A lemon tree of our own

Road Trip Day #2 and #3: Donkey rides

On the way up to the Dikteon cave we could have gone up the mountainside via donkey for about €10. It seemed not only a bit lazy, but when we saw the poor thing, it looked like it would be a bit cruel to expect the donkey to carry us as well. We had to snatch this photograph of Claire next to him, as we were being shouted at by the owner at the time - I expect he usually tries to charge people a couple of Euro for the picture. It was quite usual to see donkeys working in...

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Road Trip Day #3: Lasithi Eco Park and Dikteon Cave

We'd literally been on the road 5 minutes on the Wednesday morning when we saw the Lasithi Eco Park. We weren't enthralled by the promise of watching traditional cheese-making and crafts, but it also offered a zoo, so we thought we'd poke our noses in. There was nothing exotic in the zoo, it was more a collection of farm animals, but it had some funny pigs, and friendly ponies, and a collection of kri-kri including one very young one. After the Eco Park we headed towards Psychro and the Dikteon cave. This is the place where, according to legend, Zeus...

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Road Trip Day #2: Maria's Agios Georgios monopoly and the "Insert Coin" girl

The last stop on the second day of our Cretan road trip adventure was the small village of Agios Georgios on the Lasithi Plateau. We'd spent a fair while the previous evening in Anogia trying to find somewhere to stay, so we were delighted when almost as soon as we reached the village I spotted a sign for Hotel Maria, where we hoped to stay. This triumphant feeling wore off a little later, when we realised that Hotel Maria had a monopoly on accommodation in the area and I had spotted one of about 50 signs pointing in its general...

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Road Trip Day #2: Lasithi Plateau and Resident Evil look-a-like Tzermiado

As you come over the crest of the mountains and start your descent towards the Lasithi Plateau, it is awash with a sea of Venetian era windmills. Well, that's the idea anyway. It must be at a different time of the year to when we visited however. That picture is from a painting in our guest house, rather than any scenario we actually saw in Lasithi. Of the thousands of metal windmills still existing on the plain, we only saw a handful rigged with their sails and ready for action. Most were just sparse frames. The Lasithi Plateau has a...

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Road Trip Day #2: The road to Lasithi and the Homo Sapiens museum

Armed only with what we later established to be an incredibly inaccurate map of central Crete, we set off from Archanes with the aim of reaching the Lasithi Plateau. The Plateau is in the East of the island, and consists of a plain that is 900 metres above sea level, itself surrounded by mountains. After a little bit of to and fro to get to the right road, we were eventually heading East, and able to follow where we were on the map. Now, if there are two things Claire doesn't like, it is heights, and winding roads. Luckily for...

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Road Trip Day #2: A naughty dog, a bad map, and lunch in Archanes

After escaping the chaos of Knossos, we headed for a village in the hills - Archanes - which is right in the middle of Crete's best wine producing region. After the fiasco of navigating in the morning, we thought Archanes would be easier to find. How wrong we were. I should, perhaps, at this point stress that following the difficulties we had navigating on this day, we bought a new map when we got to Agios Nikolaos. This proved conclusively that the physical road layout in this region was entirely different to the one on the small map given to...

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Raod Trip Day #2: Fashion disaster at Knossos

It is a bit unfair to pick on individual people like this - but when we were at Knossos we were left gobsmacked by this astonishing tourist ensemble. It wasn't just the ferocity of the colour and the patterns under the burning Cretan sun. It was the way the over-sized hat was perched on the bouffant hair.

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Road Trip Day #2: Knossos Palace

As I've mentioned, the Palace at Knossos is by far and away Crete's biggest man-made tourist attraction. Our guide book advised us to get there early to avoid the crowds and the heat. Although we'd set off early, thanks to my crazy navigating and failure to find Knossos, by the time we got there it was already heaving. We stopped for a coffee before venturing in to attack the multitude of coach trips and force our way into the palace. Knossos was uncovered in the early 1900s by British Archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. The remains date from around 1,700BCE -...

