A deeper look into our Greece trip:
At one point I was thinking I'd like to see Greece via a cruise so that I could visit multiple islands. But the more I looked into it, the less likely that seemed. Most cruises in that area include Istanbul and Rome, which we've already seen. I wasn't interested in repeats. Not to mention, cruises take a bit of advanced planning, and deployment dates and block leave weren't finalized until a few months ago.
So I decided to take advantage of a cheap Ryanair flight (direct!) to the island of Crete... that big one on the bottom right. We spent a full week relaxing and enjoying the island and its beaches.
Crete is the biggest of the Greek islands. There is one 'highway' that runs along the north coast. There are a few cities [we stayed in Rethymno--right in the middle of the two big cities on the north coast] and a lot of countryside.
We rented a car so we could get around the island, and the first night when we drove to the hotel in the dark at midnight I was kind of regretting it. Everything was dark (we had no clue the ocean was literally a stone's throw away) and it took forever to find the actual hotel. But once we were settled, and we looked around with the sun up, it worked out perfectly. Tiago was even able to take several naps while we explored. Nothing is too far in distance, but because of narrow, windy roads sometimes it takes a while to get from A to B. One funny thing we found with the driving is that the 'highway' is one lane in each direction, but drivers treat it like 3 or 4. So if the car in front of you is slow, you just pass... even if that means going into oncoming traffic.
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| Our rental car & the narrow (kind of trashy) street that led to our hotel. |
We took our GPS along because it works throughout Europe. But it was crazier than usual. One issue was that places rarely have addresses. For example, the airport didn't have an address that we could put into our GPS. (We found coordinates, but our GPS doesn't work using coordinates.) A lot of places are on "unnamed roads", and I think the GPS used a lot of the Greek names of roads/cities instead of English, so we never knew what to enter. In the end, we mostly followed a normal map. It was kind of refreshing.
Our GPS did take us on one crazy adventure. While driving back from Elafonissi beach, we failed to see a sign telling us to turn, so we ended up off track. I looked at the map, and saw that the road would eventually loop back and connect to the road we wanted, so we kept driving. Then the GPS told us to turn. so we turned. The road got more and more narrow, with a cliff on one side. We were praying no cars would come the other direction.
And then.... the road just ended. Nothing in front of us. Thanks GPS. Technology fail.
The first time we drove around in the daylight, I was literally taking pictures every two minutes because the views were amazing. (Most of them turned out blurry, with random bushes or signs blocking the view, but those are now deleted!) The main road runs right along the water, and once we turned inland, there were beautiful mountains and valleys to drive through. We saw goats and several "falling rock" warnings.
Inland car pictures, plus a "falling rocks" area. Glad the netting was up!
While many of the goats were random, this one was not. We stopped at a random stand on the side of a road that was selling honey and jelly (yum!) and also had a goat. (And shepherd?)
The weather in Crete was very cooperative; I was afraid it would be rainy. The first two days we were there, it was a little overcast at times, but pleasant. It never got
too hot, like when you feel like a melting popcicle. Just warm enough to want to swim but also okay sitting on the sand comfortably.
sunnier!
The buildings and neighborhoods reminded me a bit of Latin America. A lot of them were cute, but they were interspersed with crumbling buildings, random signs, and little storefronts.
Crete (and maybe Greece in general) has a lot of cats. They were at the hotel, on the beach, and all over the streets.
Our hotel was on the beach, which was great. I had visions of one of us hanging out on the beach while Tiago was back in the room napping. It
kind of worked out that way, but it seemed like the days we were hanging around at the hotel Tiago didn't want to nap. Of course. But it
was convenient! We could watch the sun set on the ocean, then rise a few hours later. (Or to clarify, Hyrum could watch the sun rise. I never wake up that early naturally.)
sunset
sunrise
The view from our room:
I didn't think to take pictures of the inside until the last morning, when Hyrum was still asleep...
And a few pictures of Tiago in the sink where he loved to bathe. And drink.
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