Greece: Part One

Greetings from Porto Elounda, Crete! I have over 200 pictures from the first two days of our Grecian Extravaganza so I figured it was time to post a few and let you know what we've been up to so far!!

On July 7th, we flew out of Atlanta for an almost 10 hour flight to Athens, Greece. I began in the middle of the row but thankfully the plane was not completely full and the woman next to me was able to move. After switching to her seat I was much more comfortable for the flight ahead. I was able to fall asleep for about an hour after taking off when the movie began and they started serving dinner. I was very surprised to find how delicious it was- pasta in a garlic cream sauce with red peppers, side salad, roll, and a cheesecake brownie for dessert. After that I was certain I would be able to fall back to sleep...but 8 hours later we were making our approach to Athens and I was still awake! You can see from the picture I look less than alert as we landed!

We got off the plane and headed directly to our next flight- a thirty five minute puddle jump to Crete. We landed on the island and got our rental car so we could drive along the coast to our hotel. After arriving in Porta Elounda we dropped off our luggage, changed into our bathing suits, and toured around the resort. We dipped our toes in the Mediterranean and then headed into town to eat dinner. We realized we hadn't eaten lunch so by this time we were starving! I had a delicious dinner of lobster risotto and Linc ate traditional Greek souvlaki (chicken on a skewer). The food and the atmosphere were great, and we even had a cat join us at the end of the meal. When we got back from dinner we tried to go swimming in the sea, but it was too cold so we settled on our private salt water pool. Afterward we headed to bed early, and I was finally able to get some much needed sleep.

Unfortunately, our hotel stops serving breakfast at 10:30 and by the time we woke up we had missed it! We headed down to the beach to lay out for a while and wait for the lunch session to begin. We were able to swim in the sea this time and it was beautiful! So clear and so colorful! We had lunch at the Odysseas Taverna right on the water, and I ordered Beef Souvlaki and Linc had Oriental Kabobs. By this time it was close to 2pm and we realized if we wanted to sight see, we had better get started!

A two hour trek through the mountains with absolutely no street signs led us through some amazing old and authentic Cretan towns. The main road through this part of the country is about the width of a car and a half and is completely dirt! If it hadn't been for the signs telling us which town we were in (I literally checked their names off on the map as we drove through) we may have been lost forever! No street signs, no house numbers, hardly any sign of life except the mountain goats- it was quite an adventure! A few of the towns had a few older Cretan women dressed in all black with scarves selling jams and various other items on the side of the road, but most of the time we drove through what seemed like deserted towns! We finally made it to our destination after some tricky navigating but I am happy to report we did not get lost one single time!!

Near the town of Psichro and a fifteen minute hike up an incredibly steep mountain led us to the Caves of Dikteon. No wonder the guide book recommended letting the donkeys do all the work! We descended into the cave and enjoyed the quick change in temperature! Once we were down at the bottom we could enjoy the stalagmites and stalactites. After climbing back up we drove to Agios Nikolaos and had dinner at Taverna Aouas. This one was in our guide book too but I was not impressed. The view was lovely but the food was just sub par. We walked around the town, got gelato, and then headed back to our hotel! We took the scenic roads back home back over the mountains and after checking email really quick, we went to bed around 10:30pm.

I have so much more to write about and so many more pictures to share, but you'll just have to stay tuned for another post about all the Cretan history we experienced!