A Cretan Trip

An early start for us today because we decided to take a bus tour on our visit to Crete. The ship slipped silently into the Bay of Souda before dawn. The ink black sea was like glass. We had breakfast in our stateroom before being escorted efficiently to our bus. We were actually supposed to be in Athens today but the Greeks are having a general strike because of the Greek Crisis, and all the museums including the Acropolis are shut; also there will be massive demonstrations. Crete is also affected by the strike but the tour buses are running. So our captain has changed our itinerary and we will be in Athens tomorrow.
Soon we were on our way. Crete is very beautiful; quite mountainous. Our first stop was at the Lake of Kournas which is very pretty with hills all around. It's their largest freshwater lake but in fact it's only about the size of Lanark Loch! We were given goat's cheese pancakes with honey (a local speciality) which James declined, not surprisingly given his distaste for both goat's cheese and honey! In fact he looked as if he was going to throw up at the very idea.
Our next stop was the Monastery of Arkadi which is very picturesque but which has a very sad past; it was besieged by Ottoman Turks in 1866. Their gunpowder stores exploded and more than a thousand monks and civilians were either blown up or killed by the Turks. Our tour guide Effie was very informative and told us a bit about the Greek Orthodox Church; their icons never smile and are very skinny because of fasting - any smiling plump icons have a western influence. It was a lovely temperature to be wandering around the monastery; warm and sunny but without the fierce heat that makes me swelter in Greece in July.
Effie also gave us lots of information about all aspects of the island of Crete as we travelled in the bus, including its history, culture and produce. She certainly knows a lot about olives! Her soothing voice had me drifting off to sleep from time to time, probably partly because my goat's cheese pancake was sitting rather uneasily in my stomach.
Finally we arrived in Rethymnon, self-styled "soul of Crete" where Effie took us on a guided walk through the old town with its narrow cobbled streets, past the Venetian harbour. It's a pretty wee town with the usual tourist shops and some Venetian buildings and a fountain. As we were walking along we could hear the shouts of a demonstration going on in the next street. And a few shops were closed because of the strike. James and I went for a wander round the streets and bought some souvenirs - James became so tired and fed up while I spent only a few minutes choosing some soap that we had to go for a drink at the lovely little harbour to revive him. I liked our waterfront café where the water was teeming with little fish; the waiters were friendly and the toilets were very clean. A very enjoyable trip.