A stunningly beautiful day!

Friday, May 07, 2010

Hello!

The blog finds us in Sitia in the far east of Crete. Up around 7 and out at 8 looking for breakfast, as it’s not included in our hotel. Walked into town and found a really lovely bakery and chocolate shop. Ordered a home-made cheese pie to split, then large glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice and filtered coffee for Robert. Wonderful! The best pastry phyllo dough I’ve ever had – talk about flaky! There were pastry crumbs everywhere!

Back to the hotel and collected books, maps and other necessities and on the road. We decided to head even farther east on the island, starting at Moni Toplou monastery. It’s a lovely old building – rebuilt once after earthquake and a second time after WWII. The monastery has a really lovely collection of icons as well as books and maps that were on display in the museum. We had the place to ourselves. Will post a photo of the inner courtyard, but taking of photos inside the museum or monastery was prohibited, unfortunately.

From there, we headed to Itanos, old Minoan ruins on a beautiful peninsula. Walked through the fields to a stunning deserted beach, then past the ruins of an ancient basilica. Again – had the place to ourselves!

Our main destination today was Zakros, one of the largest Minoan settlements and one that had been discovered in the 1960’s and had never been looted! Quelle surprise! Wound around and up and down small paved roads, past farms and villages. Absolutely beautiful scenery on an absolutely glorious day! Not too hot (although R says it’s going to really heat up later in the week!) and it was great having the windows down…considering that it appears that our car’s air conditioning may be in name only!

The Minoan palace of Zakros was very close to the beach (although that may have changed as well, due to earthquakes). Had a good walk around – up and down, but like Knossos, the ruins are only a few feet high, and there is very little left of the decoration – as in Egypt, everything is in museums! I have to admit that I am a bit underwhelmed by the Minoan ruins that are left. I think, because I really love the Roman ruins we have seen, that I was expecting something similar; R pointing out that the Minoan settlements were 3,000 earlier than the Romans, so we’re lucky to have anything left at all! At any rate, I am loving the small museums on the island, which are filled with wonderful Minoan things!

At Kato Zakros (the area of the palace, as opposed to the town which is a few miles away) we stopped for lunch, and boy, talk about overdoing things! We ordered from the appetizer menu and got cheese pie, vegetable pie, fried eggplant AND dakos (sp?) – the bread with tomatoes, olives and cheese that we’d had at the Veneto Café in Iraklion. Well, there were 5 individual pies EACH of cheese and spinach, and then HUGE plates of eggplant and bread! No way we could finish everything – but it wasn’t very expensive and we’ve now learned that when we stop for lunch, two appetizers would be just about right!

Decided then, as it was about 2 p.m. that we’d had enough touring and would head back to Sitia…which is when the driving REALLY got interesting! Robert guided us up a road that seemed to climb up to the top of the island!! With absolutely NO guard rails ANYWHERE! Whew!! Fortunately there wasn’t too much traffic, and everyone was taking it a bit easy…it was a L-O-N-G way down, that’s for sure!

Back to the hotel for a nap, me going out first to find a bottle of white wine for Robert (next door; wine from Sitia, 5 Euros) and my every-other-day Magnum Classic! Actually had to walk all the way through town before I found one! (Could have gotten a Dove bar right next door, but NO way!) Got the last Magnum Classic in the case – and when I paid, found that the gal running the little shop was born and raised in Toronto! What a small world! She talked about how difficult things were in Greece right now, and how torn she was feeling between being in Greece or returning to Canada! Interesting question!

Finished reading a book on the rooftop of the hotel, watching people in the water (looks cold to us!) and on the beach. Interesting game using paddles and a light ball that seems to be going on everywhere…rather like beach tennis?!

More later!
Love,
m
x