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Road Trip Day #2: The nightmare to Knossos

We'd decided that we'd pop back to the kafenion in Anogia to get a cuppa before setting off for day two of our adventure. However, events conspired against us. Despite, it seemed, the whole village having been up partying outside our room until it was time to get up, when we emerged around 8am everything was firmly shut. Instead we got into the car, and decided we'd stop in a village along the way to our first destination of the day, the Minoan Palace of Knossos, Crete's biggest man-made tourist attraction. We ended up in the village of Tilissos, spotted...

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Visiting Galatas on May 21st

This week Crete has been celebrating and commemorating the 66th anniversary of the Battle of Crete. During the Second World War the island was captured by German forces who parachuted in. The island was bitterly defended to no avail by both the local population and Allied troops. At one hill in Maleme, for example, around two thirds of the invading German force were killed before they landed, often by Cretans armed at times with little more than sticks and stones. On May 21st we got the 15 bus away from Chania towards Galatas and Daratso. On the 21st May 1941,...

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Road Trip Day #1: Getting the music right

An important part of our road trip was getting the music right for driving. Once we knew our car was going to have a cassette deck in it, we bought one of those adapters that allow you to play your iPod through the car stereo. Actually we had a bit of luck when we bought that. When we went to the cash desk at the big electronics shop near Plateia 1866 to buy it, the barcode wouldn't go through. The cashier waved it at someone, who ducked into the back to check the price. I clearly heard him shout out...

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Champions League build-up

If you had any doubts about how excited Greece is to be hosting tonight's Champions League final in Athens, you only have to look at today's TV listing to have them dispelled. In a flashback to the days when both the BBC and ITV would show the F.A. Cup Final live, and cup final themed programming would start in the wee hours of Saturday morning to get you in the mood, NET's coverage of tonight's game starts at 16:00. That's a mere five-and-three-quarter hours before kick off.

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Road Trip Day #1: Electric Britain

Our room at the Arkadi in Anogia was quite quirky, including this plate as wall decoration that looked more like someting from South Pacific than rural Greece. The really funny thing was out in the lobby though. I already mentioned the fridge where you could purchase drinks and pay on the honour system, but there was also a large map of Europe on the wall. And Britain had got itself right in the way of the plug socket!

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Road Trip Day #1: Nikos Xylouris house in Anogia

Anogia has produced more than its fair share of famous Cretan musicians, and whilst we were there we saw what has become almost a shrine dedicated to one of them. Niko Xylouris is one of Crete's better known musical exports, and his house in the village is preserved with a rememberence plaque on the wall, and large pictures of the now dead musician.

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Road Trip Day #1: Anogia in World War II

The village of Anogia, where we stayed on the first night of our Cretan road trip, suffered badly under the German occupation of Crete during the Second World War. It was known as a centre of resistence, and suspected of harbouring allied troops and of involvment in the daring kidnapping of General Kreipe. As a result, on the 15th August 1944, German troops massacred all of the men of the village. There is a memorial to the Cretan heroes in the main square of the lower village.

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Road Trip Day #1: Anogia and the spud-peeling taverna

Our last stop of the day was Anogia. We parked the car at the foot of the village and started looking for somewhere to stay. After twenty minutes hard slog uphill we found some apartments - Arkadi - and rented a room for €30. It was just about the size of the double bed itself, but clean and comfortable. They had a shared fridge in the hall filled with Coke, Sprite and Water, with a price list, and you left your money on top on the honour system. After we rented the place we went and sat at a kafenion...

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Road Trip Day #1: Episkopi and Sfendoni Cave

After the Melidoni cave we took a detour to one of the numerous villages on the island called Episkopi. Here we (well, chiefly I) wanted to see the ruins of a 15th century church, which retains fragments of the original Byzantine fresco decoration. From the front the church looks relatively well preserved, but going down the side reveals the front to be little more than a hollow shell. The church was now more of a nesting ground for pigeons than a place of worship. You could just about make out traces of the frescoes, and we think we identified St....

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Road Trip Day #1: Melidoni Cave and "Where's the f*&%ing car?"

Our next stop on Day #1 was the Melidoni Cave. We missed the sign for it at first, and had to double-back through Perama, in the process discovering that the village was about eight times as big as we had thought and that we could have found any number of cool and trendy coffee bars to have our refreshments in. After a long winding climb up the mountainside, we parked up in an open space outside the cave and went to explore. The cave is famous not just for the natural beauty, but also for the martydom there of the...

