Wednesday (8/22) - CRETE!

Day #10

After a relatively short night's sleep, we packed up our stuff and left it at our hotel early on Wednesday. We set out for the bus station (right near the ferry port from the night before), and we bought our bus fare to take us to our only destination in Iraklio, the Palace of Knossos.

Originally built around 2000 B.C., this Minoan palace had been destroyed by earthquakes and fires over the years, and at the start of the 20th century, an archaeologist named Arthur Evans began to re-build and re-create some of the lost palace. I won't go into too many details here, but you should know that it is always very bizarre to visit a place that has been completely rebuilt, and the signs and brochures explain what an archaeologist from 1900 A.D. thinks these ruins are. For all we know, everything we saw could have been latrines or closets, but the whole place has signs that begin with "Arthur Evans believed...". An odd experience. Some cool ruins, but certainly all taken with a grain of salt. After we perused the grounds, we made our way back to the hotel, grabbed our luggage, and sprinted back to catch our three-hour bus ride to Chania, where we would stay the for the remainder of our time in Crete.

Palace of Knossos ruins

 

Fresco at Palace of Knossos 

We arrived in Chania around 2pm, and we navigated our way through some cute back alleys with overhanging vines and balconies to find our final hotel, Casa Leone. Our room wasn't quite ready, so we asked for a good lunch suggestion, and ended up going to our favorite food spot of the entire trip. The staff let us leave our luggage at the hotel, so we strapped on the backpacks and began to explore all the wonderful side alleys and small shops en route to the taverna called Tamam. Oh goodness, I am already feeling major nostalgia for this place. Deep breath...and here we go...

Tucked away in a small walking alleyway, Tamam has some of the most unique culture and culinary dishes we experienced during our trek across all the islands. The setting was very real, from the hustle and bustle of the narrow alleyway, to the frequent rounds of children and mothers begging for food right at your table. But let's get to the food. We were famished from our trek across the ruins and subsequent three-hour bus ride, so we dove into a laundry list of dishes: a fresh salad with walnuts and avocado, spicy avocado dip (using bread and potatoes for dipping), a local cheese dish called 'staka' (warm, gooey melted cheese), apaka (thickly sliced pork rounds that have a slight similarity to meaty bacon), and cheese pie (duh). Oh my goodness, the cheese pies were flaky and heavenly goodness, the apaka was salty goodness, and my-oh-my, the staka was heaven. This was salty and creamy cheese in a bit of oil, and dipping bread in it made my whole life seem better. Exaggerating? Hell no, you don't understand until you go to Tamam and eat the staka. After the feast, the server came out with a small slice of a clear. white jello-ish type cake dessert (horrible description, I know), and a small bottle of the local aperitif called raki (also knows as "firewater"). The cake was nothing to write home about, but man, that firewater was off the hook! You think you know a burn from tequila? Use that as your base of comparison, then double the throat singe and add tongue numbing, and you've got raki. Stuff cleared our sinuses for the rest of the trip, and I loved it!

Excited to get back to our hotel and thank the nice lady for the great lunch suggestion, we trekked back to Casa Leone to check out our room. A restored Venetian villa, Casa Leone is a fantastic boutique hotel that features four rooms. We were fortunate to have a balcony that overlooked the incredible harbor inlet (including a gorgeous lighthouse), and the room itself was perfect. We opened the door to find the hotel had left us a honeymoon gift of wine and towel animals. The room was extremely quaint, and was definitely a step up from all the nice places we had stayed thus far. Julie hit a home run the whole trip with her hotel planning, and this place, by far, was the grand slam.

 

Towel animals! 

 

View out our doors at Casa Leone 

 

Our harbor view in Chania 

We lazed in the hotel for a few minutes just to game-plan our next move, and then we set out to walk the harbor, see the welcoming shops, and experience the overflowing culture in Chania. There were fishermen out in boats, kittens running through the streets, people sampling olive oil in and raki in stores, and a wonderful overarching energy that permeated through the whole town. The enthusiasm was contagious, and we knew immediately we had found the combination of culture and beauty we had been hoping for.

After exploring the town a bit, we made our way around the entire harbor to get to a narrow stone walkway that led out onto a seawall to the lighthouse. By this time we were approaching sunset, so we hung out and took some photos as we killed time so we could watch sunset from the seawall and lighthouse. This was one of the most mesmerizing moments of the trip, with our legs dangling over the edge of the wall, the sun hitting our faces, and the sound of the ocean crashing on the jagged rocks below.

 

Taking in sunset on the seawall 

 

Chania sunset 

After taking in the sunset, we made our way back to the main harbor to try out a dinner place called Apostolis II (the 'II" is in reference to the original Apostolis restaurant, which was two blocks down the harbor). Another LP Bible suggestion, Apostolis II is a water-side taverna in the harbor that offers beautiful views of the local boats and the lighthouse. And in addition to a great ambiance, it also had excellent service. Our waiter brought our bottle of white wine in a tall standing bucket of ice, along with our highly anticipated appetizer of gruviere cheese, another local Cretan cheese. The gruviere cheese was a hard cheese, sliced in wedges, with a nice mild flavor that worked wonderfully with the basket of bread. Then came the only meal of the trip where we ordered the same thing - the catch of the day - a beautiful white snapper. This was the creamiest, almost velvety fish I've ever tasted. We devoured the fish and found ourselves wanting more of it, as Greece once again proved it prepared fish way better than back home.

 

One of the most beautiful sights of the trip - the illuminated lighthouse from Apostolis II 

But, apparently, the meal wasn't over! The staff came out with a huge dessert plate of grapes, melon, fluffy cheese pastries, a summery edible flower, fresh marmalade, yogurt and a carafe of raki for free! One of the many reasons Crete would end up being our favorite stop of the honeymoon, the service never ceased to amaze us with the generosity, hospitality and above-and-beyond treatment of its customers. 

Exhausted from our day of travel, we strolled down the boardwalk on the harbor, passing the increasingly busy tavernas (normal dinner time was about 10:30pm), and the increasingly pushy servers. Apparently some of the tavernas have a reputation of being a little too cavalier in their efforts to bring in the local passers-by, and many of the other restaurants used this as marketing effort in their favor, displaying chalk signs out front of their stores that read:

   "We Don't Touch People"

   "No Pressing, No Stressing"

   "We Don't Speak Too Much"

   "We Are Not The Best"

Suffice to say this gave us quite the laugh, as we saw certain servers grab people by the elbow and try to escort them, and then look inside their taverna to see it empty, and their neighbor restaurants packed.

We made one last pass through some of the cobblestone alley shops, and among other things, found many shops that specialized in olive products, from oils to soaps to olive wood pieces. A great light brown color, the olive wood utensils and sculptures were beautiful throughout the town. As we exited the last shop, we heard the recognizable "untz-untz" thumping of a nightclub, and saw it was within definite earshot of our balcony one block down. As we passed the harbor-side club, we found it odd that they were blaring music with about three people inside, but all would be explained the next morning when we both woke up at 5:50am to hear the unmistakable "untz-untz" coming from that same club, the only place still open at that time of morning.

With that, we retired for the evening back at Casa Leone, and were excited about how the tone had been set for our time in Crete!

*Up Next* - We hike Samaria Gorge, get stranded on a beach, and go to Tamam...again.