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 than that, and I have to say that I was initially quite under-whelmed by it.
We stopped in the town's biggest hotel, and then headed out for lunch. We picked a place called Scala right at the end of the village, high up in the cliffs, and it turned out to be a really good choice.

As our cover we got served a wonderful selection of different herb and olive breads, served in a basket on a bed of dried oregano. We only had a selection of starters, but the food was gorgeous.
We then went for an afternoon on the beach, before freshening up and then heading out for cocktails. After some confusion, when we got settled in a taverna over-looking the beach that didn't serve any cocktails, we settled down in a nice little place.
Claire knew that her mojito was going to be fresh, because before the waitress could confirm whether they could do it or not, she had to go to their little herb garden and pick the mint in front of us!

tourists like them are not really welcome in Matala ....is really stupid to thing that you are welcome my friend
Posted by: Manolis Kefalakis | 31 Jul 2007 17:38:23
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment on our site Manolis
Posted by: Martin Belam | 1 Aug 2007 17:03:31