Crete Archives · Bon Voyage on a Big Adventure!

August 3, 2018August 3, 2018

Day 36: We Are Moving to Heraklion, Crete

Deep breath, mom. I’m kidding about moving to Heraklion, Crete. Mostly.

There are places that are great to visit. Then there are places that you can imagine yourself living. Rich and I spent less than 24 hours in Heraklion, and, I’ll speak for both of us, we were ready to settle down.

Why Heraklion

I love being at the beach– my mom called this whole year of travel “our beach trip”– but with the beach come tourists. Landing in a spot where it felt like most of the people we crossed were locals going about their regular day-to-day business was really refreshing.

Heraklion is the largest city in Crete, and the fourth largest city in Greece. While there is a ton of history here– we visited the site of a palace from the Bronze Age— there are also lots of shopping and restaurants, along with the hustle and bustle you would expect in a vibrant city with young people.

Our Day in Heraklion

We traveled from Agios Nikolaos to Heraklion via bus. Our wonderful AirBNB host, Anthi, let us drop our bags at 11:00 AM and gave us a quick orientation on how to navigate Heraklion. Anthi also provided outstanding advice on our itinerary, encouraging us to head to the Archaelogical Museum during the hottest part of the day and explore Knossos later in the day when there would be fewer tourists. Smart!

The Archaelogical Museum in Heraklion

The Archaelogical Museum was unreal. This trip has already given me a new perspective on how big the world is, and yet, how similar people are everywhere. The museum gave me some good context on how old the world is. People have really been living the same kinds of lives and liking the same kinds of things for a long, long time.

For example: the Archaelogical Museum holds remains of ancient board games and small soldier dolls from 1700 BC– ancient GI Joe’s more or less. There are huge wine vats because for a long time, people have enjoyed alcohol. In America, we have the NFL and college football. In Heraklion, people enjoyed bull leaping. People are people. We are but a small blip on the radar of time.

jewelery Heraklion archaelogical museum — Jewelery from 2000 AD. I would wear ALL of this.

Board Game in Heraklion Archaelogical Museum — Ancient Monopoly

bull leaping Heraklion — Bull Leaping– exactly what is sounds like- was the favorite athletic pursuit and spectator sport in Minoan society

Heraklion giant axes — “Take my picture with the giant axes.”

Eagles versus Falcons in Heraklion — Go Birds! Rich and Amanda are huge Philadelphia Eagles fans, and the Eagles (left) take on the Falcons (right) in the first regular season game of 2018.

touchdowns HEraklion — We are going to need at least this many touchdowns to win.

The Venetian Fortress

From the Archaelogical Museum, we walked to the Venetian Fortress. Present-day Heraklion was founded by Arabs in 824, then came under the control of the Byzantines in 961, and then was bought by the Venetians in 1204. The Venetians wanted to hang onto their investment, so they built a huge, striking fort in the harbor.

Smart thinking. The Ottomans then waged a seige on the city for twenty one years from 1648 to 1669. The Ottomans proved victorious, but the Venetian Fortress still stands proud today.

Our Beautiful, Most Favorite, AirBNB

While this is perhaps of lesser historical significance, upon leaving the Venetian Fortress (and maybe after a quick trip to the first H&M we had seen on our travels), we got checked in at our beautiful, fabulous, wonderful AirBNB. Our host Anthi was incredibly chic and gracious, and after our small hotel room in Agios Nikolaos, we felt like we were spreading out in heaven. And these views!

We showered and rejoiced in its comfort!

airbnb bedroom heraklion — The beautiful bedroom in our AirBNB

view from balcony in Heraklion — The view from our balcony

airbnb in heraklion — Our table and living area

bathroom sign Heraklion — So this is DIFFERENT for my American readers: In Crete, you are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet. You dispose of it in a small trashcan with a lid in the bathroom. It took some getting used to , but the practice was consistent across the island.

Knossos

A day or two before we headed to Knossos, I wanted to google it to learn more so I asked Rich to spell it. Rich’s reply: “Did you even study history?”

So maybe if you are a history person, you know everything there is to know about Knossos already.

I surely didn’t so I will share a little bit about what I learned: Knossos, also known as the Palace of Minos, is sometimes referred to as Europe’s oldest city because it is believed to have been settled in the Neolithic Period (7000 BC !). The Minoans built the first Cretan Palace on the sight around 2000 BC.

At the height of its development, nearly 100,000 people lived in the palace and just beyond its gates.

