Welcome to Ελλάδα - Part III

Food.  It's the reason we go most places.  The food in Greece was great, especially when we went into Agios Nikolaos and checked out the local cuisine. 

Here is some of what we enjoyed while in Crete.  

lemonade Fanta = Delicious!

Breakfast - Greek yogurt, honey and fruit

snacks!

Lays olive oil chips

Dinner in town. YUM

more new Fanta

Greek beer

Jim and his best friend - the Gyro

Welcome to Ελλάδα - Part II

On most of our trips around Europe Jim and I spend a decent amount of time wandering around.  Not that we are lost, but that we just walk the cities, find cafes.  Maybe see a church or museum.  But in general we are seeing "the sights" and doing things.  

The majority of our time in Crete however, we didn't really do much.  We skipped the tours on how to make olive oil and excursions to 5,000 year old ruins and pretty much laid on the beach and looked at the water.  Sometimes that's all you need. 

I supposed we did a few other things, like ride in the funicular...

Walk the resort for the best views...

Take some pictures together...

Hung out at our room pool (which incidentally we had to switch rooms because the heater wasn't working)...

And we did go to the closest town of Agios Nikolaos twice....

 

Then it was time to pack up and head to the airport.  I would definitely go back to Greece, especially to see some of the more famous places like the Parthenon or some of the other islands like Santorini or Rhodes.  But I'm not sure we'll be back while living in Europe.  Jim is very adamant about going to new countries and not returning to places we've been.  Even if we never return, I'm glad I got to go and would recommend it to anyone who is interested.  

me with the rental car - a Fiat Panda

Welcome to Ελλάδα - Part I

5 days and 4 nights.  That's how long we spend in Greece (Ελλάδα) in September.  After finding a great deal online, Jim booked us a trip to Daios Cove on the island of Crete. 

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and Daios Cove is a little over an hour east of the closest airport Heraklion. We rented a car to get to the resort, and having the ability to drive into the nearest town was also nice. 

Finally we arrived at the resort.   And Jim quickly entered "vacation mode".  We enjoyed a welcome cocktail and then headed to our room.

Rose

This is my new favorite Hoegaarden.  I liked the original, but the Rosee blows it out of the water.  If you see this in America, try immediately.  

You can thank me later.

Creux du Van

It was probably a little aggressive to go to the Creux du Van for our first "real" hike, but we had been all talk about hiking and Dorothy and Bob persuaded us, so we took the opportunity. 

height profile for the hike.  total change in elevation - 950 meters

The entire 14km took us just under 6 hours, and I could barely move the next day.  But it hooked me on hiking.  I was slightly sad we waited so long to get started, but this year we'll make up for it.

The hike started from the Noiraigue train station, there we took a group photo to prove that we did like each other before the hike started. 

Toblerone line at the start of the hike

walked up this path for about an hour...on the same incline

sometimes the trail takes you through farms

GOAT!

first site of the Creux du Van

time to go down

 

Its hard to see a full view of the Creux du Van from the bottom, but essentially we walked up the mountain from the far right of the picture above then across the top to the left and down again, circling back to where we started.

victory drinks!