Greece - Crete

October 8-10

Crete, Greece was spectacularly beautiful. Our pictures don’t even do it justice, but I’ll put them up anyway! We ended up staying in a little town on the eastern side of the island called Agios Nikolous, and we’re so glad we made the trip over there.  We arrived very early in the morning, and found this old Venetian Port right by where we came in:

We then hopped on a bus over to Agios Nikolous, and this was one of the first scenes that greeted us:

We had lunch overlooking the lagoon, which,, according to mythology, is where Athena used to take baths. Apparently they used to think the lagoon was bottomless, but discovered otherwise when Jacques Cousteau explored it (he’s the only person ever to go in the lagoon, other than Athena of course).

View from lunch

The whole walk to our cute little hotel was so picturesque, we (almost) didn’t even mind how lost we got because we got to enjoy the views for longer!

Our hotel was lovely, we loved being able to stay in one spot for two nights in a row, plus how could we not love it when we woke up to this view?!

We had so much fun just exploring the town, relaxing, and being tourists :)

Random shop in Crete

I don't know the significance of the bull because the sign was in Greek, but we had to get a picture.

One thing I have to say about Greece is that there are stray dogs everywhere. Near our hotel there was an unofficial humane society (abandoned structure) with probably 20 dogs just hanging out and barking at whoever walked by. Now Thomas and I love dogs, and they were all surprisingly clean and well behaved, but it was a little heartbreaking to see all these cute dogs with no homes. Unfortunately the ferries don’t allow dogs on board, otherwise Max and Zoe might have had a little surprise waiting for them when they get to England!

On our way back to the main port in Heraklion, we stopped off at the Crete Aquarium. I won’t bore you with all of my sea creature pictures (I always take too many at aquariums), so here are my favorites:

Does this underbite remind you of someone?

Do you see the resemblance?! :)

This creepy guy was smiling at me

Our last stop was in Knossos, Crete, which is where there are ancient Minoan ruins. The palace that was here had over 1,200 rooms and was built thousands of years ago. It’s been partially restored, but it’s crazy to think that we are looking at something that was created so long ago.

What the palace used to look like - crazy!

We had some time to kill before our boat left, so we sat and enjoyed the beautiful blue water.

The beautiful view without us messing it up!

We were going to take the ferry from a port in Greece to Ancona, Italy tonight and then take the train to Rome…but that ferry doesn’t run today (of course). So we decided to take the ferry to Venice instead since that leaves tonight! It takes a little bit longer, and changes our itinerary a little, but since we don’t have concrete plans anyways, it doesn’t really mess us up!

Originally I wanted to fit all of these cities into the Italy part of our trip: Florence, Rome, Venice, Tuscany, Milan, and Pompeii. I then realized I was being a little overzealous, so we narrowed it down to Venice, Rome, and Milan.  I really want to visit Tuscany (and the rest of them), but now we leave some options for if we want to go back to Italy later. Or if anyone wants to meet us in Italy ;)

Greece - Athens

October 6-7, 2010

We made it to Athens! We got in at night, and it was so pretty to see everything all lit up. This is a hotel at Syntagma Square, which is pretty much in the middle of Athens (a.k.a tourist central).

We stayed at a hostel the first night, which was a little rough but we’re glad we tried it. It was fun to talk to all the young people staying there – there were people from lots of different countries, and it was helpful to get advice and sightseeing ideas from them.

The next morning we set out to sightsee in Athens, and it was a beautiful day to do so! We decided to bypass the busses (we’ve found the language barrier here to be a little rough) and just walk everywhere. We first came across the stadium they used for the 2004 Olympics – it fits right in with the other Grecian architectural style!

Next we spotted the Parthenon (hard to miss) so headed in that direction. On the way we got to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus (not too much left there, unfortunately) and the Arch of Hadrian.

Temple of Zeus remains

You can see the Parthenon in the background of the Arch of Hadrian – it’s small, but cool!

We had lunch in the Plaka quarter, which was a maze of streets lined with cute shops, restaurants, and cafes. We had our first taste of authentic Greek food and it was delicious!!

In the Plaka quarter – this is what I imagine when I think of Greece!

Next, we made it to the Acropolis and the Parthenon! The Acropolis is the base of the Parthenon, which is described as “a natural fortress, which attracted the earliest people to settle the site of modern Athens”. It was pretty impressive in itself, especially the Theater of Herodes Atticus, which is built into the south slope of the Acropolis.

Thomas and I on the way up to the Parthenon – Athens barely in the background on the right

The Parthenon was impressive, even with all the restoration construction materials going on inside and around it. The views of Athens from up there were stunning as well!

We wandered around Athens for a little bit and found the Greek Parliament building and the “Prison of Socrates”. Tradition has it Socrates was imprisoned here, although I’m not sure they actually believe that. 

Greek Parliament building

"Prison of Socrates"

 We then took a scenic tour back to our hostel (meaning we got lost), packed up our stuff, and decided to try and catch a ferry to the Greek island of Cretes that night. We luckily got tickets, caught the metro to the port of Piraeus (which a very dull/trashy place), and got on our ferry! I was picturing a small boat thrashing around on the 8.5-hour trip to Crete, and having a repeat of our seasick honeymoon sunset dinner cruise. However, we got lucky when we found our “ferry” to be this:

It certainly made for a much more enjoyable trip!

Thomas enjoying the ferry trip!

On the ferry boat 

The one drawback to Greece is that they do not allow you to flush toilet paper in the toilet. It’s weird. And gross.

Hopefully Crete isn’t like that, but we’ll find out! J