Crete, so Sweet – Our Greek Odyssey Continues

Crete, so Sweet

I know that travel is rooted in a place and time and my experiences may not ring true to someone that visited in the middle of a tourist-crowded, hot, summer day but I can say that in late October Crete is quite the treat.

Our trip started with a flight from Athens to Chania (pronounced Han-ya) on the budget airline Ryan Air. We found it similar to Spirit or Frontier in the U.S. Basically you get heavily discounted flights and pay for luggage, reserved seats, and even soft drinks. The flights are full and the legroom is cramped but the flight was short and the price was right so just grin and bear it.

After a 30 minute bus ride and a 10 minute walk with our roller luggage clattering loudly on the cobblestone streets we made it to resting spot for the next six nights the Casa Veneta.

I am not sure if it was just Stavros, the proprietor of Casa Veneta where we were staying in the old town of Chania or if it is true of all of Crete but all I can say is that our accommodations and the way we were treated was nothing less than spectacular. When he informed me that the name Steve in Greek was Stavros I knew I was in the right place.

We did not have a dinner on this huge island or even a lunch, where we were not treated to a free dessert and a small offering of Raki (i.e. – Cretan firewater), as part of our meal at no additional cost to us. I do not know if this is part of Greece’s efforts to bring in the tourists but I can only assume that this is just business as usual.

We have found that the people are so welcoming and us not being able to speak Greek beyond hello, please, and thank you was not held against us as in some places we have visited. The preponderance of people we dealt with either understand or speak English making it easy for us foreigners with our poor language skills to survive and even thrive.

Crete has had its share of invaders over the years and the architecture reflects that. Pictured above is the Venetian Lighthouse in the background and in the foreground the Mosque of the Janissaries built during the Ottoman occupation of the island.

What I love about Greece in general and Crete in particular is their love for animals and the frequency of cats and dogs in every part of daily life.

Crete is a beautiful Mediterranean island with a spine of mountains running east to west that slope down (not always gently) to beautiful coves with some very impressive beaches. In our six days we were only able to take in half of this massive island. We spent a day visiting beaches and basking in the late fall sun.

Besides staying in the very charming World Heritage Site of Old Town Chania, we also hiked the impressive Samaria Gorge National Park.

I know we are spoiled in Oregon with the Columbia Gorge and it’s side canyons but the Samaria Gorge is both very deep and very narrow which makes for an incredible hiking experience.

We spent another half day in the nearby old town of Rethymno also a World Heritage site and fabulous in its own right.

Another day we drove around the Akrotiri Peninsula and visited a few monasteries and the Bear Cave.  We hiked a bit before chilling out at Stavros Beach where parts of Zorba the Greek were filmed.

Twenty years ago on our first trip to Greece we visited Mykonos and Santorini and while both were beautiful, I feel like Crete in the off-season is more representative of the true Greece and would highly recommend it for a vacation.