Between Then and Now Falasarna

We headed west to stay a couple of nights at Kolumbari. Our plan was to go to the Navy Ball and then to visit the monastery in Kolumbari and the Roman ruins of the sea port at Falasarna. The food at the Navy Ball was wonderful, but the dance music was so loud we had to leave. There is a picture looking out over Kolumbari, then some of Falasarna and the monastery.

We went to the beach for a bit before lunch. The picture of the beach also shows the land jutting out into the water where the Roman Port was located.

While we were at a restaurant, just getting ready to leave we thought a huge wind had come up and was rocking some large sea shells on the counter. When it dawned on us that we were experiencing an earth quake we did nothing sensible, like get out of the building and away from things that could fall on us. We just stood there amazed. The earthquake was off the west cost of Crete, so we were as close to it as possible. We had just finished visiting the Roman ruins of the sea port that is now 8 meters above sea level. The current thought is that most of the uplift came in a single event. You would think that after just looking at how much movement can occur in a single event that we would have been a little more alarmed.

To understand the sign in the last photo, you need to know the the letter, in Greek, that looks like an "I" in English, the letter Iota, is pronounced "E", like "E" in feet.

Between Then and Now, Argirouplois

Argrioupolis is south and east of Chania, up in the mountains a bit. It is built on top of the Roman city Lappa. The town is divided in two parts, the upper and lower. The upper is perched high on a hill side with lovely views; the lower part is in a small canyon filled with springs and waterfalls. We stayed in the upper part and hiked down the donkey trail to the lower part, where we ate dinner and then we hiked back up in the dark. We had a bit of an adventure finding a hotel. We ended up stopping at a house along the Main Street that had the door open and the old folks watching what was passing by on the street, which was us. After I went into the house for some cookies with the Grandma, the Grandpa took Grier to find a person that rented some rooms. And so we found a hotel. We had planned to stay two nights but the weather didn't cooperate with the type of clothes we brought. It was surprisingly cold and windy. So we only stayed one night. But I would like to go back someday, especially to find the gentleman that gave us an amazing tour of the town so we can thank him properly. We got to go inside some old buildings, look down into one of the opening to the old Roman cisterns, see his antique camera and last but not least we went to the hidden shed with the hidden Raki still and shared a drink with him. We went for a walk the second day down to the Necropolis of Lappa where we saw the 2,000 year old Plane tree and some poetry. Then we were too cold to stay so we drove over the mountains to the south shore and had dinner overlooking the beach where people were swimming and sun bathing. Se we warmed up and yet again had a wonderful meal. I am going to have to start taking pictures of the meals more often, they are so beautiful! Forgot to mention that we got to hear some traditional music and dancing at the lower village.

Between Then and Now, Aptera

I must write a blog, I must write a blog, I must write a blog...This is what I have been thinking and have not been doing! We have had quite a few small adventures since Grier wrote about our cross island trip. I sat down about an hour ago and started looking at our pictures and got a bit overwhelmed. I decided to write 5 small blogs, one for each adventure, and they will be short otherwise I will never make it though.

This one is about Aptera. It was on a large flat hill overlooking Souda Bay. The first two pictures are of the hill where Aptera was located. They are taken from Marathi which was one of the ports for Aptera and also one of the guard posts for Souda Bay when Aptera was thriving. Aptera was a Roman City. It must have been magnificent. The other pictures are take at the ruins and our lunch in the present day town of Aptera. This place (Crete) reminds me over and over just how short lived our human civilizations are. Not necessarily a pleasant thought to be reminded of on a daily basis!