Crete Walks

We bought Geoff Needle's book "Crete Walks in the Apokoronas" at Mediterraneo Books in Chania and today Grier took walk number 21, through the countryside around Stylos. It took awhile to get used to distances given in meters, and also to decipher statements like "Continue 190m to a junction with a track ahead bearing right, a tarmac lane going right uphill bearing right, water standpipe 318 in the far left corner, and a tarmac lane going left downhill which you take." Huh? What was that again?

Stylos is famous for it's fresh water springs and is where Samaria water is bottled. When you order water in a tavern, it'll be Samaria. The walk started at the bottling plant, continued through the town into to countryside, to the mouth of the nearby Diktamos gorge, up and down and up some hills to a small unnamed village where there was a blessed carob tree to rest under out of the midday sun. The walk then wound back down to Stylos and to dakos, wild greens, and a Coke at the Tavern of the Mustached Man under the one of the big plane trees that line the road through town.

Here are some pics, including a water standpipe, in this case standpipe 317, and the shady carob tree (see if you can spot the basketball hoop).

Whew!

We have been very busy and haven't had a chance to write for about two weeks. We moved into our house in Stavros then our niece Andi came for a visit and stayed for 12 days. We went on many exploratory voyages with St. Lucy. We got lost and ended up on some incredible roads. We Went to some incredible beaches and ate lots of tzaziki, Greek salad, fresh fried potatoes, and lots of other fresh food, wine, raki,... Andi is back in Sweden now and we are missing her, which in turn is making me miss all our friends back home. Hmm, looks like I better get busy again before I get too sad.

The wind is calming down a bit, the cicadas are humming or rather screaming loudly and Grier is cooking on the out door grill. We're using briquettes until we get a tutorial on using wood. Grier needs me to set the table, so I'll get busy with that.

Done. Took a picture of the table and Grier cooking. Now I'm going to post some pictures that we have been saving to put on the blog. There are a few of the house after we got moved in, and then mostly of our various excursions with Andi. There are a couple pictures of our guest room just so you know it actually exists. take care, Yasas!

St. Lucy Arrives

St. Lucy arrived by ferry from Athens on Friday. We got a ride to the port at Souda Bay, drove onto the ferry and there she was. She started and we drove her off and then to the customs house where something happened for a couple hours, I signed some papers and paid 25 euro. Then we drove back to Stavros. We measured the archway at the house where we will be staying and she fits under it, also she fit under the carport so all looks good on that front.

We took her on her first official travel yesterday. We went up a lovely canyon south of Chania called Theriso, had lunch at a small mountain town at the head of the canyon under the shade of a huge mulberry tree. Then back down the canyon where we stopped by the road to have a nap in the back of St. Lucy. Very exiting to be able to take a nap.

Today we stayed home to relax. There was a fund raiser at the apartments where we are staying. They had a band playing oldies. Made me home sick.

Grier is napping and the wind is blowing again. I think the wind and napping are becoming pattern.