Another Beautiful Day in Crete

For those of you who may not shine in geography Crete is the largest, southern most Greek Isle. It is 169 miles long and 37 miles wide at its widest point. It is very mountainous and has been settled for at least 5000 years. Its main economy seems to be olives and grapes as well as tourism of course. Its tallest mountains are 7000 feet and there is skiing on them.

Today Rick had the day all planned out and we sought to go where the average traveler doesn't always go. That certainly turned out to be true. We headed to the south of the island. We stopped at some ancient ruins and saw original writing from 500 BC. It was on a wall and listed all the rules of the village and marriages. It was amazing as well as other ruins there. Also in that site was the purported grave of Titus from the Bible. There was a church built on the site to commemorate him in the 3rd century. Below is a picture of that church. Imagine that!

A little farther down the road from there were ruins of temples to Zeuss and Apollos.

From there we wove our way over mountains and valleys to the coast. There were olive groves everywhere and I mean everywhere. I'd never really seen an olive tree before and had to investigate it to see the olives. Very interesting. They aren't ripe yet. I don't know when they will be or how they pick all those trees.

We eventually landed in Matala an absolutely gorgeous spot on the ocean. Apparently at that spot we were closer to Libia than Athens. That's about as close as I would wish to be. Matala's claim to fame are the caves that surround it. Apparently the caves were used by the Romans to bury their dead. In more modern time they were used by the Germans to store munitions during World War II. And in the sixties they were used by hippies who thought Matala was a great place to live. Ricky was interested in the caves and that's why we went there. We looked inside them and got a real feel of the situation. After that, with the temperature by then, almost 100, we went in swimming. The water temperature was very refreshing and we spent a lot of time in the water. Rick came out before me and I lingered for awhile. While I was lingering something came up and bit me in my thigh just above my knee. The teeth marks were very visible and it drew blood. My leg hasn't fallen off and I'm alive and kicking 8 hours later so I guess I'm no worse for it. Believe me I'll be in the water at another beach tomorrow.

After that beach we just took a peek at a couple other beaches that were also very pretty. The roads are absolutely treacherous in and out of those places. For those of you who were in Croatia, picture similar turns with poorer quality roads and totally no railing. Even I was afraid on some of those turns. And it was Rick driving not Bill. His speed is a little more fast paced. I was trying to be good but I did have to yell a few times.

Following that we headed in a totally different direction. Ricky had read about some plain that had an awesome view of who knows what and some other cave that was supposedly the birthplace of Zuess. He wanted to go there and I'm along for the ride. The problem was that you got there from the east and we were coming from the west with a whole mountain range seperating us from that plain. He saw a little road on the map that looked like it would go there from our direction. He thought it probably was a dirt road. I was not very optomistic about our chances of finding the road. We hunted and found a dirt road going in the direction we wanted to go. We started out and it soon became clear it was wrong but Rick persisted. The road was horrible, rocky, windy and in terrible condition. When we bottomed out (gently) he finally decided to turn around and go back (probably 4-5miles in). I think the road was a farmer's road to get to his olive trees. Thankfully we got out with our rental car still intact. We never did get to the plain. But we had fun anyway and nobody was upset.

In general Crete seems to be pretty poor. The villages are rough, very bare and people just sitting on the edge of the road in groups talking. It almost seems that the Romans had it better 5000 years ago than now. The road system is poor and directions even worse. There seem to be little chapels everywhere like every half mile or more. They are all the same. There are beautiful flowering bushes everywhere and a lot of morning glories. There are many dogs wandering around. In one village all the women were dressed in black including a black scarf on their heads.

I guess that's it for now. Rick is in planning for tomorrow and watching some soccer on TV. He couldn't do his own laundry last night. They do it for you and then you pick it up. They even ironed all his clothes. He liked everything except the price.

And to my wonderful husband of 35 years, I love you and miss you.