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At least our recent trip to Gramvousa cleared up one of the mysteries of the age - the location of Noah's Ark. That can be the only explanation for the battered old boat sitting on bricks next to the cantina some 700 metres above sea level.
Read all of Found: Noah's Ark
Euro 2008 hasn't been easy on Greek national pride, as we've watched the champions slink home from Salzburg as the only team who failed to register a point at the tournament, whilst arch-rivals The Ottoman Empire Turkey sensationally advanced as far as the semis thanks to an improbable 'Roy Of The Rovers' style series of late goal comebacks. Any criticism of the Greek team's performance from the English press seems to be met with a prickly "well you didn't even qualify". England can take some crumb of comfort from the fact that they were in the only qualifying group that...
Read all of Euro 2008 tough on Greece
When some friends came to visit up a couple of weeks back we indulged in the luxury of hiring a car, which meant we could explore some places we'd yet to reach on Crete. One of those was the Gramvousa Peninsula. We'd seen quite a bit about it on the late lamented 'Crete News & Life' show, as they had a recurring feature about it. However we'd never been, and as we drove out of Kissamos-Kastelli we were the furthest West we have ever been on the island. There is only one road on and off the peninsula, and even...
Read all of The long and winding really, really, really bad road to Gramvousa
After visiting Lake Kournas we headed to Georgioupoli. This distinguishes itself by being one of the few villages or towns in Crete to have a statue in the main square which isn't of Eleftherios Venizelos. We stopped by the sea-front for a drink. The beach is a very narrow strip, but stretches a long way around. There is a small jetty with a chapel on it, and we decided it would be churlish to visit the village and not pay our respects there. This turned out to be much harder than we had anticipated. From a distance the jetty looked...
Read all of A trek to Georgioupoli's chapel
We recently visited Lake Kournas for the first time. It is often described as Crete's only lake, although in truth there are a couple of puddles elsewhere that could just about stretch to being called a lake. It is definitely the largest though. It is about a 40 minute drive from Chania, near Georgioupoli, mostly on the New National Road. The lake sits at the foot of the Lefka Ori mountain range. Local legend has it that it is the site of a village that was destroyed by god for a lifestyle of sin and wickedness. A mini-version of the...
Read all of The Russians in the goose poo
We never wanted to own one of those blogs that suddenly died a death and fell silent, but for the last couple of months it seems like we have. By now, you might have expected to hear all about our Easter night at the cathedral, our opinions on the Ukrainian sunflower oil scandal, Eurovision, the terrible earthquake on the mainland and the landfill stand-off in Corfu, and, of course, Euro2008. In fact, we missed a lot of those things because we have spent much of the last couple of months working in London, which is not very bloggable. I've also...
Read all of (Slight return)
Recently posted on 'A lemon tree of our own'