Safe harbor
Chania,
Crete,
Greece
Friday, May 23, 2008
Escaped the gravitational pull of Athens early this morning. A minor boarding pass mix up has me scrambling back through the terminal to the sales and check-in desk while my plane is boarding, but by the time I have things in order and return to the gate, they have a small car waiting for me to whisk me out to the plane. Somehow I beat the bus and climb onto an empty plane. Very surreal sitting in an empty aircraft with the flight attendants. Soon the bus arrives, the plane fills and we land in Chania around 6.30. 15 hours later than I'd planned. Crete is around 200 km from Athens and it's been a 20-hour voyage.
Taller mountains here than anywhere else so far, rising up behind the medium-sized city. The old Venetian port quarter where I'm staying is a crowded jumble of 16th - 17th century buildings stacked along the small crescent of the harbor. The streets are almost empty when the cab drops me off in the square. The Doge Hotel is up a couple of blocks from the embankment on a street too narrow for traffic (a first, I think, in this country, where all streets have been too narrow for traffic but hold plenty regardless). No one answers my knock and I carry my bags back to the wharf where I find a cafe serving breakfast and enjoy my first actual meal since breakfast yesterday. A second knock on the hotel door at 8.30 is answered by a young woman who doesn't speak English, but ushers me through a small jewelry and gift shop into the reception area and hands me a key to my room, 5 flights up some dark stairs overlooking the narrow street. Shafts of morning sun filter through the closed shutters.
