A lemon tree of our own

Road Trip Day #8: Matala

We reached Matala in time for a late lunch, rather naughtily by-passing Phaestos on the grounds that we would visit it "some other time". Yep. Sure. Matala is a village based around a small inlet, and on one side the soft cliffs feature rock-cut tombs that date back to Roman times. The resort was a famous hippie enclave during the sixties, when people hung out and slept in the caves, and presumably played the bongos, tooks lots of drugs and enjoyed groovy free love. None of which was in our plans. Matala 2007-style is a little more built-up and developed...

Read all of Road Trip Day #8: Matala

Road Trip Day #8: Gortyn

Just outside of Agii Deka was our next stop, the ancient site of Gortyn. This features two monuments of great importance to the history of the island. One is the extremely early Gortyn Cathedral, which dates from the 6th century. It is thought that it is built upon the site of an earlier Christian church, and since Gortyna was the old Roman capital of the island it is generally believed that St Paul would have visited the site. And if you've been foloowing our travels a while you'll know I am a bit partial to a bit of Saint Paul....

Read all of Road Trip Day #8: Gortyn

Road Trip Day #8: Agii Deka's Bender tractor

Have you ever seen a vehicle with more of a face than this tractor we spotted in Agii Deka - surely it and Bender from Futurama were separated at birth?

Read all of Road Trip Day #8: Agii Deka's Bender tractor

Sisters are doing it for themselves!

The day began on a sad note. I waved goodbye to Martin as he sped off in a taxi towards the airport and a fortnight in rainy England. Luckily the day improved when my mum and I - "the girls" - set off on an adventure. We got our local bus into Hania centre then hopped on the 11am bus for Rethymno. The temperature was already over 40 degrees so we were grateful of the arctic air-conditioning in the coach style bus. Rethymno was pretty busy, as you'd expect in July, but this added to, rather than spoilt, the experience....

Read all of Sisters are doing it for themselves!

Road Trip Day #8: Agii Deka, Maria and Manolis K.I.S.S.I.N.G., and the milky, milky coffee

Well, I'm in the UK for a couple of weeks, so won't have much chance to update the site, or indeed write about life in the Crete, so it seems an appropriate moment to pick where I left off about the road trip which we took some time in the early 21st century around Crete. Last time I was writing we had endured a filthy cup of coffee in a rude and surly taverna perched high above Crete's south coast. After we left there we pressed on to Agii Deka, which means the Ten Saints or Ten Martyrs. The village...

Read all of Road Trip Day #8: Agii Deka, Maria and Manolis K.I.S.S.I.N.G., and the milky, milky coffee

Harry Potter day in Hania

It is Harry Potter day in Hania as well. The news stands have big displays of The Deathly Hallows in the street - €25.50 to you in Crete. I've just watched on amused as two tweenage girls have sat down to eat ice cream here at Pallas, and then breathlessly opened their brand new Harry Potter books - straight at the last page!

Read all of Harry Potter day in Hania

From the people who brought you Pingbong.....Thusday

At Golden Sands, as well as advertising the unique Cretan sport of Pingbong, they have a 'Greek' evening. It is an eat-all-you-can style buffet, with a bit of dancing thrown in. It is a great cheesy was to introduce guests to Crete. The advertising for it, though, leaves a little to be desired on the spelling front. Well, unless it is a very clever way of saying that they do the night on Tuesday and Thursday evenings - THUSDAY.

Read all of From the people who brought you Pingbong.....Thusday

Annual comic exhibition at KAM

We visited one of our favourite annual events in Chania at the weekend - the comic exhibition at KAM. The exhibition showcases panels of comic illustrations by young artists from Greece and France, all done in a variety of styles. We are consistently amazed at the high standards these young artists achieve. We noticed this year that the Greek entries tended to a be a bit more violent and militarily orientated, like those from Αναστασια Μπαμπεκου and Κωνσταντινος Καρτελιας. This year there was a free magazine which reproduced one panel from the majority of the Greek entries, which meant I...

Read all of Annual comic exhibition at KAM

The future of MLS coverage on British TV

I see that there has been a bit of interest in one-half of a showbiz couple, local boy made good, and part-time footballer David Beckham moving to play football in the U.S. I'm not sure if the deals have been tied up for next season, but I wouldn't be surprised to see live MSL coverage on UK television, in much the same way that Paul Gascoine's move to Lazio helped prompt Channel 4 to start showing Football Italia. And springboarded the career of the erudite and puntastic James Richardson. Just so you know what to expect, I caught a glimpse...

Read all of The future of MLS coverage on British TV

Not quite a UFO sighting over Chania

Well, we very nearly had an exciting UFO sighting to report to you. I was sitting on the balcony on Monday night, when I saw some flashing lights in the sky above the house to my right. We are on quite a few flight paths, so it wasn't that unusual - except that they appeared to be stationary in the sky. I was sitting down, and they were framed in a small gap between blocks of building on our street, and so it was really easy to see that they were not moving. I watched the lights for half a...

Read all of Not quite a UFO sighting over Chania

No new lemons for us this year

Our lemon tree isn't enjoying the best of summers. First of all it was trapped in the courtyard with the horses of god / grasshoppers from hell who had a good old chew on it. Then we moved it to the front balcony, and although it seems to be doing better it is being constantly attacked by bugs and instincts. Under guidance from our tree doctor friend we washed and cleaned the leaves and got it bug free for a couple of days, but it is still prone in the night to being attacked. It did produce four new buds...