The site was discovered in 1878, and a British Archaeologist, Arthur Evans, led the excavation efforts starting in 1900.

In my humble, non-archaelogical opionion, Arthur Evans was really allowed to have his way with Knossos. He rebuilt structures, named rooms, and determined how various buildings had been used– he even got to name the Minoan civilization! I’m not professing to be any sort of expert, it just didn’t seem like Evans collaborated with anyone to make broad claims about how people lived thousands and thousands of years before he was born.

Still, we found the site to be totally cool and interesting. And we saw a peacock!

Peacock in Heraklion — A peacock! Let me tell you, this bird was not scared of people. He was like a giant, pretty pigeon.

The St. Minas Cathedral in Heraklion

We could see the cathedral from our balcony so we decided to check out the inside too. Beautiful!

Cathedral- Heraklion — Inside of Saint Minas Cathedral

cathedral in heraklion- exterior — Outside of the Cathedral

Dinner + Wine Down in Heraklion

We ate dinner at a delicious kebab fast food restaurant near the Lion’s Fountain, enjoyed Monday night people watching, and then headed home.

vegetable kebob in heraklion — I got one filled with vegetables- yum!

Anthi had left us with a bottle of local dry white wine, and we enjoyed it on our balcony, listening to the city below. We reflected on our time in Greece before catching a flight to Malta in the morning.

We love the friendliness of the Greek people as well as their joie de vivre. The country is beautiful, and the Greeks have the luxury of being laid back about all they have to offer. Theirs is the confidence of having existed as a civilization for hundreds of thousands of years, and knowing they may have figured out a thing or two about how to live. We can’t wait to move in! 🙂

August 1, 2018August 1, 2018

Days 30-35: Visit Crete! Our Time in Rethymno and Agios Nikolaos

Let me cut to the chase: we loved our time in Crete. I know, I know: we also loved our time in Budapest (days 8, 9, and 10) and Croatia (days 11-14, days 15-19, days 20-21, and days 22-25) so maybe I am a soft touch.

BUT I’m still going to make the case for Crete, especially if international travel seems a little daunting to you. Or maybe, on vacation you want to do a few historical tourism-type activities but mostly you just want to go to the beach. Go to Crete!

(Disclaimer: I’m totally not getting paid by anyone for this post but I can be bought.)

Day 30: Travel to Rethymno

If you don’t use public transportation at home and the idea of catching a bus in a country that does not speak your native tongue gives you hives, Crete is exactly the right starter country for you.

For 13.60 euro for two tickets (~$15 ), Rich and I jumped on a bus in Chania and jumped off the same bus an hour and a half later in Rethymno. Our AirBNB was 500 meters from the bus stop, and our sweet AirBNB host Maria let us check in early.

As I shared in our First Month Abroad: By the Numbers post, we have really cooked a lot while traveling. Cooking is almost always less expensive than eating out. Also, after so much eating out, even when the food is delicious, we just kind of feel sick.

We were still recovering from hiking the Samaria Gorge so we decided we would stay in our first night in Rethymno and do it up!

We hit up the grocery store a block from our apartment where we spent next to nothing on two eggplants, an onion, four potatoes, garlic, and fresh dill and then a few dollars more on cheese and tomato sauce. The tomato sauce was slightly more expensive than expected because the sign I thought said 1 euro as the price, really said 1 euro off the price. It was all Greek to me.

And then I made a valiant attempt at re-creating the delicious eggplant dish I had eaten out in Chania, which was basically eggplant stuffed with cheesy mashed potatoes and topped with tomato sauce. I was super proud of myself for peeling the potatoes with a knife (no potato peeler in the AirBNB) and baking the dish in a toaster oven. It was 100% the most involved meal I had prepared while we have been away, and it turned out not half bad.

Bon appetite!

baked eggplant in Crete — Homemade baked mashed potatoes eggplant- yum!

Day 31: Rethymno Is Great

Our AirBNB is Rethymno had a great little balcony so we enjoyed coffee overlooking the street with a little sea view. Then we wandered through the Old Town to make our way to the beach. The beach was huge and sandy, the water was the perfect temperature for swimming, and Rich and I both had great books to read. Perfection.

Beach in Rethymno, Crete — Beach Day in Rethymno!

After a couple of hours at the beach, we walked the mile back to our apartment to blog and plan. The sun really took it out of us though and we were just so relaxed…so we napped for two hours. Oops.

We woke up from our nap, got ready for dinner (best hair dryer award goes to this AirBNB), and made it out the door just in time to catch a stunning sunset by the water.

