Part 26: Spring Break Episode 4: Look Goats! April 12-14, 2012

We were in Crete by 9 am and boarded a bus that would get us to the bus station where we would then board another bus that would get us to the town our hotel was in.  The nice man at the airport bus stop didn’t mention that the bus to our town also stops at the airport, so we saw the airport in passing twice that day. 

We stayed in the town of Hersonissos, which has sold its soul to the tourism devil, but still, it’s on the ocean and that’s what we were there for anyway and it has a fantastic place to get ice cream.  Once we found our hotel, we took a brief nap (even though Q didn’t want us to) and then put on our sandals to check out the coastline.  On our way, we stopped at some shops in town.  T and I found some nice paintings and she got some soap too. 

We finally made it to the ocean, and the water was cold.  Still, we were there, so we all put our feet in.  We were mostly taking pictures.  Pictures of the sea….  Pictures of flowers….  Pictures of each other… when camera tragedy struck.  In an attempt to take a timed group shot, the wind blew T’s camera off of the pier.  It hit a rock, and it was pronounced dead soon after.  Luckily, her memory card was ok and she didn’t lose any pictures.  

We ate lunch at a place specifically catering to people from England and discussed our plans for the next day.   Additionally, we were debating how to insure that we had enough memory card space for the rest of our trip.  We put that on hold and went to the store for supplies and laundry soap.  Q finally washed his sweatshirt and his jeans (which turned the water brown).  I washed some socks, but the water was relatively unaffected by them.  J

Later that day, we found an internet café and after I ran back to our hotel to pick up cords for all of our digital devices, we managed to get all of our pictures onto flash drives and tablets so that my camera was ready for the rest of the trip.  Then we began looking up plans for the next day.  I really wanted to go to the Samaria Gorge.  However, after Q found a travel agent to talk to about it, we found out it was not open for the season yet (sometimes the internet can fail you).  So, we decided to rent a car and explore the island.  The travel agent recommended the Lassithi  Plateau. 

The next morning we set off on the windy roads (none of which have names, by the way) toward the Plateau.  It was the first time I had driven in almost 8 months, but luckily I my skill-set hadn’t deteriorated.  The plateau is about 7x4 miles and sits at an elevation of 2,760 ft.  It has really fertile soil and is used for farming.  It is surrounded by mountains and there is a cave. 

We got to Psychro Cave, the birth place of Zeus, around 10:30 am.  We started to climb up the mountain and were even offered a burrow ride by a man, which we turned down.  We get to the top and there is sign saying the cave opens at noon.  Thank you, burrow man, for letting us climb all the way up to the closed cave.  Anyway, we then walked back down and had some ice cream at the nearby restaurant to kill some time.  The owner gave us each a baked local potato to eat and sent us on our way.  We stopped at the car to put on shorts (because it was now hot), and climbed back up. 

In Greek mythology, this cave is the place where Amalthea, the nurse that Zeus’s mother put in charge, nurtured the infant Zeus with her goat's milk.  He was hidden here to protect him from his father Cronus.   Lucky for us, the cave was free that day since it was Orthodox Easter weekend.  You go down some steep steps see that the cave, which is dramatically lit (of course), has sort of a pond at the bottom and many stalactites and stalagmites.   

Once we were done at the cave, we decided to take the “very nice road” (according to the restaurant owner) across the mountains.  I had given up my driving responsibilities awhile ago, which was fine with me as the road was through the mountains.  We started climbing out of the plateau and saw goats!   Everywhere!  Goats, for some reason, make me happy.  They are probably not the brightest animals on the planet, but they always seem pleasant.  So, we drove on.  Looking at beautiful mountains and pleasant goats.  Then, the pavement ended.  In a valley.  Full of goats.  No people.  We decided we go on for a little bit and if the road didn’t come back, we would go back the way we came.

Luckily, the pavement reappeared a little ways down the road and we began to climb out of the valley.   Of course, that couldn’t be the last of our problems.  Soon, I noticed that I could smell the brakes.  Hmm, they were a little hot, so we pulled over and looked out over a large cliff.  We could even see a waterfall.  I guess if you have to stop, there are worse places. 

