Crete
Crete was our next stop on our honeymoon! We spent only 2.5 days on the island, staying in the capital city of Heraklion. Crete is the largest of all the Greek islands, and has a distinct architectural, cultural and culinary history from the rest of the islands and mainland Greece--it was formerly a part of the Ottoman empire, functioning as an autonomous state. Crete is also where the ancient Minoan civilization lived.
Arriving in Crete was a bit stressful. To pick up the rental car, we had to take a taxi from the port to the airport. There was a long line of people to take a taxi from the port, and a long line of taxis to take them. At the front of the line, there was someone--another taxi driver--who decided it would be his job to direct people into cabs. This chokepoint led to a very slow line, and apparently some of the other taxi drivers did not like it--we saw a few stop, get out of their cars, and argue with him in very animated Greek for several minutes. So, guess who ended up being our taxi driver? He pulled us off to the side where we had to wait for him to direct the last few groups into cars and wouldn't let anyone talk to us for fear of trying to split a cab. He explained all of the drama to us in the taxi, and after a somewhat scary first experience in Crete, we arrived at the airport to pick up our rental car.
This was Jack's first time driving outside of the US, and it was a bit challenging--road signs are often non-existent, parking on both sides of the street is omnipresent, and many roads are two-way but are only one car wide. Our car was nice (a manual, but a newer one that was very easy to drive), and Hannah was a great navigator, so we made it without any incidents more serious than a wrong turn.
Heraklion is much more populous than Santorini, and felt more like other European cities we'd been to in the past. For dinner, we went to a small restaurant, Lola--I think a single person was running the entire place. We had vegetables mille feuille and lahmacun, Cretan specialties, and we had a “raisin wine”, a white wine where they leave the grapes to dry slightly in the sun before turning them into wine. This concentrates the sugars and makes the wine a bit sweeter--although this one was still rather dry. We were happy to see more cats on our walk to dinner than we saw in all of Santorini and had fun pointing them out to each other while we ate.
The next day, we went to the Palace of Knossos, a site of ancient Minoan ruins that were in use from 1900 BC to 1300 BC. The ruins were excavated and reconstructed in 1900 by Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist with questionable decision-making and little actual knowledge of Minoan life. He coined the term "Minoan," presuming that Knossos is where King Minos (of Homeric stories) must have lived, and assumed the ruins to be his Palace. Modern historians and archaeologists question this assumption, along with most of his assertions about the form and function of Knossos.
The ruins themselves are sprawling and extensive. Many sections were restored by Evans, with questionable accuracy, while others lie in a more or less original state. The palace was orignally many stories tall, with extensive underground sections (it is situated on a hill that was essentially formed by many buildings being constructed on top of each other over centuries). The palace has numerous finds, including large frescoes and massive clay jars that would have been used to store grain, wine, water, and other goods.
The Palace was really interesting, but also really hot with very little shade. We were also surprised by a lack of staff--it wasn't a problem, but not having anyone present other than at the gate was very different to a typical museum experience. We were able to download the app for the Palace and read additional information about each notable site, which we of course did.
After the Palace, we walked briefly around the port area and stopped for a quick snack: oregano-flavored potato chips! We then visited the museum of Ancient Greek Technology, a small museum with reproductions of the technological wonders of Greek antiquity, including:
- A "vending machine" that dispensed a set amount of liquid when the correct coin was inserted.
- An alarm clock.
- A machine to accurately measure long distances.
- Many forms of rapid, long-distance communication (including early forms of encryption).
- Sundials and latitude charts that use the sun.
- Early maps of the Mediterranean.
- An advanced clock/calendar that would predict the dates of events like Eclipses or harvest days.
- The cranes used to build ancient temples.
- Ancient greek games.
One of the museum employees often grabbed us to show how various machines worked or let us use the machines ourselves. She was very impressed with Jack's prior knowledge, and Jack even beat another employee at one of the ancient games!
After the museum, we had dinner at Peskesi, a delicious farm-to-table restaurant--it was on every must-visit list and even in our Greek Island travel guide and was maybe the best place we ate at on our entire trip. We had various bean salads, our first fried cheese (which quickly became a favorite of ours), the most delicious potatoes we've ever eaten (until later on the trip), and some delectable complimentary herb-infused Raki (a grape-infused aperitif, similar to Ouzo). Near the end of dinner, a large group sat next to us--the same group that we sat next to two nights ago in Oia! It was a funny coincidence, and we joked that we would see them again in a few days in Athens at another fun restaurant. After dinner, we caught the sunset from the Venetian fort at the Heraklion port. Watching the sunset was one of our favorite activities on our honeymoon--I don't think we missed a single one!
On our last day in Crete, we went to the beach. We had a long drive to get there--nearly an hour--but it was absolutely worth it (and, driving through the mountains of Crete was quite breathtaking). The beach was only slightly busy, and the water was warmer than it had been in Santorini. We splurged on the beach chairs (only 5 euro for the whole day!) and spent the day reading and relaxing. We had a late lunch at the cafe at the beach before heading back.
On the way back to Heraklion, we took a detour to a charming village to the south to grab a snack and a glass of wine and walk around.
Finally, we dropped off the rental car, did a load of laundry, and went to bed; our ferry left for Naxos early the next day.
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