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.

The Winds of Crete

We should have been suspicious when the first book about Crete that we found at the Book Stop was Winds of Crete by David MacNeil Doren. Yes, windy today, yesterday, the day before yesterday, ... Writing about Crete's climate in his book Flowers of Crete, Yanoukos Istridis tells us some of the the names of "... the prevailing winds which always seem to be at work in Crete. A moist wind known as POUNENTIS comes from the Atlantic, the hot and dry SIRROCO blows from the Sahara, and the cold VORIAS streams down from the Adriatic Sea and beyond. There are also several other winds rolling unhindered over the sea from all directions including the ESESIOI winds from the Greek mainland, the LEVANTIS from Asia Minor, and the MELTEMI from Central Asia."

This past weekend we traveled to Santorini, leaving early Saturday morning and returning late Monday evening. In spite of discovering a flat tire on our rental car the first thing Saturday morning, we made the bus to Iraklion, and the Flying Cat 4 to Santorini. The trip out on the Flying Cat 4 is best left undescribed, saying only that it is rough seas indeed when one of your souvenirs is a barf bag from Hellenic Seaways.

Santorini is a busy beehive of tourism. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco; we left our money in Santorini. In Fira, the town on the cliff overlooking the caldera, we visited several good museums including the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Prehistoric Thira. We used the excellent, inexpensive, bus system to visit the archeological site of ancient Akrotiri on the South side of the island and, in the evening, we bused to the North side of the island to watch the sunset from the town of Oia. We also visited, by boat, the hotspot itself, the island of Nea Kameni; most recent eruption in 1956.

Here are a few photos. Yes, that is Suzanna on a donkey.

House

Here are some pictures of the house we will rent, the street in front and the two beaches a five minute walk away. We move in on June 6 and 7. Andi, our first visitor, arrives on June11, she can test the guest room!

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!