We picked the highest rated restaurant on TripAdvisor with just one $ (i.e. the most affordable), and enjoyed a great meal at a little taverna in town.

dinner outside rethymno crete — After our meal outside in Old Town

Some days of the trip carry a little more responsibility– this was pure vacation.

Day 32: From Rethymno to Agios Nikolaos, Crete

To get from Rethymno to Agios Nikolaos, we took two buses, each about an hour and a half each. Our next AirBNB in Agios Nikolaos was really a small family owned hotel. The room was a little rough- and without a kitchen- but we had a view overlooking the sea, and it was only $ 41 a night. To be clear, that is significantly less than what we spent on our tent in Iceland per night.

The speed of Agios Nikolaos, Crete was just right. The town is on the sea, and then Lake Vousimis is the middle of town with even more restaurants and sights along the water.

Harbor in Agios Nikolaos, Crete — Along the harbor in Agios Nikolaos

small street in crete — A pedestrian paradise!

On our first night, we ate outside at Pittes Gourmandes ,a small pita restaurant with a twist: all of the recipes were inspired by cuisines from around the world. Rich’s pita was the Palestine, and mine was the Cyprus.

dinner in agios nikolaos crete — Rich’s gyro was inspired by the cuisine in Palestine and had lamb and mint. We like to eat.

The food was delicious, and the atmosphere was even better. A major beach volleyball tournament was underway a block away. Once families finished eating, the kids would get up from the table to all run off and play with each other. There were swimmers in the sea until after dark. Everyone around us just seemed so content, relaxed, and full. No cell phones or stress in sight!

Day 33: Agios Nikolaos, Crete Continued

More vacation mode with a little bit of work time. We walked around the corner to the beach to read our books and swim, then came back and wrote our month in review post, and then showered and went out for calimari and pizza.

beach in agios nikoaos in crete — The beach across from our hotel

beach hair in Crete — Post-swim-in-the-sea curls like whoa. Rich wants to wait until Italy to get his hair cut. I’ll keep everyone posted.

Agios Nikolaos, Crete Harbor — In the Agios Nikolaos Harbor

crete cat — Lots of cats and scooters in Greece

Rich wants everyone to know that this church was in a movie. He is napping now so I do not know the name of the church or the movie. Updated: he woke up- the Church is Fisherman’s Church. It’s by the lake. Where people fish. Still not sure about the name of the “famous” movie.

Traveling v. Vacation

A friend asked recently how all of this traveling feels different from vacation, and my honest answer is that we just have to think about money more. When we had steady income streams and went away for two weeks in the summer, splurging felt right. Now saving and making small sacrifices feel better.

A few examples: renting beach chairs cost 3 euros a piece. That is the equivalent of about $4. Having a beach chair is infinitely more comfortable than sitting on the ground. If you are on vacation, you rent the chairs. But if you know that you want to go to the beach fifty more times over the course of the next eight months (the idea of that much beach makes me giddy just typing it), you sit on the ground.

swimming in Crete — Our view from the ground. Everyone swims in Crete!

Example #2: For dinner out, we ordered calimari, a half liter of wine, and a pizza. In Greece, when you eat out, they are forever bringing you little free surprises with your meal. This night, these on the house treats included bread, hummus, a cheese plate, and a small dessert. We made it through half of our pizza and realized we were full so we saved the other half a pizza for dinner the next night. Would we take leftovers home when we are at home? Absolutely. Would we take leftovers home on vacation? No way. We would eat everything in sight.

swimming in bay. — The view FROM OUR TABLE at dinner. People swim all of the time. This was at about 8:30 PM, and you can just make out the woman floating in the water.

leftover pizza in Crete — Our leftover pizza- yum.

Day 34: Even More Agios Nikolaos, Crete

We went into town for coffee in the morning and enjoyed the most incredible view of the lake as well as a delicious chocolate nutella crepe. There was a group of older Cretans that grew by the minute in the cute coffee shop we were in. Again, people seem to really enjoy being together.

Coffee in crete — There was ZERO upcharge on this view. The coffee was the same price as it would have been at a cafe on the street. We definitely lingered over this one.

chocolate crepe in crete — Basically, all of our breakfast foods contain chocolate these days.

breakfast crete elderly — An advanced age breakfast club

We went to the beach in the afternoon, then did some indoor napping, then went for a run, and then ate our leftover pizza for dinner. We walked around a bit in the evening but mostly kept it pretty low key.

reading at a beach in crete — Reading at the beach

running in crete — Proof we ran. 97 degree heat at 6 PM makes for a tough 3.0 miles. But we felt good when it was finished!

post run swim in crete — Rich cools off after the run. The next day was a travel day so I stayed on the rocks to avoid dealing with whether my clothes would dry in time.

showered in crete — Showered! So fresh and clean.

