Crete for a week

Crete is the southernmost and largest island of Greece. It is very large in my opinion and according to Google maps will take us 5 hours to cross lengthwise by car!

We arrived late to the Creta Suites at around 1am. Because it’s up a hillside with tiny roads, we were glad Ris walked out to get us as she’d arrived earlier with her mom. It’s a rustic timeshare overlooking the water at the southeastern shore of the island.

After arriving in the dark the night before, I was excited to begin exploring. I was not excited about driving the curvy streets where driving into the oncoming lane to overtake slower cars is common. This’ll require some practice. Crete’s streets are the reason we rented a VW Golf, the larger (believe it or not) of the tiny cars we were looking at renting.

Day 1-Ierapetra and nearby beaches SE

Our group was late to wake up, no surprise since we got in so late. We hopped into our rental cars and went to check out the Ierapetra old town area. We ended up eating at yet another seaside restaurant, this one called Gorgona (Medusa). After getting seated with bottled water and beer, we had fresh fried calamari, moussaka, saganaki, Greek salad, sardines, fish soup and a few other items until we were overfull. Our host was excellent in explaining what was what.

After the meal we went for a walk along the shore to the Venetian castle (under construction).

When we popped into the water on the walk back, little did we know we were starting a beach visiting marathon.

First right there at the old harbor. The water was so clear!

This one had a small changing stall and a shower to rinse. I threw on my snorkel to check out a dark area in the water but turns out it was just debris. The water is cold and salty compared to Hawaii waters. Also as we visited more and more beaches, we noticed that each one had an outdoor shower to rinse off at. Me like!

After going to a large Walgreens style market, we headed east to 3 other beaches.

…the first being Galini beach. Pebbly and owee to walk on. The foot pain reminded me of walking on the black sand beaches in Hawaii.

We spotted a grape vine at the beachside restaurant.

Little sour. Maybe they use the leaves to make dolmades.

I think your goggles are upside down, Hud.

Next was Makry Gialos, a long stretch of calm coastal beach. It was hidden by rows of stores between it and the road. The boys said this was their favorite so far, really calm and long.

The last one was called Drakon’s Gave (dragons cave). As we walked down the hill towards the water, we were greeted by the sound of a generator, club music and men in Speedos playing paddle ball.

Yeah, we brought our own booze. The primary danger here was risking getting hit in the back of the head by a paddleball or whatever these guys were playing. Also found some ‘opihi for a snack!

As the day came to a close we chose to divide and conquer. Some of us went to go cook dinner and the rest to attend mass. As you might guess I stayed back to make pesto pasta and test alcohol. Hudson and I also met an interesting family from South Africa at the pool, Peter and Zac. They speak Afrikaans. Here’s our kitchen.

Ris had brought pesto from Genoa, its birthplace. We real like that.

Old friends and new:

This trip I learned about raki, the Cretan version of grappa, a spirit made from distilling the leftover skins of wine grapes.

Day 2-Zeus cave east

Today we’re rounding up at 830am (I’m late) to head out in two cars with everyone. Our main goal today is to travel northward for around 2 hours to go to a place called Diktaion Andron (Σπήλαιο Δικταίου Άντρου) to go to the birthplace of Zeus, a cave where he was hidden and fed ambrosia until he was big enough to kill his father, a child eating titan. Intense!

We coughed up 2.50€ parking, got some ice cream then hiked lightly uphill around 20 min to this.

You could also rent a donkey for 10€ each way but I didn’t consider it. In town we would see taxis with magnetic signs on their doors saying, “Don’t ride the donkeys, stop animal cruelty.”

Between hearing Paxton retell the story of Zeus’ birth along the way in and having to descend extra slowly into the unexpectedly frigid cave behind the elders combined to make it an unhurried and overall pretty enjoyable excursion.

Here’s a far away shot…

Now we’re all getting hungry. Visiting the birthplace of a god might do that to a person. On the drive up we passed a few restaurants that had wood burning spits firing away with rotating pieces of meat spinning above flame and coal. That smell of wood flowing through the high hills triggered a feeling in my stomach that drew us here. It was animal and it happened to be just below the Zeus’ cave parking lot.

After we got seated I asked our server what was popular there. She said the suckling pig. “Come take a look.” She motioned to us to go around front to the oddly magnetic fire that initially called out to me, and I saw this quirky weathered looking guy.

He got out a knife and let me sample a bit of the pork on the menu. When he stopped the spit from rotating I could see fat dripping off the meat and into the fire creating little bursts of flame in the now dying ash.

We chatted and in between him yelling goodbye to his departing patrons as they drove away, in broken English he told me about his business model-to provide a low stress, good food experience to his visitors. He said that everyone working there was family (Mmm hmm sure) and he doesn’t like to rush people out.

As I became more comfortable I placed my elbows on the stone countertop and asked him about the food and smells that drew me in originally. He said that he starts roasting the pork around 7 am using wood from a tree that was growing nearby us (literally) which he began to describe as “stone” then was at loss for words. My guess is he meant to say hard wood. The suckling pig typically roasts for 5 hours before it ends up on people’s plates. The other wood he uses to cook is olive. There is probably no shortage of that on the island!

The more I talked to him, the deeper a feel I got for this simple roadside eatery that I initially took as a tourist trap. By the end of our visit I felt like I could stay here forever.