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Road Trip Day #1: Keswick in the car

I know regular readers will be concerned about what happened to Keswick whilst we were away. Rest assured, just as with our adventures around Europe, he was with us every step of the way.

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Road Trip Day #1: Getting started

We had picked up the car the night before, so after cramming it full of stuff, bright and early last Monday we set off on our Crete road trip adventure. Our plan was to hit the New National Road and travel past Rethymno, and then duck inland to check out some of the villages in the interior. Our first stop was Perama, where we braved a traditional kafenion. We sat outside, so as not to upset them by having Claire inside. Ordering coffee turned out to be quite a chore. I think it was the first time on Crete where...

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A long, long, long, long day

Yesterday was a long, long, long, long day. It started in magical fashion - getting up at 5am to watch dawn slowly creep over the mountains of southern Crete behind the castle at Frangokastello, straining to see the ghosts of Cretan warriors from the 1800s. It ended less gloriously, 20 hours later, approaching 1am our time. After coming back from 2-1 down in extra time with only four minutes left, whilst down to ten men, my RCD Espanyol then contrived to lose the UEFA Cup on penalties.

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60 Deutschmark fine on Chania's buses

The local buses in Chania have the majority of their signs written in German. We've never been sure whether this is because they are all purchased second-hand from Germany, or whether they have been purchased new, but come pre-installed with German language signage. Given the local tourist market, the German signs are actually probably equally as useful as Greek language one. Still, we saw evidence the other day supporting the second-hand bus theory. We got on a bus promising us a 60 Deutschmark fine if we hadn't paid the correct fare. Pretty steep for a €0.80 ticket. Always assuming, of...

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That's not BERTINA you are drinking

You'll know that I had to supress a Finbar Saunders style fnarr every time I walked passed the Vergeiner wine warehouse in Niederalm. Well, I had a similar experience the other night when I was trying out a few different varieties of Greek beer to impress our forthcoming visitors with. To those of you with no knowledge of the Greek alphabet, this might look like a perfectly innocent can of beer, called, perhaps, something like BERTINA. But, turning the can round to the English alphabet side - you'd find out you were wrong. Very wrong. Oh, I know, I know,...

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Road trip update

Well, we are two thirds of the way through our Crete road trip adventure. We've covered 100s of kilometres, and so far based ourselves in Anogia, on the Lasithi Plateau, in Agios Nikolaos and in Sitia. I'm posting this from the excellent Cretan Villas in Ierapetra, which has free wifi in the rooms, and for our last two nights we plan to stay in Matala and Fragocastello. We've seen some great sights, and really enjoyed ourselves so far - lots of pictures and stories to come once we get back to Chania.

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Blue plants and dead animals in Germaniko Pouli

Whilst walking down to the beach near us the other day, we spotted that one of the crops on the way has recently been spray-painted blue, which made it look quite striking in the morning sun. The blue paint seems not to be the only suspicious substance out in the wild at the moment. In the last few days we've come across a lot of dead animals. One, a rat, was definite road kill - but the rest look otherwise unharmed. Just very dead. Claire has so far seen 4 dead birds, that appear to have simply keeled over in...

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Pro-Islamic graffiti in Chania

We've spotted plenty of Anti-American and anti-Nato graffiti and protests in our time in Chania, but when we went for a walk along the beach, for the first time, on the old abandoned Aptera Beach Hotel, we spotted explicit pro-Islamic graffiti. That is quite a bold statement to spray on the walls, given the history of Crete's relationship with Islam, and the country's sensitive position with neighbouring Islamic Turkey.

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The worst advert in Chania

The "Klik Fun Pub" in the old harbour is still advertising itself with the worst marketing slogan ever. Surely the've missed the "But we do have something decent" off of the end here? Even the fact that the reverse of this flyer promises free entrance and a free shot wouldn't see us dragged kicking and screaming into Klik.

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John Tierney and Αννα Σινου exhibition

You might have noticed Papalaz in the comments prompting us to switch off our idiot box and take in some art instead, and we did in fact tear ourselves away from the screen long enough to check out the joint exhibition by John Tierney and Anna Sinou at the old harbourside mosque. In fact, we went twice. This wasn't because we were desperately impressed the first time, but we went by it on May day and noticed that the lighting arrangement for the canvasses had been switched on, which really improved our enjoyment. Both Tierney and Sinou were presenting abstract...

