Day 22, The End

Day 22

After our hotel breakfast, we went for a walk down to the Venetian harbour in Chania.  We walked past the Marine Museum where waves were pounding the shore once again.  For one picture, I almost got caught by a wave that broke over the sea wall, but moved in a split second as I got the shot.  You can see my shadow through the sea spray.  It was beautiful.  We walked back through an area of old town we had never seen before and in fact, didn’t know it existed.  The stores were unique, but also somewhat expensive.  I had to take more pictures as we wound our way back to our hotel.  We checked out at noon and walked the few minutes to the bus depot where we caught the 12:30 bus to the airport for our flight back to Athens. 

As a special treat, we checked into the Sofitel located at the airport so that in the morning we would just have to wheel our bags over to departures. 

To my sister Allankah and friends, hope you have enjoyed my blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it and taking the pictures which take you along with us on our Greek holiday.

Cheers!

Day 21, Rethymno to Chania

Day 21

Time to leave Rethymno. It was cloudy, as forecast, and the sea was rough. Our host came over at 10 and helped us with our luggage and waited until our taxi arrived.  Stauros was a great host with lots of treats to make our stay comfortable.  The bus left promptly at 11 for Chania, a one hour journey.  We checked into the Nefeli Hotel by the bus station.  We were hungry and walked into old town in search of a place to eat.  We decided on a restaurant where we had our last lunch before we left last year. 

Jill had chicken souvlaki, which she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t had it yet.  She loved it and I believe I heard moans.  I was craving fried calamari and chips and it was excellent.  I keep checking my fingers to see if tentacles were forming.  No, not yet.  One of the owners came over and I told him that I remembered his smile from last year.  He said he couldn’t lie and say he remembered me.  We had a good laugh and he signalled someone and next thing you know we had a bottle of raki brought to our table.  He smiled and came to our table and said, “compliments of Mr FEEL GOOD”.  Oh yeah, it worked, we were feeling good. The old town was jam packed with people, which happens when the water is rough. 

We strolled to the Venetian harbour where lots of people were watching the waves outside the wall. We walked the wall very carefully and took some pics. What was interesting about our walkabout in Chania was that we turned down streets we had never walked before and saw some old structures probably dating to the city’s beginnings. We stopped into the Agora Market on the way back to our hotel for some last minute shopping.

Before we stepped out for dinner, I took a shot of the sun going down. 

Day 20, Rethymno, Crete, Greece

Day 20

We woke up to a clear blue sky despite the forecast for clouds and rain.  Predicting the weather is still not an exact science, even in Greece.  I slipped out to buy a fish for our last home cooked dinner.  Today the fishmonger said “thank you my friend” since I have become a regular customer.  I decided to bake the Dorada in olive oil and lemon with zucchini on a bed of sliced potatoes after the success of last night’s baked lemon chicken.

We headed out to our rocky swimming spot, a leisurely 2 km walk along the seaside boardwalk past the fort.  It was our last swim in this beautiful water.  “Time to burn it into our memory banks” as we always say at the end of our trips.  One of the bonuses of writing a blog is being able to go back and refresh our memory of previous travels.  After a good half hour of being buoyed by the salt water, we walked back to the same restaurant as yesterday, breaking one of our travel rules to not go back to the same restaurant twice. 

We had a great table on the rail where the views and breeze made us feel like royalty.  Jill had yogurt marinated chicken and chips.  The chips were some of the best ever.   Jill could not eat them all so I was happy not to waste them.  They were chunky, light golden brown, crispy, well seasoned and creamy soft on the inside.  The oil they were fried in made them that much more delicious.  I had smoked salmon bruschetta on grilled toast topped with avocado dill spread with greens, excellent!

We made our way back home via the Venetian harbour and took some pics.  It was getting humid for the first time on our trip.  It was nice to get back to our place and cool down.  The weather tomorrow calls for rain so the humidity might just be the advance of the weather change. 

Dinner was delicious and now it was time to pack.  

Day 19, Rethymno,Crete, Greece

Day 19

I was wondering what the very tall chimney was at the back of the hotel a half block from our place.  Jill did some digging and found out that it was once part of the largest olive oil processor in Rethymno from 1920 to 1940.  It was preserved by the hotel by adding iron supports.  We went for a walk in the morning and I took some pictures of the chimney, as well as a picture on the beach from the same vantage point as when we arrived when the water was so rough.  After shopping for dinner, we headed out for a swim.

We walked to the other side of the fort to where we had seen some people swimming off the rocky shore.  We brought our water shoes, a necessity.  The water was crystal clear and glorious. Yes, that is Jill in the picture waving at me.  It looked harder than it actually was to get in and out. After our magnificent swim it was lunch time.  We were almost dry by the time we decided where to eat.  We spied a restaurant perched high on the rocks by the fort and decided to check it out.  It was very reasonable even though we thought the location would make it premium priced.  The breeze and views were marvellous.  I had grilled octopus and we shared a greek salad with half a litre of white wine for just 5 Euros (CDN$7.50) can’t be beat.    

The water started getting choppy as the wind picked up when we headed home.  The weather for our last day, Friday, is supposed to be cloudy with some rain.  It could be a inside stone dot painting day.  We leave Saturday morning for a day in Chania before we fly to Athens, where we stay overnight and catch our flight home the next morning.

Dinner tonight was Greek style lemon chicken and potatoes with fresh oregano from our balcony, and local garlic and, of course, lots of Cretan extra virgin olive oil.  An espresso and Metaxa and a long walk on the boardwalk ended our day.