Three Day Weekend

Even though St. Lucy is not here yet, we got started on some travels. Maybe we'll have St. Lucy by next weekend, all the paper work is finished and she is in Athens. So maybe sometime this next week she will arrive by ferry. On Friday we had a windy, cloudy, hot day, as well as rain. The wind came from the south and brought red dust and heat and then it rained, so we had mud rain. Even with the rain the air has remained somewhat murky all weekend.

On Saturday we went to Chania to the archeological museum and then to the ship building museum where they have the boat that was built like a Minoan boat and then sailed to Athens at the beginning of the Olympics in 2004. The first 4 pictures are from Saturday. The first is a turkish fountain in the courtyard of the Archeological museum, then Chania harbor, and the boat. The museum was great, many beautiful pots, Suzanna could have stayed there all day.

On Sunday we headed west from Chania along the seashore. We spent the day driving through hills just south of the Rodhopou peninsula looking at old churches. The tiny white one is from the 10th century, the other tiny one is14th century. The one with the dome is from around 600, the oldest in Crete, just the dome part is old, other stuff has been added. Then we went to see the oldest olive tree on Crete. It's over 3000 years old. They took a branch from that tree to make victory wreaths for the Olympics and brought it to Athens on the Minoan boat. There are also a coupe of pictures of Ma and Pa Jefferis, not quite the oldest Ma and Pa on Crete, but we're working on it. Our hair looks grayer in pictures that in real life for sure. One picture with Suzanna in archway, and one with Grier in front of St. John the Hermit's cave house. Grier is thinking he might like to live there. the cave church is at St. John's hermitage. Suzanna was tempted by the bells at the St. John hermitage and just had to ring them. They provide ropes and they hang on the out side of the churches so it seems like they want you to ring them. They sound lovely, but maybe it was not such a good idea, the care taker showed up just as we were leaving, he didn't say anything to us, but...

Monday we hiked down to the monastery of Katholiko which was abandoned 300 years ago and has a church in a cave and an arched bridge over the ravine, then we hiked down to the water.

We looked again at the stone house in Stavros today and decided to rent that one. Hers's a few more pictures of it. So we'll be walking to the beach. There is also an outdoor grill at this house large stone patios and a stone fence around the yard to keep the cats corralled. Ah and yes there is a very nice guest room!