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Crete's white olive tree trunk mystery solved

Thanks to Kydon TV's "Crete News And Life" programme one of the things about Crete that was a mystery to us has been solved. They had a two part feature about a British couple over here who have started an organic olive tree farming business. During the course of the interview they revealed that they were thinking of painting their olive trees white, a common sight around here. Thankfully they also explained why. The white paint is meant to deter pests and bugs from landing on the trees, and is also meant to protect the bark from the sun during...

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Aspects of the figure, semantics of the landscape

Despite the impression given here, living in Chania isn't all about swanning around galleries and sitting in the Venetian harbour sipping coffee together. But mostly it is, to be honest. So last week we went to see a new exhibition on at the Municipal Gallery. It is showcasing works from the collection of Antonis and Asia Hadjioannou, and mostly features art from the last ten years or so. Despite the unweildy title of "Aspects of the figure, semantics of the landscape", we really enjoyed it, and I thought it was probably the best collection we had seen since we arrived...

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And they are off!!!!!!!

And so today we embark upon our ten day tour of the island. Well, the Eastern part of it, at least. The first part of our road trip was accomplished last night - we got the car back to the house. Claire negotiatied her way through Chania's Sunday evening traffic, which is pretty much as busy and as mental as at any other time, and our holiday vehicle is now safely parked on our driveway. Well, safely if the hand-brake is any good, of course, since it is stranded halfway up the steep hill leading to the back of our...

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Fishy Sunday

Last Sunday we decided to try out the fish tavernas in the Nea Hora area of town. This is very much an area for the locals rather than the tourists, and we have been tempted by the gorgeous smell of the food they serve several times. It didn't quite go as planned though - our first food fiasco for some time. We got a table on the pavement literally two feet from the beach, and it all started off fine. We ordered beer, and I asked for Saganaki cheese to start and then white sea bream, whilst Claire wasn't having...

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Shambolic

So, Leeds United's relegation was confirmed yesterday. They went into administration which means a ten point deduction, leaving them bottom of the Championship. The glimmer of hope that they would somehow win 6-0 or something like that at Derby, whilst Hull were heavily defeated elsewhere, is gone. Declaring administration now is a fairly transparent ploy to avoid having to do it in the summer and therefore starting next season in Division Three on minus ten points. Of course, should the results go the way Leeds needed to avoid relegation later today, it will look a pretty stupid gamble. Either way,...

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Champions League semi-final showdowns

I ended up watching the second leg of the Liverpool - Chelsea tie in the Muses cafe at the harbour. I had intended to go to Remezzo, where I had parked for a considerable amount of last year's World Cup, but all the good seats in front of the telly had been taken by the time I got there. So I got a great seat at the front at Muses. And then was promptly turfed out as soon as it was established that I was on my own. I was taking up too much space, so they moved me across...

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Prison problems in Greece

Here's one to make the UK Home Secretary's eyes water, or the Minister for the Department of Justice and Buck-Passing, or whatever it is that they are re-branding it to. There has been a spate of unrest in Greece's jails, which has spread to the prison at Chania, where prisoners have been refusing to eat or go back to their cells in protests over poor treatment and over-crowding. The Chania jail building is 80 years old, and is filled with almost twice as many prisoners as it was designed for. It is also under-staffed, with only 39 or the required...

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Grey day May day

We went down into town yesterday to see what was going on for May day. Here in Greece it is actually celebrated on May 1st instead of being shifted around to the nearest convenient Monday as it is in England. It isn't so much with the bunting and morris dancing here though - it is rather more serious and political than that. We caught a bit of a rather intimidating sounding march through town, and then, given the bleakness of the weather, decided to head to the harbour for a coffee. Sadly for the rest of Greece, their holiday was...

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Curious game at Golden Sands

We've been down for happy hour cocktails at a set of holiday apartments near us called Golden Sands. It has a really nice pool and bar area, and during happy hour, cocktails are only €4. The mini-resort does have another attraction though - it seems to be the only place on the island where you can play "PINGBONG" Claire already has a theory about the rules. You play it on one half of a table tennis table, with a gong suspended at the other end...you get the general idea...

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