Days 18 & 19

Day 18 - Heraklion

Today we went to the Palace of Knossos, home of the mythological Minotaur. We woke up late, after the lovely evening we had the night before, we wanted to take our time getting out and about. This place comes alive at night, but at around 3am gets eerily quiet. We slept with the window open last night and fell asleep to the sounds of the Heraklion nights: the chatter and laughter of the locals, the cars whizzing by on the streets below and music off in the distance. 

We went back to the bus stop and found the Knossos bus, this place is so easy to get around in! The bus was marked "Knossos". We made the leisurely drive, stopping to pick up more passengers and had a brief tour of the city. It took us about 20 minutes to get there. We entered the palace and looked around, it was kinda cool. After seeing so many beautiful ruins, this was underwhelming. Although it was nice to be in a place that was over 5000 years old, the archeologist that uncovered this back in the late 1800's, restored it to his own imagination. You could still see the original stonework and layout of the building, but on top
he recreated it in pieces based on what he thought. He used concrete, wood and stone, he even recreated frescoes. The palace was huge and it was apparently situated between 2 streams and the sea was steps away. This made for a fertile growing area. We left Knossos, boarded the next bus and hit up the Fortezza. Crete been invaded by many different countries but they embrace this, unlike other islands. The Fortezza was built in the 1500's and was used to guard the port. It still stands as it were, buy we're unable to go inside. After the Fortezza it was time to hit the shops! We went up and down and around even finding a Fred Perry outlet, and
bought some things to take back home. Krista found some nice things while I went away empty handed (the Fred Perry outlet sizes were either too big or to small...boo!) and it was time to eat some mezes!

All that walking, bussing shopping and picture taking worked up an appetite! We were told that this place called Ippocambo (Seahorse) was the place to go, the other night we tried to find it, walked an hour in 2 directions only to see that it was just a block away from our hotel.
We took a seat across the busy road aand ordered our food. We had beets, calamari, meatballs, tzatziki, chick pea patties, bread and wine. It was great! I think the best thing about the experience was watching the servers play frogger with the food! Not one plate was dropped. They served us a complimentary desert of ice cream, strawberry cheesecake and chocolate. Mmmm! We paid our bill (to-la-gha-riaz-mo, para-kolo) the bill please, said thank you, that was delicious (ef-ha-ri-stow, i-tan-no-sti-mo-ta-to) and zig zagged back to our room at Kronos Hotel. We fell asleep soon after our heads hit the pillows, it was 11pm.  

Day 19 Heraklion to Rethymno

We had an early morning breakfast at our hotel and zipped to the bus station. This country has the best busses and they are cheap! We were planning on taking taxis everywhere and budgeted accordingly, but now were saving money and traveling in comfort. We found our bus, met a 60 year old Irish woman who married a 30 year old Moroccan man, who proceeded to tell us all her troubles on our 90 minute ride. Dammit! I just got a new book I wanted to read. We made it to the station, strapped on our packs and headed in the general direction of our Afroditi
apartment rental. It used to be the French Embassy. We found it easily, asking locals on the way and checked it. We met the owner who showed us to our room and gave us some white wine, it was fantastic! Sadly, we just missed the 2 week wine festival but were still reaping the benefits. We settled in, and went out for some booze and salads, gotta eat your greens. We found a quiet place and enjoyed an inexpensive meal right on the sea front, it's all about the sea front. After all, isn't that why you come to the Med? We had lunch and explored the town a bit. We found a little travel agent, booked our remanding ferries and a Cretan cooking class! More later! We went back to the room and had a nap. 

When we woke, we cleaned ourselves up and went out in search of dinner. We found a place, rather, the place found us. Maria's restaurant on the harbour. 10th best in Crete, so said a magazine article plastered on the outside podium. We were sold on it by it's charm and owner. I wanna call him peg leg the pirate Pete, but his name was Nico. The restaurant was picturesque. Located right on the Venetian harbour, they sat us on the second floor balcony overlooking everyone and the harbour. We ordered calamari, wine, prawns, white fish, seasonal greens, potatoes and......LOBSTER!!! The best (and most expensive)  meal so far. Musicians played on the harbour, fish were jumpin and people filled the seats below. Very romantic. 

We paid our bill and were off to stroll through the town, we found an outdoor cinema that was playing Transformers 3, said why not and enjoyed a movie under the stars. I love my wife and my life...what a superb night!