Geraniotis Beach Platanias

... Jewish settlers brought in from Venice. The owner/waiter was a little rude, more intent on flirting with two middle aged blonde women of indeterminate origin, than serving us. The meal was fine though.

Our driving has improved – Chris navigates and Kevin drives in a much more relaxed manner than our earlier expeditions, negotiating the narrow, crowded streets even overtaking slower drivers on the motorway. A far cry from ...

... person per day that would have been a lot for an unknown, and would stop us from trying the local cuisine.

The apartment has most of the usual facilities, and the toilet is the usual Greek affair – don’t flush the toilet paper, which is guaranteed to affect the bowel habits of any delicate western person used to flushing with abandon.

We wandered around the local area till we found a genuine supermarket – ...

... Greek buses-my neck actually kept whipping up as I slept on a later bus to Heraklion. Needless to say, I will not miss Greek public transportation). Once we got to the top of the mountain, we got out of the bus only to be assailed by a lot of unpleasant wind. Some ***** who we dubbed the Last of the Samarians kept making us move to the back of the line because Courtney hadn't put her sneakers on yet. Then we were finally off on the part of the Greece trip ...

We ended up taking a bus to a town called Rethmynos to see this big old fortress with a mosque and a church within it, overlooking the water. It was interesting enough, but then we headed to the main part of town, which our "trusty" Lonely Planet had referred to as the second most charming city in Crete. I can only come to the conclusion that Crete is full of some **** cities. It was a weird ghost town full of ...

... beach is where the final scene of a movie called "Zorba the Greek" was filmed, which according to IMDB, is about an uptight British man who's life is changed by a free spirited Greek named Zorba. Apparently the tagline is "life, lust, love..Zorba." We're thinking a remake with Brenden as the uptight Brit and Jimmy as Zorba. Anyway, Courtney began her first step in a long, long journey of not being irrationally scared of fish in the ocean.

... bus bound for Chania.

Arrived in Chania after 9pm, and made our way to the Spirit Lounge, where we met up with Debra, Willie and Neasa and collected the keys to our Splantzia townhouse!! Enjoyed a few draught lagers and a burger before retiring to the house. Been on the go for some 30+ hours !!!

... was okay. Good thing the coastal scenery was so gorgeous! On all of our hikes, we kept smelling a terrible plant growing in the underbrush. Gail thought it smelled like sour milk, Matt thought of cat urine, David thought decaying flesh, and Judy thought it was just unpleasant. For our last day in Sougia, we did the famous hike in the Samaria Gorge, Europe's longest at 18 km. We had planned on taking the bus to the top of the gorge, but discovered it hadn't begun its season ...

... through the close, winding streets built long ago to accommodate donkeys and people. We enjoyed the freedom of being in pedestrian areas, where the shops and buildings were quaint and full of character. There were attractive doors and windows around every corner. Getting out of old Chania was a LOT easier than getting in! We drove north up to the peninsula where we visited two very old ...

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.