Soon, we set off again, making use of the lower gears of the car.  We drove through some little villages, stopped at a cemetery (it’s been my thing since my 8^th grade history trip to the town cemetery, weird, but true), a weird monument by a small, but elaborate church, we finally started to see the ocean again on the South side of the island.  This took hours, and Crete is not a big island.  There were a lot of mountains. 

We stopped at a beach somewhere near Ierapetra.  The water was cold and there was a lot of surf coming in.  I mostly just walked in the water and let the black sand smooth up my feet, but Q was all in.  We then got back in the car and drove up the narrowest part of Crete back to the north side of the island.  As we were driving we saw a really nice beach, so we turned around and drove back down to it.  The water was calm and no other people were around.  T decided she wanted to go in the ocean since she was here, so I said I’d go too.  We ran in, dunked our heads and then ran out.  It was really cold. 

We got back in the car and headed to Agios Nikolaos.  This is a nice town with an interested harbor “lake” that is relatively far inland.  There are a lot of restaurants around it and it’s were a lot of smaller boats are docked.  We basically grabbed some dinner here and headed back to Hersonissos.  It rained…A lot.  Then, the new road was closed so we had to take the old highway back.  However, we made it and I slept really well that night. 

The next morning, I took the rental car back and we packed up our stuff to go to Heraklion.  We caught the bus (got off at the airport this time) and stored our bags at the rather expensive left luggage place (I guess it made it for the left luggage place in Plovdiv being really cheap).  We then walked into Heraklion. 

We saw part of a town, the ocean, the industrial park, and finally made it to the bus station where we caught the bus to Minoan Palace of Knossos.  The sun was extremely wet that day and the rain was really bright.  It was raining and sunny at the same time and it was really unpredictable.  When we got to Knossos, it was pouring, so we stopped at a restaurant owned by a very Greek-looking man (tall, thin, long wavy hair, a bit scruffy).  The food was pretty good. 

After lunch it was no longer raining, so we went to the palace.  Once again, entry was free (thank you Easter).  This palace was first constructed in 1900 BC and was abandoned around 1300 BC.  It belonged to the Minoans, most associated with King Minos and his son, the Minotaur.  Also, the Minoans are the “bull leapers.”  Recreations of the painting depicting this act are really common.  However, according to the internet, trying to replicate the act as it is shown in the picture will mostly likely end in death as trying to grab a moving bull would be like getting hit by a car. 

Anyway, the palace was excavated by Arthur Evans in the early 1900’s.  He also partially reconstructed parts.  It was interesting, however, we got the feeling that Arthur just sort of went with what he thought sounded best.  Even the signs at the palace said, “according to Evans” and “Evans believed.”   To give you the short version, to Evans, everything is “sacred” and “ceremonial.”   While other sources I’ve looked at also said this was likely a ceremonial center, Evan’s named everything sacred.  By the end of the day we were joking about using the sacred toilets and going down the sacred sidewalk. 

We took the bus back to the city center of Heraklion and decided to do the walking tour from our maps.  First, we were destracted by a gelato place.  Then we got lost.  Finally we got back on track.  How you ask?  Well, it turns out that learning the Greek alphabet on the subway that first day in Athens paid off for T and me.  We could read the street signs and knew where to go.  We walked through downtown pedestrian areas and saw a nice lion fountain from the 1600’s, town hall (with lots of gross trash in the in courtyard), and a couple of churches.  One of which had some delicious smelling leaves all over the floor.  T stole one. 

Then we went got to the harbor.  The harbor has the Venetian fortress, Koules, dominating it.  The structure mostly likely dates from 1523, when the Venetians were doing a lot of “protect the city” building.  We couldn’t go in, but the outer walls are 9m thick and the inside has 26 rooms, including a jail.  We did decide to walk to the end of the pier. 

It was a long way.  Probably close to a mile, if not over.  We also picked up a little dog friend that joined us.  When we got to the end, we had to jump down from a ledge and he was too scared.  T kept trying to grab him, and she finally goes, “It’s ok.  I can do this,” as though he could understand. She eventually got hold of him and got him down.  Then, he was her best friend.  As we walked back, he eventually left us for someone else, which is probably good, since we were starting our walk back to the airport to catch out flight to Thessaloniki. 

To be continued…. again……