Days 20 & 21

Day 20 - Rethymno

We found our way to the Arkadi monastery 20 km outside of Rethymno. One of the most important sites in Crete or Greek history, was originally constructed in 500AD and later rebuilt in the 1500's. This was the site of a battle between the monks and their families against the Pashma of the Turkish Ottoman empire in 1866. The story goes the the Turks demanded surrender of the monastery on November 9, 1866 but the Greeks refused causing, what the Greeks call "the holocaust". Thousands of Turks besieged the monastery killing all but 150, but before the end of the battle the women, children and elderly locked themselves in the powdery. When the Turks penetrated the heavy Venetian doors, the Greeks lit the fuse igniting the powder killing over 1800 Turks. To this day one of the most celebrated holidays in Greece in November 9. 

After visiting the monastery, we perused a small cretan village where we purchased some lavender oils and visited the local museum. Everything in the museum was donated by the families of the village, an entrance fee of 1.50 Euro was charged and all money goes to the village. We arrived back home in the late afternoon and set out in search of a market to buy food for dinner. Everything was closed on Sundays, so it was a little difficult to find food but we managed. We went back to the apartment, cooked dinner, drank more local wine and stayed in for the night. The first time in our entire vacation that we did so. 

Day 21

This was the day that we were to take our cretan cooking workshop! We were picked up from a local cafe and taken to a part of Rethymno called Antsipopolous. We met with a family who owned a small taverna and the mother taught us how to cook a variety of authentic local cuisine. It was just us and a French woman who barely spoke English and Krista was able to translate in her broken French. After cooking a plethora of meals we sat down at 3pm and ate our accomplishments. It was a fun day, surrounded by a family of friendly Greek people. We were driven back to our apartment, cleaned ourselves up and headed for the beach. Still full from a very late lunch, we baked in the sun for an hour or so and retired to our room for another hour. The sun went down and we headed out to shop! Krista bought a beautiful dress, shoes and a local necklace while I hummed and hawed purchasing a Fred Perry windbreaker. Gotta love European clothes!