Arrival in Greece

Although sooner than expected, we decided it was time to head to Greece. While visiting Herculaneum, we had met a British couple (Chris and Cliff Jones) who told us about their recent visit to Crete. That was enough to make it our next destination.

After flying into Athens we took a 7 hour ferry from Piraeus on a really nice Greek ferry boat and reached Hania at 11 PM. Our taxi driver took us to the small pedestrian street where we had reserved a studio. These moments are always interesting – we are never entirely sure about where we’ve chosen to stay, the kind of trek we’ll have to take to reach it, how far it really is from sights, etc. Lucky for us (again…and knock on wood) we found another wonderful place to stay. The Greek girl greeted us and provided two rooms to choose from. While both were fine, we asked to see more rooms (we found it’s always a good idea in these places to do that). The next room was it! Our place in Hania couldn’t be any more perfect…it’s beautifully decorated with a balcony overlooking a gorgeous little pedestrian street.

Although we were tired and it was late, we decided to take a short walk…that’s when we came across the ‘Old Venetian Harbor’. It was then that my jaw dropped in amazement. This place was enchanting – absolutely beautiful and almost too picturesque to be real. The Venetian buildings lining the harbor look like a beautiful façade instead of an incredible slice of Greco-Venetian life from a few hundred years ago. Since seeing the harbor for the first time we've learned that the Venetians acquired Crete (along with other parts of Greece) and held it for around 400 years until the Ottoman Empire took it over late in the 1600’s. As is the same in much of Greece, there is a strong Turkish influence on the culture here as a result of hundreds of year’s Ottoman control after the Venetians. It was pretty interesting to see the minarets from old mosques and also some Muslims at prayer inside their homes as we walked through the Turkish quarter.

Anyway, this post on Greece is definitely “to be continued…” because I haven’t even touched on the scrumptious Greek food and copious amounts of “Raki” that the restaurants give you free after your meal.... yum!