Twenty-two years ago we spent our precious, hard-won 10 days of vacation time on a trip to Egypt and Greece. We spent a week on Crete (and a week in Egypt) back then. This trip is the first time we've been back to Crete since then. Lucky for us, we don't have go back to work with jetlagged brains!
It's surprising how little we recognize from our previous visit. The Chania harbor looks familiar but not much beyond that. We just returned to our rental place in Chania after venturing back to other
vaguely familiar ground--the city of Rethimno, which is about an hour away. We also ogled some new, spectacular parts of this big island.
Urbane Rethimno
Rethimno has skyrocketed to the top of the list of potential places to over-winter, if we ultimately decide to spend the winter in Greece. It's set up for pleasant town walking and coastal walking, has nice swimming spots, stunning sunsets, high quality food, and cheerful locals. The seawater is now in the ideal temperature zone and we had a couple nice swims at sandy and rocky beaches. Sam had her first distance swims of the season. Locals tell us here in Chania and Rethimno that they swim in January! But a big question is whether there is much to do in the winter beyond short swims.
Crete, because it's such a big place, is often billed as an island that doesn't shut down over winter, but Rethimno locals told us that most restaurants are closed and it's 'boring' to use their word (they say much the same in Chania). Would a winter here be like our winter in Rockland, Maine minus Sam's sewing machine and below freezing temperatures (and no Minda!)?
South to the Libyan Sea
After three pleasant days in Rethimno we traveled down to virgin territory on the south coast of Crete (quick aside--did you know that 'parthenon' means virgin in Greek? Weird to have said that word for so long before knowing what it meant.). The trip to the south is spectacular--over a big mountain range and through gorge country, with sea views for much of the journey. We ate lunch in a little town called Sfakia where people were swimming right below us. But Sam had heard about a nearby beach that she wanted to check out.
This other beach was one of those pinch-yourself spots where you can't believe that such places still exist. And that we were lucky enough μαλάκες to be there. We discretely changed into our swimsuits in our rental car, with only a renegade herd of goats to potentially see us. At the beach, we met some Greek musicians who were pumped that we left the States to live in Greece. One of them, Stelios, felt strongly that if we got (re)married in a Greek Orthodox church we could stay forever in Greece. Nice idea but this sounds like a Greek myth; on the plus side, he would be happy to play the music at our remarriage.
The water was electric blue and calm as a bathtub; sea caves dotted the sea walls. The view from the beach is of little Gavdos island, the southernmost point in Europe, amidst the Libyan Sea. Greece has a mind boggling number of different seas--as a kid you learn of the Mediterranean and Aegean but these folks love to name every watery nook. For the drive back to Chania, we took a different route and got to see other stunning mountain views. And now we have settled back into our temporary Chania home, doing a lovely morning walk in precious shade (the cliffs over the path look slightly like Bryce Canyon or the North Rim of the Grand Canyon) and swimming in the nearby natural pool. In Greek, the word for summer is adorably kalokairi, which means good weather/season and right now that's exactly right.
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| Sunset from the waters near our place in Chania |
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| Rethimno's cute little harbor |
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| Lunch spot, Rethimno, city fortress in the distance |
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| The long, sandy beach, Rethimno, portraits in shadow |
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| The local swim spot by the Rethimno fort |
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| Locals at the rock beach |