Read all of No new lemons for us this year

Devastating forest fires in Greece

There wasn't an Athens leg of the Live Earth Global Warming pop extravaganza, but if there had of been, I suspect most of the attendees would have been more worried by a spot of local warming than global warming. The recent heatwave here has led to a devastating series of forest fires that have swept through the country, most notably practically destroying a significant amount of the National Park of Parnitha. The Parnitha National Park was the lungs of Athens, and held a fragile fir ecosystem that will be hard to regenerate. Of course no national disaster here is complete...

Read all of Devastating forest fires in Greece

Beware Speed Rent-A-Car on Halidon

I generally try and avoid writing bad things about people just for the sake of it - but we were extraordinarily vexed the other week by Speed Rent-A-Car on Halidon. We'd used them to get the mookimobile that took us around Crete on our road trip - and I really must finish writing that up and uploading the pictures to Flickr at some point - so we went back the next time we needed to hire a car. We had guests arriving, bringing two small children with them, and we figured that what with the taxi fares to and from...

Read all of Beware Speed Rent-A-Car on Halidon

Le Grand Départ in Chania

As I've already mentioned over on currybetdotnet today, I was quite simply gutted not to be in London for the start of this year's Tour De France. All along my cunning plan had been to tap up our contacts in Tower Bridge, and find myself some sort of unique vantage point for the big off. Of course, even if I had been in the UK, recent events involving the not-quite-so-deadly Doctors of Death meant security was ultra-tight, so I probably wouldn't have got away with it anyhow. I had a lot of work on this weekend, but we arranged it...

Read all of Le Grand Départ in Chania

Chania's Saturday market

It is funny how we still suddenly find stuff out about where we live. Just casually asking someone the other week what they were doing at the weeked got the reply: "After I've been to the Saturday market I'll....blah blah blah". Hang on a second. Did you say Saturday market? So it turns out that in the year or so that we have been based in Chania, we never knew about the massive sprawling Saturday market. Well, obviously, we are never ones to miss a chance to nose around or have a shop, so the very next Saturday we were...

Read all of Chania's Saturday market

Mythos Red gets the official thumbs down

I think the technical term is something like 'product diversification', but last week at the Inka supermarket by Plateia 1866 I saw for the first time bottles of "Mythos Red". It seemed utterly churlish not to try it. It is slightly stronger that the regular 'green' Mythos - and a lot less pleasant. I think they were aiming for an ale-like taste, but whatever the intention, it got the official thumbs down in our household.

Read all of Mythos Red gets the official thumbs down

Venus and, erm, Saturn, are alright tonight

Sitting in the stand of the sports arena Waiting for the show to begin Red lights, green lights, strawberry wine, A good friend of mine, follows the stars, Venus and Mars Saturn Are alright tonight. We've lugged my star chart all over Europe in the last 18 months, but it must be said it isn't of great use anymore in the way it is intended. You are supposed to move the wheel thingy round to point North at a specified hour and miraculously it reveals the stars you should see in the sky. However, it was designed to be used...

Read all of Venus and, erm, Saturn, are alright tonight

Post-Samaria - food at Agia Rameli, a peek at Loutro and waiting for the bus at Chora Sfakion

When you finish trekking the Samaria gorge you end up on the South coast of Crete in a small village called Agia Rameli. There really isn't much there except a broken-up church, an abandoned old castle on the hill, some tavernas to cater for the tourists, and the ferry port out of there. The long walk had impaired our collective decision making facilities, not least of which when we ignored the couple of cafes at the foot of the gorge to press on ahead to do the extra half-hour walk to get to the village before stopping. After some dithering...

Read all of Post-Samaria - food at Agia Rameli, a peek at Loutro and waiting for the bus at Chora Sfakion

The characters of Samaria Gorge

There were some wonderful moments in Samaria gorge. You know, when it was just me, my wife, my friends, the wonder of nature, and that really annoying bloke just up ahead whistling "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" really loudly. We came across two very special characters though - "Bend your knees" man, and Bumgirl. "Bend your knees" man distinguished himself by getting behind me at one of the bits where you had to climb uphill a bit, and taking it upon himself to criticise my walking style. "Bend your knees more. That's it. It isn't hard mate" he said from behind...

Read all of The characters of Samaria Gorge

We walked Samaria Gorge - at last

Given that it is on the "must see / must do" list of everybody who ever visits Crete, and is listed as essential in every piece of tourist literature on the island, it was rather remiss of us last year not to attempt the Samaria Gorge. However, when K. & I. came to stay they wanted to walk it, and so we finally made the trip. We went under our own steam, as that was a little more cost effective for the four of us. The organised trips we saw were around €25 per person, and that didn't include entrance...

Read all of We walked Samaria Gorge - at last

Now we live on Puppy Street

You may have picked up previously that we call one of the streets in Chania near the bus station "Puppy Street" by virtue of the fact that it has a pet shop which usually houses one or two young puppies for sale. Last year you could poke your fingers into their cages, and get some puppy snuffles and licks. This year however they are kept in glass contraptions, which means you can't touch them, which isn't half as much fun. A few weeks ago though, the people next door to us got themselves a little σκύλακη called Lily. She is...

Read all of Now we live on Puppy Street