Crete

Trip Start May 05, 2008
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Trip End May 09, 2009


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Saturday, September 6, 2008

After a long ferry ride, we arrived in Heraklion which looks like a miniature version of Athens complete with excellent shoping, crummy modern buildings, noise and dust.  At the port, we met a similar couple with backpacks and all.  The kindly asked us if they could follow us to our hotel since they did not book any accommodations.  ogether we looked for our hotel while sharing a conversation.  The other couple happened to be an architect and an engineer from Austria who have been together for as loong as we have! So we invited them to join us for dinner after getting settled into our rooms.  We had a great time together, especially after trying ouzo! Opa!

The next day we went to the beach in Malia, about 30 km east of Heraklion.  Malia is like a Brit version of Daytona beach.  It is so overrun by British tourists between 18 and 25 that you forget that you are in Greece.  On the way to the beach, we saw clubs, British pubs, restaurants, arcades, shops, newstands and ATVs all geared to the Brit youth, it felt kind of eerie.  The beach was overcrowded and Eurotrash music was blaring from the beach clubs Ferry
Ferry
 .  It was fun but not the quiet and serene beach we were looking for. 

We spent the next day at the palace of Knossos, the largest Minoan find.  In 1900, the British archaeologist Arthur Evans discovered the ruins and reconstructed parts of the site according to his theories of what the palace must have looked like.  Although his reconstruction is largely disputed, it gives visitors an idea of what the palace must have looked like.  It also helped us imagine what the ruins at Phaestos, south of Heraklion, must have looked like when we visited this site the next day.  Before visiting this site we also visited a cute little town called Zaros.  After visiting the ruins we went to a rather deserted beach with crystal clear waters which still retained its marine life.

Our next island hop is the beautiful island of Santorini. 
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