Crete, Part II

After Boutari Winery, we returned to the hotel and had a bit of a rest before meeting up with Garreth, an English guy who runs a water sports business in Crete. We had met him the night before at the Axos hotel bar and he had offered to take us to one of his favorite spots for dinner. We were super excited to try some traditional Greek cuisine and Taverna Fantastico was the perfect place to do it! It was far from the tourist traps, up in the mountains with a great view of the sea and the sunset. We chowed down on fried aubergines, stuffed vine leaves, saganaki (fried cheese), tzatsiki (yoghurt and cucumber dip), zucchini balls, fried zucchini, and bread – and that was just appetizers! We also enjoyed “village wine,” made locally. As if that wasn’t enough we also each had a main dish. I had beef and Eva had tomato and cheese spaghetti. Everything was incredibly delicious but we were definitely surprised at how much fried food the Greeks eat. We were expecting to eat the traditional Mediterranean diet of fruits, nuts, beans, etc, but we’ve been finding the food a lot unhealthier than we expected. It’s a good thing we’re staying active!

After dinner we headed right to bed because we had to wake up at 5 AM to catch our bus to hike Samaria Gorge. The gorge is the longest in Europe, stretching about 14 kilometers. The hike was fairly strenuous, with lots of rocky paths down the side of the gorge and through it to the other side. It took us about four and a half hours to complete our trek, which is about two hours faster than average! I guess dinner the night before had really energized us!

At the end of the gorge there was another 3 km walk into town. We were rewarded with a relaxing swim and a few hours of laying on the beach before we had to catch the bus back to Rethymno. The sand was very black and rocky but the water was crystal clear – probably the purest water we have ever seen!

Sunday, we were supposed to meet up with Garreth again so we could do some of the water sports that his company offers. Unfortunately, when we woke up our leg muscles ached from the hike the day before and all we could even think of doing was lying on the beach all day. We caught a bus to Prevali, a gorgeous, secluded beach that is fed by a stream. Little did we know, there was a hike involved to get to it! We rallied and made it to the bottom and it proved worth the effort.

Back at the hotel, we packed our suitcases to prepare for the next part of our journey to Santorini and then met up with Stephano, another one of the locals, at the hotel bar for a farewell beer and a few shots of Raki.

They even let me behind the bar so I could show off my pint-pouring skills!

Crete has been an amazing time. The island has a lot to offer and we’ve made some great friends. Looking back, we wish we had rented a car so we didn’t waste so much time on long bus rides but it’s probably best we didn’t because it would have been fairly expensive. Now we’re on the ferry to Santorini and we’ll back in the United States in just one week!

Crete, Part I

After dropping off the car in Athens, we boarded our ferry from the port of Piraeus to start the island hopping portion of our trip! Our first stop is Crete. We were surprised that our ferry looked a bit more like a cruise ship!


Also, we noticed that one of the nearby ships reminded us of our best girlfriend back home:


OK, so it actually looked like this:


But so close! Miss you Ariane!

We even learned it had a pool on the top deck. Excited, we checked it out:


As you can guess, we didn't do any swimming after all! Instead, we decided to have a tea in the "saloon". Because the boat was landing at 6:00am, we called it an early night and retired to the bunks we had rented in one of the ship's cabins.

Once the ferry docked, we had to take a bus from the port of Iraklion to the city we are staying in, Rethymnon. We started to realize just how big the island of Crete is when the bus ride took almost an hour and a half and the cities aren't even on opposite ends of the island!

Our "budget hotel", Hotel Axos turned out to be absolutely gorgeous! We have a huge room with a kitchen, appliances (hooray for toast in the morning!), and a porch looking out to the pool! In addition, the staff is really great as well. It's a family-run business and they've been so wonderful making us feel at home and helping us plan activities. If you're ever in Crete you should definitely stay here!



Yesterday, we caught the bus back to Iraklion and then another city bus to see Knossos, an ancient Minoan palace. We were excited because our guidebooks had told us it was "partially restored".


Unfortunately, the palace wasn't as restored as we had hoped. For example, the "Grand Staircase" looked like this:


After seeing ancient ruins all of the world (Giza, the Acropolis..) we were definitely a bit disappointed.

After Knossos, we checked out Boutari winery, which was nearby. We took a tour and then did a tasting, The wine was delicious and we also learned their growing methods are very sustainable! They handpick all the grapes, use no pesticides, and only use rainwater for irrigation. The production is very small, only about 50,000 bottles are produced per year in the six vineyards they have in Greek and France. I picked up a few bottles, including an "experimental varietal" to bring home. The experimental wine isn't sold anywhere except for the the winery itself. The idea is that people buy it and give their feedback and if it is successful they will put it into production. I didn't get to try it before hand, so it's a bit of a gamble. We'll see when I get home!





When we got back to the hotel, we used our kitchen to cook a delicious pasta with goat cheese and fresh tomatoes. We also had a salad and some fresh bread spread with honey from Mount Olympus. Delicious!


One of the guys who runs the hotel, Manos, invited us to the hotel bar/club because a band was playing. The band played all American cover songs and the bar was packed with all the locals who run the trade industry. We got to hang out with a bunch of them and even got a chance to try the local drink, Raki. Raki is very strong and is made with the leftover grapes from wine production. It tastes terrible and comes in large 1.5 litre water bottles - very sketchy!


All-in-all it was a great night and we're happy to have made some new friends!