Kydon Chania

... reaching its greatest power in the 4th Century BC. The site has a range of interesting artefacts including (from later periods) Roman cisterns, a Venetian monastery and a Turkish fort.

We continued on to Souda Bay to the war graves, a very moving place maintained beautifully by the Commonwealth Commission. It's peaceful now but the around 1500 graves are from soldiers who died defending Crete from a German invasion, mainly in May 1941. Alison ...

... 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 – ...

... I have been most excited about.

The Samaria Gorge is the longest natural gorge in Europe (9 miles, I think?) before ending at the ocean on the southern coast of Crete. It felt like longer than that, but perhaps that was because of the rocky terrain, which kept our eyes firmly on the ground as we descended from the top of the mountain to the level part of the gorge. The hike was absolutely gorgeous--gorges (we're hilarious...). Taking the 7:30am bus was ...

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 ...

... a while but I am really ready and looking forward to it! Flying into Vancouver next wednesday then somehow getting over to Victoria where will meet dad, Lena and Karen then on friday mom is arriving! oh man it is going to be so much fun! then on sunday we are all flying home together! Which I think is really nice!

So thats about it have to get out in that sunshine to keep up my dark tan ;-)) Life is so hard!!!

... how lucky am I to be Canadian where I am allowed to walk free and where I don't get harassed and where I don't have to ask for permission for anything. it's weird and freaky and good and bad all at the same time. I don't knwo what else to say it messes your ehad a little bit and makes you sad at the same time. And then you think wow maybe you take everything for granted you travel around europe by yourself having good and bad things happen but at least you have the choice.

ok so I have gone this long in my life and hear I am thinking how WONDERFUL life is sitting in the shade of a olive trea feet up on another chair reading an engaging book sipping on Ouzo and coke and then BAM sharp pain in ALMOST my arm pit! AGHHHHH I YELP a high pitch EEEE into the air jumping out of my seat slapping at myself profusly (thinking a nasty spider has copme along dropped on me bitten me and is now in my dress) but NO look into where the pain was (hard ...

... are sitting on a terrace sipping fresh orange juice, enjoying baklava and listening to Grecian radio. Nex t week we will try to take a ferr to Italy so whish us good luck! I hope you are well and not becoming too jealous *g*

~*~

SMS from mum

- Liesel are you wlaking through the (Samarian) Gorge now? At the end you can take a boat. Love mama

... 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.

... 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 ...