Telling you about Heraklion (next post!) will only build my case on why Crete definitely belongs on your travel list. What we found throughout the time on the island is that is is a place where people are really able to enjoy being together. Find someone- or lots of people!- you like, and bring them along!

July 26, 2018

Days 26-29: Welcome to Crete!

As I write from Crete, we have now been gone for over a month. We endured camping in cold, rainy, beautiful Iceland (days 1-3 and days 4-6), then rejoiced in all things Budapest (days 8, 9, and 10), before spending fifteen glorious days in Croatia (days 11-14, days 15-19, days 20-21, and days 22-25).

We just wrapped three full days in Chania in Crete, and we received the biggest compliment of the trip: a local woman thought we were Greek! I tried to buy bananas in the supermarket without weighing them and putting the sticker on them first, and in Greek, she told me I needed to weigh the bananas, and Rich and I looked dumbly back at her. Then she said, in perfect English obviously, “Oh! I thought you were Greek!” We were thrilled and totally flattered.

Before I say too much more about our time in Crete, I want to recognize and pay respect to the national tragedy Greece has experienced while we were here: the Attica wildfires. While fires did break out in Crete, we were never anywhere near danger. The events are tragic and devastating, and our thoughts are with all of those who lost loved ones.

Day 26: Travel to Crete

Getting from Dubrovnik to Chania, Crete was quite the transportation undertaking that involved three buses, three flights, and a taxi. We left our AirBNB in Dubrovnik at 8:00 AM to arrive at our AirBNB in Chania at 11:45 PM. Whew!

A few highlights:

Airport Lounge Access. Both our American Express Platinum Card and the Chase Saphire Reserve (our favorite) come with access to Priority Pass lounges. We arrived at the Dubrovnik airport two hours before our flight out and were able to enjoy free coffee, pastries, bottled water, comfortable chairs, and WiFi. We also took advantage of the lounge in Rome to eat again. Eating in airports could be a major budget buster, and we did not spend a dime on food or water the entire day- beautiful.
We enjoyed several coffees and several desserts in the Dubrovnik lounge!

Lounge life in Rome. More coffee!
The Athens to Chania Connector. Due to an hour-long delay leaving Rome, our plane touched down in Athens five minutes before we were set to board our next flight. We are still figuring out when you have to go through customs and passport control and when you don’t so we thought there was a definite possibility we might miss our next flight. BUT luckily because Italy and Greece are both Schengen countries, we did not have to go through passport control, and we literally walked 100 meters from our arrival gate to our next departure gate.
Our fabulous AirBNB hosts. Our hosts in Chania met us at 11:45 PM and had fresh olives, cheese, and cherry tomatoes, along with a chilled bottle of white, waiting for us when we arrived. The unit was the nicest we have stayed in and felt like home immediately. We love AirBNB- if you haven’t signed up, you can do so here and get a $40 credit towards your first trip (and earn $20 for us too).

AirBNB Chania Crete — Our AirBNB living room in Chania, Crete

bed in airbnb chania crete — This bed was GLORIOUS after a long day of travel

Day 27: Exploring the town of Chania in Crete

After a busy travel day, we needed a slightly slower paced day. We slept in, then went for a run into town, explored a little, came home, blogged and planned a little, and then showered to go back out and explore some more. A note on the running: it was 97 degrees, and we saw not a single other human exercising. People were looking at us like the only place we could be running to or from was a psychiatric facility.

Chania is an ancient town on the sea complete with a centuries old lighthouse and many Greek Orthodox churches and mosques. We enjoyed winding in and out of the Old Town streets taking it all in.

Old Town fountain in Chania, Crete — The fountain in Old Town

Lighthouse in Chania, Crete — Rich with the Lighthouse in Chania

Lighthouse Stairs in Chania, Crete — Amanda on the Lighthouse Stairs

Rich mosque horse Chania Crete — Rich in front of the mosque (and a horse)

Day 28: Relaxing in Chania, Crete

Rich and I learned our running lesson the day before and just did an Aaptiv workout in the nice air conditioned apartment when we woke up. We then took advantage of the air and the WiFi to do some catch up and sit around with our coffee- a luxury that after being in at work before 7:00 AM each day for the past year doesn’t get old.

