Germans in May 1941. It was a very moving experience to visit this now tranquil spot.
Men, in khaki dressed.
Twenty columns, twenty rows; a rose between the headstones grows
Rank and file, creed and race, all are gathered in this place
Now all here is neat and ordered, not so then, for the war dead
Cretan soil their final rest; four hundred men in khaki dressed.

New Zealand's shores they'll never reach; Souda Bay, their nearest beach
May '41, the leaders knew, the date their foe's arrival's due
Enigma signals told it all, but Freyberg had to hold the call
Strategy, played close-to-chest, doomed these men in khaki dressed.

Brothers, uncles, fathers, sons: family heroes every one
Heard the call their country made; great the price that many paid
Now that generation's passed and we wander on this grass by sea
And in our freedom feel so blessed by all the men in khaki dressed.
M Grainger, Souda Bay, December 2009

Eastern Crete – 29 December 2009

Driving past Neapoli, we explored the eastern end of the island. The first major town is Agios Nikolaos, an attractive seaside town, which has a solid ring of cafes around it's twin harbours (one of which is actually a lake). Driving into the town centre must be horrendous in the high season. We had no difficulty driving in and finding a park, but by the time we left, the town was busier and we had to patiently negotiate the traffic jams.

A short drive inland is Panagia Kera, a Byzantine Church, almost completely covered in 14th & 15th century frescoes. The church is near Krisa, the largest village in Crete, and quite charming in a shabby-chic kind of way.

The fifth largest city is Siteia, further east, and definitely worth the drive around the coast. Although the waterfront was lined with cafes, there was a much less touristy feel about the town, and a great place to spend some relaxing time.

To save returning by the same route, we headed to the south coast, and after passing through Ierapetra (whose only claim to fame is being the most southern city in Europe), we found another delightful tiny shabby chic village, Myrtos, which did live up to its description in the guide book.

The road left the coast at this point, and wound through the rugged interior back to the northern side of the island.

Lasithiou Plateau - 28 December 2009

Eastern Crete has a high mountain plateau, which made a very pleasant circular drive from our base at Gournes. The drive started from Neapoli, over the mountains and through many small villages to the Lasithiou Plateau. This is an area where traditional stone based windmills have been used for centuries to grind corn. Today there are also many more of a more recent vintage, all over the plateau.
After leaving the plateau, we stopped to see a small 9th century church at a convent, which contains 15th century frescoes. This is near the only memorable village on the route – Krasi. This still has washing tubs by the spring, and it is easy to imagine the women gossiping as they worked in years gone by.

Knossos - 27 December 2009

Sundays in winter have free entry to all Museums, so we made our way to Knossos, to take advantage of this. The site was excavated in Victorian times by a museum curator from Oxford, and much of what you see, is his interpretation of what it could have looked like. Visiting on the free day, saved us from being too critical of his handiwork.

We followed the road from here further inland, as we had been told about the village of Archanes, which has won two awards - 2nd place for best restored village in Europe and 1st place for long term development prospects. Unfortunately we were rather underwhelmed here too, and were pleased we hadn't driven far out of our way to see it.

We should have known better, but for our third visit of the day, the best we can say is that our entrance fee was at least helping the local economy. It is some years since we have visited an aquarium, but although there were plenty of large, well arranged and stocked tanks, the overall impressions was of sterile clean artificial rocks.

Christmas on Crete - 25, 26 December 2009

The Zorbas hosts turned on an amazing Christmas dinner, they called it 16 courses, and I'm sure there were 16 different dishes to be enjoyed. Murray was suffering by a heavy cold by this stage (I think his body said, you have finished your work responsibilities, and take a few sick days now – so the cold he had been fighting off for several days, really took off), but managed to enjoy his dinner despite this.

On Boxing Day, Murray spent the day in bed, and Christine caught a bus to explore Heraklion. The most picturesque part is the harbour and Venetian Fortress. Most of the city was destroyed by heavy bombing in WWII.

Will we, won't we? – 24 December 2009

The airports around London were all affected by the heavy snowfalls so, with great concern, we followed the daily reports in the days leading up to Christmas.

Even the train service to Gatwick (the airport from which we flew to Crete) was suffering severe delays. So we set out extra early on Christmas Eve, to reach Gatwick airport. The trains by then were behaving perfectly, so we hoped the same was true of the airport.

After checking in, we watched the departures board with increasing anxiety, as all the flights before and after ours were delayed. The flight prior to ours was delayed by over 5 hours, and as ours just said 'Please wait', we were not sure what might happen. We had booked a flight with a 3-hour stopover in Athens (no direct flights in winter), but unfortunately, the airline had changed our outward flight, so we only had a 1-hour stopover. As our expected boarding time passed, we still only had 'Please wait' on the board. Finally a gate number appeared, and as we reached it, the PA system announced the sad saga of delays for another flight. We weren't assured of our connection though, as the departure time came and went, and we finally left 40 minutes late.

The flight landed 25 minutes late, but a hostess told us we could make it. She had obviously never tried herself, as we found we had to go through passport control and leave international and enter the domestic terminal. Then after finding our gate number and walking VERY briskly down seemingly never-ending corridors, we finally found ourselves at a security queue. A bit of creative queue jumping was called for, and we took off down more long corridors to find our gate, where the plane was just boarding, and it actually left a few minutes early.

As we waited hopefully for our luggage, we talked to another traveller we recognised from the London flight, to see it we had come the long way round, as we wondered if we had been misdirected, and there was actually a direct route to be taken for a transfer. He assured us he had done this trip many times before, and the only way was to go out and back in through security, just as we had done, which made us wonder how many on the London flight had failed to make the connection. We were extremely delighted to find our bags had also made it through to Heraklion, found our rental car, and made our way to Zorbas Beach, our accommodation for the 10 nights ahead.