Aegean Palace Hotel Platanias

... irresistible to leave and we spent all day on the beach, or in the water, lunching at a hill top café looking out over the small cove surrounded by cliffs that forms Matala. The cliffs have natural caves which people climb up to and leap from into the water. Matala beach has plenty of cafes and shops to rehydrate on beer, wine, water or gelati. It was another hot day, and did not cool down till late afternoon as we were leaving. There ...

... for was small, but there were no other options available, so we folded down the back seat to put in our luggage, wondering how we would all fit in next Friday when we drove to Iraklio. Observing the traffic in Greece is bad enough but driving in it is a nightmare, especially in a small left hand drive manual Kia Picante. It wasn't a pleasant drive, as we had close shaves from time to time taking the main highway to Rethymnon. The speed ...

... necessary as well, as the sun gets brutally hot in the gorge as the day gets later. Along the way, there were some cool curiousities such as abandoned settlements and ruined stone buildings. Apparently the Samaria Gorge was also a key place for refugees to escape to during the battle of Crete. We caught sight of a couple mountain goats, this breed being one that apparently only lives in Samaria Gorge. Another fixture of the hike was the donkey station ...

... stores with an underwhelming waterfront. We were glad in a way that we had gone though, if only to affirm that Chania was the best city to stay in. We got back to Chania for another late dinner -people eat so freaking late in Europe...I even saw a woman in sequinned booty shorts pushing a baby carriage around 11pm. Anyway, we went to bed early, but still dead tired, to get up for the 7:30am bus to Samaria Gorge.

August 18

The ferry ride to Crete was 8 hours, almost as long as my flight from the US to Athens. My still terrible jetlag caused me to attempt to sleep in the corner of a hallway for half the trip, and upn arrival, I went to sleep almost immediately. Although I'm a bit cross that that means one day of my already short stay has been frittered away, I can already tell that Chania is worth it. I woke up far too early and went to ...

Eventually left Rhodes at 5am, and luckily found a nice spot on the top floor, to lay our sleeping bags and get a fine uninterrupted sleep.

Slow slow journey, stopping at Karpathos, Kassos and in Crete at Sitia, before landing at Heraklion just after 6pm. A swift walk to the bus station, we caught a ...

... a day, so it must be a steady stream of people on the trail. There are several rest areas along the way, where you can have your lunch, and numerous toilets and ground water springs to fill your water bottles. The first leg has many rocky switchbacks that take you into the bottom of the gorge, a decent of 1000 metres. The trail was very rocky and rough, and many of the rocks were worn down to the point of being slippery. We were surprised by the various types of ...

To my little sister

- And jealous? :p Oh we really should have brought Ollie with us - so many cats to play with! What do you think mum & Babe would think if I brought one (Cesar) home? *g* Lots of love from sunny Crete

Sis & Eve

~*~

To Tini

-As promised a card from our next destination. Still on crete but 2,5 hours further on ...

... sitting here :o) It took quite a feet to get here though. I Malame we had to wait at leats an hour for our bus. Every busdriver that passed in a bus said "the next bus!" We wondered if we ust imagined reading about the bus to Kastelli. We wlaked to the next bus station when - finally- a helpful man from the bus told us it wouldn't be here for another 20 minutes.

Our hotel was a nice place to stay these couple of weeks. Not far from the beach, and the service was excellent. Outside the hotel there were two swimming pools, - a big one and a small one for the small children. The rooms were ok. The room I stayed in had one bedroom with a double bed, and a livingroom/kitchen in one.