Friday, August 9, 2013

Hot as Hades Tour Port 4: Chania, Greece on the Island of Crete

Our last port before returning to Rome was Chania, Greece on the Island of Crete.


As you are well aware by now, I am an avid Rick Steves fan and I love, love all of his travel books. Unfortunately, in his book Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports he doesn't cover Chania, so I was going into this location completely blind with no direction and no idea what there was to see. When we booked our excursions through Royal Caribbean we did a package. It included an excursion for each location lumped into one deal, saving a little bit of money. The excursion for Crete was called Real Crete and I have to say I was a bit unimpressed. In hindsight, this would have been the location for the kids to stay on the boat for the day and take part in their beloved Adventure Ocean.

First, let me give you a little background on Crete. I, honestly, had not heard of this Island of Greece before the cruise. Greece has 6,000 islands scattered in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, of which only 227 of those islands are inhabited. Crete is the largest island in Greece, and the fifth largest one in the Mediterranean Sea. During the cruise we saw many islands along the way. They were just beautiful.


Sitting on our balcony and enjoying all the scenery was certainly one of my favorite things to do during our down time.


Not sure what was going on with my hand...I think I was mid sneeze, but not sure. It is the only picture of me doing what I found so relaxing...so here it is...as unattractive as it might be. :-)

Okay...back on track...our guide on this excursion was, well, odd to say the least, but he was FULL of information. By this I mean he literally talked the ENTIRE trip...4+ hours of him talking and NEVER stopping. He did have some good pieces of info, but after while, holy cow, you just sort of naturally tuned him out. He did have some interesting Greek Mythology background for the island of Crete. I think ever since high school English class, where we read many books on Greek Mythology, it is always fun to here more up close and personal backgrounds regarding this. So here it goes.

In a cave in Crete, it is said, the goddess Rhea hid the newborn Zeus. In that cave, Zeus was brought up by the nymphs while the demonical Kouretes would strike their shields loudly so that Cronus may not hear the crying baby of Zeus and eat it. It was also to Crete that Zeus, disguised as a bull, took Europa (a Phoenician princess) so that they may enjoy their love together. Their union produced a son, Minos, who ruled Crete and turned it into a mighty island empire of the seas.

We left the port city of Chania to visit two little villages and then we were headed back the Chania for some shopping. I don't even know the names of the villages we stopped, but they were so cute. What I quickly became aware of on this particular island in Greece is just how self sustaining they are. The soil on this island is so fertile that they can grow just about anything. It was amazing to me to see just how fruitful, literally, they were. We saw, of course, olive trees, but also pomegranate trees, fig trees, grapevines and so much more. It was incredible.


We got about 45 minutes in the first village. We just strolled around and took in the beauty. If I ever come back to Greece I would much rather spend my time in a cute little village than in one of the bigger cities. It seemed so calm, quiet and heavenly and I could have spent hours just enjoying all those traits.


After our time was up we got back on the bus and drove to another quaint little town. This one was a touch more busy and was on the water. Our guide mentioned that whenever he came to this town his mother always sent him to buy bread from her favorite bakery...so naturally I tagged along with him to get me some bread.


Are you freakin kidding me...this place was so cute. This guy was slaving away around this hot oven moving bread in and out and all around. That pole was super long and we almost got hit with it a couple of times. Our guide just walked over to all those loaves and picked through until he found what he wanted and paid his 1,30 euro and was on his way. I just followed in his footsteps and did the same. I couldn't believe you could manhandle all the loaves, but when in Rome...or Greece...! I also might add, it was some of the most amazing bread we had ever had, and still warm. So fun.

Again, we had a little time here, but not enough to really enjoy it. And, again, I have no idea what the village is called...you see, this is why I need Rick Steves to guide me. :-) But, here are some of the photos of this cute little village.


We boarded the bus once again and headed to one of the fortresses located on the island of Crete.  After a little googling I did find some info on this location. We went to the ancient city of Aptera. Aptera is located above the entrance to the great harbor of Souda.


It is believed that Aptera was founded somewhere around the 7th century B.C. The town was abandoned after a major earthquake in the 7th century A.D., and was completely destroyed by the Arabs in A.D. 823. Again, due to time constraints we only had about 15 minutes here.


Our final destination on this excursion was the bustling port city of Chania, pronounced (Hanya), it is the second largest city of Crete. Honestly, I was unimpressed. It was busy, dirty and there were beggars everywhere. The beggars were not what you would expect. These beggars were none like I have ever seen. They were women with their small children (many actually with baby attached to breast, not nursing, just to make it look more pathetic) sitting in shady spots on the sidewalks. I found it disgusting. The public restrooms were just as disgusting. Literally, a hole in the ground with a door around it. Um...no thank you. The market that our guide took us to was definitely the location that every tourist bus dropped their load of tourists. It also appeared that no matter which tour you decided to do, you ended up here as the last stop. There were probably 40 buses in the bus parking lot waiting. Because of all the people, and remember, it was Hot as Hades, I was DONE! We strolled through the market looking for our souvenir and then just sat near a park until it was time to get back on the bus. Certainly not my favorite stop, but it is what it is. I didn't realize it at the time, but as I was getting ready to create a photo collage, I didn't take ANY pictures of Chania. This just further proves how unimpressed I was. :-(

I know this wasn't as exciting as our other days, but it was nice to get back on the boat and enjoy what the boat had to offer. The downfall of this location was that we had an earlier "back on board" time of 2:30 and it seemed that EVERY passenger arrived at the dock at the same time. It was the first time in all of our cruising ports that we had to wait to get back on...in the heat. :-)

After Chania we had a day at sea before arriving back in our starting point of Rome. We will continue our Hot as Hades tour with our excursion off the ship to Rome: the Vatican City, St. Peter's, Roman Forum, and the Colosseum and by far one of the hottest days I can recall.

1 comment:

  1. Greece?? I realized after reading your post that it would be great place. I never visited it but will certainly make some plan after reading your post. Cheers dear!
    how to plan a europe trip

    ReplyDelete