Crete in three parts (The People, The Food, The Places)

New Pictures!

I arrived in Crete at 5:30am. Overnight ferry rides, although better than their railroad counterpart, are not meant for sleep. For ninety percent of the passengers, the eight hour ride is a chance for a caffeine and nicotine induced frenzy! Drum circles and dancing in the hallway and raucous card games accompanied by 20 Euro bottles of “house wine”! Or, if you are silly enough to try to get some sleep, a dark room where fore-mentioned sounds are slightly muffled by the lawnmower sleeping in the bunk next to you.

Upon arrival in the port of Heraklion, I waddled along the dark waterfront and made my way to the central square. The good thing about a regular ferry arriving at 5:30am is that some cafes are smart enough to be open for sleepwalkers like me. I grabbed a cappuccino and some bougatsa (don’t ask…I’m not really sure what it was other than tasty!) and drowsily watched the bunches of tourists file past to their hotels, already being forced to listen to historically jargon spit out by their guide. Around 8:30, I was picked up by my guide, a fantastic woman, and family friend. After depositing my gear in the flat, she proceeded to take me to her bookshop where I had maps and guidebooks thrown at me from all directions. I have to stop for a second and laugh because this moment seems stereotypically Greek to me. Picture three middle-aged Greek women sitting in a creaky old bookshop smoking and chatting about the latest gossip. They great me as a member of the family and quickly brief me on what is worth seeing on their island. And I take their word for it.

Okay…so, I almost feel bad making this analogy but you really have to imagine “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” to completely understand how this next part worked…it was amazing. Shortly after 9pm, I’m ushered out the door and into the cobbled street. We are off to dinner. But not just any dinner, a Greek dinner. What is a Greek dinner? Picture a table piled with so many dishes and glasses that you don’t know where to start and then add a waiter that keeps coming back to replace them. Cheeses and salads, cooked greens and fish, calamari and mussels with rice, bruchetta and tzaziki, baklava and flan, custard and Turkish pastries. I can’t even remember it all, just that it was delicious. The trend of stuffing me to the maximum was continued throughout each meal over the next few days. It was definitely worth the kilo gained.

Greek island are like snowflakes. There are many, and they are all unique in their own way. Santorini, with it’s incredible mountain high town is just one of these fantastic spots of rock. The town is balanced on the plateau of island, divided by a volcano. Just the bus ride from the ferry port was worth the trip. Once you make it past the mobs of rental car hawkers that is. I wouldn’t drive a car up that road if you paid me. To view the artistic dance of buses as they weaved their way up and down the steep cliff, millimeters from the edge and the micrometers from the cliff face was incredible! Santorini is known for it’s wine and I have no complaints. They also have a peculiar way of growing the vines. As you make your way to the city center, you drive past fields of what look like bird nests on the ground. They actually grown the vines in circles…don’t ask me why.

I’d like to end their dissertation by posing a question…how do Greeks keep their buildings so nice and white?