Crete - The Flight Home

 We had a cloudless flight practically all the way from Athens to London.  Here the Swiss Alps.

 Basel and Mulhouse and the River Rhine.

 Dover.

 Canary Wharf and Greenwich.

 Staines Reservoir.

Crete - Chania

Young guys and gals learning to sail.

Sun setting on another beautifully day, in every way, here in Crete.

Crete - Samaria Gorge

The drive to the gorge takes you up to around  3,500 feet to not only to look down the gorge but also to look up at the 8,000 feet Lefka Ori, the White Mountains.

Running across the Osalos Plateau sheep/goats, take your pick, grazing the tarmac. Go figure?

White Mountains,

backdrop to the gorge.

Turn around and there is the Plateau

The scenery on the way back down to Chania brought into view gems like this.  So many photos I have taken. 

Crete - Chania

The entrance to the Venetian harbour.

 with its beautiful lighthouse,

and Ottoman mosque.

Lunch with the biggest pork chop I have every been served.  Love eating where the locals eat.

After lunch, wandered the older part to find a mosque that became a church, or was it a church that became a mosque became a church?

Crete - Chania

Another Minoan museum where,

I found something familiar, but 4,000 years old - safety pins!!!  Wonder if the Minoan's had nappies?

Crete - Plakias to Chania

 Driving towards the gorge and the wind.

A last look to the mountains.

Just before entering Chania we called at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Shouda.  Most here died in the battle for Crete in 1942, many stones to unknown solders, all very young.  Could all that happen again?  Could so called social media be anything but and lead to reinforcing our tribal instincts? 

Crete - Plakias Sunset

There she goes,

with strange effects.

Crete - Plakias

A day of rest with

Just an amble round the beach,

shooting up the valleys

and back to the beach. 

Crete - Amari Valley

The drive out of Plakias necessitates driving through one of two gorges, this one being the Kourtaliotiko Gorge.

A bit of a windy place is this.

Well we did get rather off the beaten track trying to find the Amari Valley.

But made some friends along the way.

Our lunch stop, just before crossed the saddle into the Amari

And there it is, Amari the village.

Crete - On to Plakias

A lunch stop in Rethymno, not far from the Venetian harbor,

 before heading south,

for an unusual sunset  viewed from our new balcony.

Crete - Lasithi Plateau

Some images on the drive up to the plateau.

And back to Agios for the sunset.

Crete - Sitia

 Beautiful driving day.

Gournia,  the small Minoan town much less visited then Knossos but just as fascinating for its layout of individual homes.   Reminded me of Skara Brea, the Neolithic settlement on Orkney, which is even older at 5,000 years. 

On the drive over to Sitia, we stopped at a cliff top café I first visited in 1999. If you are wondering, rabbit with noodles and goat and chicken pie. The café was off menu, this time of year being out of season,  and so the chef invited us into his kitchen to show us what he was rustling up for the days stray customers like us.  I was so chuffed to be here again.

 And here the reason why.

Sitia harbor, just as I remember it, although the palm trees have grown some what.

Evening back in Agios.