Crete

Ferry Super Fast XII in Heraklion, Crete

In Athens Curtis hopped on a ferry to Crete. The boat was called Super Fast XII. He filed on at 3:00 pm and landed in Heraklion (Crete’s biggest city, 130,000) at about 10:30 pm. Walking down the gang plank in the rain it was a mob scene. He was barely able to push his way through the crowd that was pushing to get on the ferry. He walked through Heraklion, slightly lost in the winding streets and found Room Rents Hellas. He schlepped his pack up five floors to reception and down five floors to his dorm room. The six bed room had two other occupants who barely acknowledged him.

2 kilometer long breakwater at Herraklion

The next day broke clear and beautiful. I walked to the bus station through the old town. I kept hearing English spoken. I kept wondering which hotel are these people staying at? I realized that 90 percent of the people were English speakers and it finally dawned on me that all these folks were off a cruise ship and were flooding the old town on a Sunday morning.

Venetian Harbor in Rethymno

I hopped a bus to Rethymno. Killing time between buses I hung out in the old town of Rethymno (Venetian walled center, about 400 years old). It was a holiday, Ohi (No) Day. This is the celebration of the day during WWII in 1941 when Italy (fascist) requested to cross Greece to fight Yugoslavia, Russia (Allies) etc. The Greek president said No. They were invaded and taken over by the Nazi’s and paid a terrible price.

In celebration of No Day there was a parade. School kids paraded. Some of the school girls had surprisingly abbreviated uniforms. I was sitting in a gyro place eating my pita gyro when a spontaneous and annoying procession of kids on scooters and motorcycles (like a hundred of them) came gunning by.

Plakias Beach

Finally I arrived at the town of Plakias on the south coast of Crete and the infamous Plakias youth hostel. The hostel has the reputation of people coming for a day a staying for months. The hostel has several bungalows that are dorm rooms and an indoor/outdoor common area. An extremely detailed oriented Brit named Chris has run the place for the last 14 years. A bed is 9.50 euro (cheap). It’s clean, newish and organized. The clients tend to enjoy themselves and the local wine and raki (hooch) flow freely.

Plakias Youth Hostel

I walked down to the beach where there is a rugged rocky mountainous backdrop. The water was passably warm and flat. I walked along a cliff face above the water. There was a cave in the cliff. As I went by a weird naked guy stepped out from the cave and waved at me. Hhmmm…… I passed on this and kept going.

One Rock Beach

The gang from the hostile went down to Niko’s restaurant (which happens every night). Everybody knew everybody. The air was filled with cigarette smoke; people were drinking ouzo and raki and sipping homemade wine from plastic bottles. It was getting loud. It rained hard and the roof leaked. I had lemon chicken. In Greece the custom is if you have a full meal they’ll bring raki or a half liter of wine or desert (or a combo) with your bill. We had a round of about 15 rakis.

Sunset over Plakias

That night the wind kicked up and it rained like hell. Next day I walked around some headlands. It was sunny but the clouds were on the mountains and rain was being blown on me. Later I walked up by the ruins of a 400 year old Venetian mill and further to a village where I watched sunset over the Libyan Sea at Taverna Panorama.

Myrthios Village

Crete has a long history. The Minoans had a highly developed civilization there in 2000 BC. Dorics where there, Greeks, Romans, Byzantiums, Arabs, and Pirates all ran the place. The Venetians took it over for a while. There are fortresses, roads, bridges, and old houses from that era. The Ottomans spent 28 years attacking Crete until they took it over. It went back with Greece around the turn of the century. The Nazis invaded Crete in 1941. Cretans killed thousands of Germany troops in the air as they parachuted in to invade. They were taken over during WWII, but they didn’t give up and they kept killing Germans all the time at a terrible cost to themselves.

Timeos Stavros Mountain

Chapel at the top of Timeos Stavros Mountain

Cretans are an independent lot. They like to be rule breakers. They like homemade wine and Raki. They have guns and they like to shoot them, especially at parties and weddings. They’re not particularly friendly to outsiders.

Amoudi Beach

The Plakias Youth hostel closed down for the season at the end of October. I met a German named Wolf who has a place in Plakias. I rented a room from him for a few days till I moved on. His house is above town and has a nice view out across the water. Another girl was staying there, Matilda from Sweden. She's a student and an acupuncturist and fluent in Chinese and at one time ran bar in western China.

Patio at Wolf's house

Wolf and Matilda

I bussed it up to Rethymno. I stayed at Rethymno Youth Hostel. I stayed in an eight bed room that only had one other guy; Andres from Germany. He introduced himself and filled a water bottle of wine from a bag. He came back and filled his bottle again and said he had a drinking problem. He went to bed and I could hear him unscrew the lid and drink. Later he got up and went out and had some drinks and came back. About then an argument broke in the next room. The wall looked substantial, but for sound it was literally paper thin. The guy who runs the place was dressing down his wife in a Slavic language, and she was making the occasional sobbing response. About then an alarm in a shop across the street from the dorm window went off. Looked like a long night. But then next door they slammed a door and the arguing ended; someone came and turned the alarm off; and Anders passed out. Peace.

I bussed to Hania and on to Paleohora on the southwest coast of the Crete. I walked around and checked into Anonymous Guesthouse. It has a nice garden and clean cozy rooms and the lady who runs it, Sofia, is a nurturing grandmotherly type. Perfect.

Anonymous Guesthouse in Paleohora

Paleohora is a small narrow town on a peninsula, about 5 blocks wide. If the wind is blowing west you go to the east beach, if blowing east, go to the west beach. I met up with a therapist at the guesthouse, a Norwegian called Nils. He had some good stories, and a sense of humor, and he loved to drink coffee. He was spending two weeks in Paleohora to rest.I walked along the coast east of town. It was mountainous and rocky and there was the occasional small beach or inlet.

A wild hidden beach east of Paleohora

In town it was election season so the candidates were speechifying. They closed the streets and played loud music and gave competing speeches from podiums along the street. The people sat around and drank coffee and raki. Paleohora is a small town with narrow streets. I was at the main intersection “downtown” when eight cars all arrived at the same time. It was grid lock with honking and cursing and finally some people backed up and then it was clear.

Venetian bridge

I walked up to a village called Azogires. I got half way and a guy stopped on his motorcycle and gave me a ride. He smelled like booze or hair tonic or both. It’s a small place with basically a restaurant and some houses. I walked around and ate and talked to the owner who had lived in Illinois. I had a nice walk back through: an old mill; an abandoned Turkish village; a monastery; along a rocky hill; and finally through a gorge to the beach.

Sandy beach east of Paleohora

After a few days, I took a couple of buses to Heraklion and caught the 6:00 pm ferry to Santorini Island.