Rich found a really great museum for us to visit: The Greek National Football Museum. Every jersey, trophy, soccer ball, pair of shoes, you name it from every World Cup and Euro Cup Greece participated in was on display, and our guide knew his stuff. He was so excited and Rich was so excited to talk sports that it made me excited– which is overly evident in the picture I got to take with the EuroCup. The museum was free, so we tipped 2 euros because it was so fun.

national football museum crete — Rich looking normal holding Greece’s EuroCup Trophy at the Greek National Football Museum

Europcup trophy in Chania Crete — Amanda is invited to join the picture and looks *way too* excited. I’m not from Greece. I have never watched a EuroCup game. As the kids would say, I was pressed for what?

After the museum, we headed to the beach. Best news ever: the beach had real, honest to goodness, SAND. Resting on sand after spending days on rocky beaches in Croatia was glorious.

sand beach in Chania, Crete — A beach with SAND. WINNING.

We spent a few hours at the beach and then went home, showered, and got ready for dinner. Rich picked out To Koutourouki, the best restaurant in Chania with the lowest price point on TripAdvisor, and it was our second favorite meal of the trip, behind Mazel Tov in Budapest. Overall, this was a great day.

dinner in Chania Crete — This man loves food.

stuffed peppers in Crete — Stuffed Pepper appetizer

pork in Chania, Crete — Rich’s Pork Entree

stuffed eggplant in Chania, Crete — Amanda’s Stuffed Eggplant

eggplant in chania, crete — Amanda’s plate after devouring the stuffed eggplant. Hey, it was delicious. And a vegetable!

Day 29: The Samaria Gorge in Chania, Crete

After gorging on food (ha!), the night before we decided we would hike it off in the Samaria Gorge. My good friend Steph saw that we were in Crete and sent me an Instagram message (follow us!) saying we had to hike this. We originally didn’t have it on the agenda because it is in the south of Chania and we were in the north, but we found a way to string together two buses and a ferry to pull it off.

So here’s the deal: You take a 6:15 AM bus to the top of the gorge, and then you hike 13 kilometers (~8 miles) to a small town by the sea at the bottom. Then you take a ferry to another small town to hop on another bus to get back to Old Town Chania.

I had never been in a gorge, but it was, in fact, gorge (last gorge pun, I promise). In case your recall of earth science isn’t great, a gorge is a small path in a mountain or between two mountains that has been worn away over time by water. We walked on A LOT of rocks, and we also saw some terrain that was unlike any I had ever seen. My mom likes rocks and geology– she would have been all over this.

Top of Samaria Gorge in Crete — We started at the top of the gorge…

Samaria Gorge in Crete — Getting started.

While a fair amount of the hike was down, it was still challenging.

Samaria Gorge stairs in Crete — The first two kilometers were almost straight down.

Walk Fast Crete — Danger Falling Rock! Umm, walk fast?!?

bottom of Samaria gorge in Crete — Together at the bottom of the gorge

Oh yeah, and we saw a mountain goat! Rich was much more enthused about taking pictures of the goat than he almost ever is to take pictures of me (I told him I was going to include this– while he was taking pictures of a cat at dinner–and he said, yes, but I see you every day. How often do I see a mountain goat?)

mountain goat crete — Mountain Goat Selfie: Take 1

goat selfie crete — I retain a healthy skepticism towards animal selfies

We also climbed rocks.

rocks in Samaria, Crete — Rich on a far away rock

Rich on rock in Crete — Rich celebrating being on a rock

At the end of the hike, we enjoyed the most refreshing beer and took our shoes off. Heaven!

beer in Samaria in crete — Tired Rich with beer

beer in Crete — Super tired Amanda with post-hiking beer

The only real downside of the day was that we finished the hike around 12:45 PM, and our ferry didn’t arrive to pick us back up until 5:30 PM. We ate lunch in a local restaurant and looked at the spectacular blue coast, but five hours was still a lot of time to kill, and we were tired from staying up late at dinner the night before and, well, hiking 8 miles. When we got back to the AirBNB around 9:30 PM, we slept like babies.

rich on bench in crete — Tired Rich waiting for the ferry.

Samaria blue water in Crete — Some of the bluest water we have seen was in Samaria

samaria crete blue water — Not a bad view at the end of the hike…

Coming Soon: Rethymno, Crete!