Chania
Trip Start
Jun 04, 2007
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Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Chania, Greece
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Our arrival in Crete was met with a lot of confusion. The taxi dropped us off by the large parking area near the harbour and we needed to walk about to find our hotel: Casa Leone. The old town is like a maze, and some of the streets don't have names....or at least ones you can clearly see. It took us half-an-hour of wandering about the old town to find the hotel. The walk was worth it as the room was beautiful. It has a huge private balcony that overlooks the harbour.
Our first dinner in Crete was at a restaurant along the waterfront called Amphora. The mixed grill for two was enough food for three or four people.
June 13th, 2007
We completed the 16km walk of the Samaria Gorge today. It took us four hours to do, including stops for photos, water, and snacks. I don't see why they allot seven hours to finish. It was not as difficult as they made it seem but you definitely need good footwear. All the way down the trek there are springs to fill your bottle from, and later on there is a small creek/river that forms from the springs that you can also drink from. It was probably the best water I have ever had.
Since we finished so quickly we had lots of time to kill. We didn't think we would have had enough time for a swim at the bottom, so we didn't bring our swimming suits. Big mistake. Always bring your swimming suit for this trek.
When we returned to Chania we secured a car rental for the next day.
June 14th, 2007
Today Lil, Papados, and myself headed to Elefanisi. Papados is the red Hyundai that we rented. The poor little bugger could barely make it up hills. The only time that car accelerated was going downhill.
Eleafanisi was a two-hour drive from Chania. The beach was soft, white, sand and the water never got more than a little over a meter deep. It was very pleasant for a day at the beach. The drive there was interesting once you got off the major highway. A lot of the signs were shot up by the locals and at times the road was just a little wider than one car as it weaved its way through small villages.
June 15th, 2007
Lil, Papados, and myself took off for Rethymno today. We were told that it was a beautiful city but it's not as nice as Chania. It is a lot more "touristy" and seems to be a bit more expensive.
While having lunch we managed to get filmed by some Cretan television people. They were walking about the restaurant taking footage before they did an interview. I hope I didn't have tzatziki sauce on my face. Who knows, maybe we have our own fan club now.
The fortress in Reythmno is interesting. If there is one reason to travel to the city, this is it. You can see for miles around once you are alongside the walls.
As we were returning to Chania, we decided to head off the highway and look for a beach to spend what remained of the day. We managed to find a small, quiet beach called Mastrali. I do have the waypoint from the GPS because it is kind of out of the way. There is a small taverna/café in a trailer at the beach.
June 16th, 2007
Today is our last full day in Crete. We got up early to see the central market. It was interesting, but didn't have as much in it as was indicated in the guidebooks. I remember reading about seeing every kind of fish imaginable. Sure, there were a number of types of fish there, not too many but more than ten types, but there were only about four booths selling fish. Now, the lambs head on a hook, that was interesting. They even had spit-roasted lambs heads.....yummmy!
After the market we went to the harbour-front and bought tickets for a snorkelling trip that left at 1330 and returned at 1800. We first circled an island that supposedly houses breeding kri-kri. It's not a big island but we didn't see a single animal other than birds. From there they took us to snorkel over the wreck of a German Meschersmitt that was shot down in the Second World War. There is not much left to indicate that it was a plane, but I'll take his word for it. The second snorkelling site was beside a small island where they used to dump people with leprosy before they were taken to a larger island with a hospital. There's no shade or fresh water on the island, so I don't imaging they survived for very long. On a happier note, there were quite a number of beautiful fish among the rocks around the island.
The captain of the snorkelling boat is British but had been living in Crete for seven years. He had a lovely saying: Never trust a Greek man, especially with women.
For dinner we went to a restaurant called Ela, which is supposed to have quite a good reputation. The food was excellent but the service was the worst that we had on the entire trip. There are better places to eat in Chania.
GPS DATA
Casa Leone hotel: N35 31.067 E24 00.960
Elafonisi: N35 16.328 E23 32.595
Mastrali Beach: N35 27.122 E24 10.707