After eating this I thought I might. Here’s my slice. It was simple and yet so delicious. Rich with fat, I thought I’d fall asleep right on my chair comatose. The thick rib with potatoes was €8.5 a plate. At the end of our meal the server brought out cherries and a taster of raki, a Cretan hard liquor made of distilled leftover wine grape skins.

She took out these tiny shot glasses and vessels of raki along with fresh cherries. I asked her about the raki and she said to try it, it’s special because it’s homemade. “My husband makes it.” She set everything down on the table and before walking away she wished us family happiness and strength while looking me in the eye and it was then my heart melted. Food and love. To top it off the raki and cherries were no charge.

Since we were in no rush to get back onto the windy road, I hung around and talked to her more a little bit about the raki because it’s very similar to grappa, an Italian favorite of mine dear to the heart. She told me there’s also a honey version they drink in winter when the snow is a meter high outside and also a pepper version too. Then she pointed to the guy who makes it for her and wouldn’t you know, it was the fella who was roasting the meat.

Now what you might be wondering about (as I was) is his gypsy slash pirate looking head gear. While talking to him indoors I saw that there were several hanging on the walls of the interior of the restaurant and so I asked about it thinking it might have a bit of cultural importance. The owner told me it’s a traditional Cretan accesory. The black colored one is to remember your ancestors and the white is for newly married couples. As he explained this to me I noticed he kept tugging on one of the tassles hanging over his eye. He told me that the tassles represent tears (of crying). As he gently pulled on it, I imagined he was metaphorically crying tears for his parents and their parents. Look at the missing ones over his right eye.

Then he shook my hand and almost crushed it. Would surely recommend this place, Tavern Taksiarhos.

Not sure what this was but I laughed when I saw it above the kitchen doors.

And we continue onward. The plateau we passed on the way to the caves had old windmills in various states located in strategic spots. Windmills here were used to help move water for the crops up on the plateau.

While we continued home, we stopped off at two beaches.

Voulisma looked beautiful and now that we are on the north side of the island there is wave action to play in. The waves would go up past the umbrella covered chairs that had personal item safes which I thought were pretty neat.

What I didn’t like was that although the beach looked beautiful from afar, there was debris in the water. Not natural debris like leaves or twigs after a heavy rainfall but tiny bits of plastic, plastic bags and manmade stuff that you hope wouldn’t be in the water. For me the call to the ocean is letting that water surround your entire body, and unnatural bits of stuff floating around is a big turnoff for me. Anyway, on to the next beach, a place back south that Ris had her eye on. Tidepool beach. That’s not its real name, by the way.

Rocks mean snorkeling action, and if I see ‘opihi, I like to sample a few because they’re expensive and hard to come by in Hawaii, yet for some reason there are many places around the world where they aren’t overconsumed at all, like this beach.

A day 2 last note about Cretan/Greek people, we stopped at a grocery place known to us only (and incorrectly) as “the watermelon store” because there were watermelons outside. Hudson loves watermelon. He tried to pick one up off the counter and it fell onto the ground and busted into pieces. After we checked out I made him tell the cashier sorry and what he ended up getting in return was a big hug, a toss into the air and my second wish of the day for family happiness. Then the merchant shook my hand and almost crushed it. These Cretans.

Day 3-Sitia NE

Today all 10 of us hit the road to Sitia, a town of 10,000 and the home of olive oil. The town might produce 500 tons of olive oil for its own consumption as well as for export. It’s about an hour away from our home base. Since most places around here take awhile to get to, we decided to do a short trip with everyone. The elders have limited mobility and limited alcohol tolerance lol.

Some of the streets are crazy tiny. Streets that don’t look like they should be for cars have cars going in them.

Anyway our goal was simply to get everyone out and about. We barely found parking and headed to the waterfront for food. Basically if you talk to us for more than a minute, we’ll eat there. This was no different.

Tap and suck. Here are the snails crawling up the sides of the bucket pre butter and herbs.

Time to feast!

Some post lunch snacking-Greek donuts fresh fried in oil.

At the end of the trip I realized that these were the best donuts we had. Crispy and chewy inside and drizzled in honey. Athens is a rip off compared to this. Kreta!

We drove 45 min to visit Vai (palm) beach.

The elders had a drink.

We had a kiss and a laugh

Thanks Vai!

Day 4 Hudson’s cooking class

Today we go to the Cretan Olive Oil Farm in the outskirts of Elounda.

Elounda is a small port town that in some ways has a mini resort feel to it. Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga have supposedly stayed here.

Today is Hudson’s 10th birthday and since he wanted to do a cooking class, June set this up for us before arriving. His other birthday goal is to eat ice cream.

Happy birthday to this guy!

Here’s the menu for today:

• Moussaka
• wine (grape) leaves
• tzatziki (yogurt) sauce
• vinegar sausage (tastes better than it sounds)
• dakos (a dish from dried bread)

Moussaka reminds me of shepherds pie. It’s made with alternating layers of pan fried eggplant, deep fried potato and a meat sauce, topped with a white sauce of cheese, flour, Greek butter and toast crumbs. Bake in a ceramic dish for 30 minutes. Get fat.

Base layers

Meat sauce to fill in the gaps. All the gaps.

Combine and eat the extras. Get fat. So yum.

That flour topping is rich.

While it’s baking we get started on the wine leaf/dolmades. I’ve had grape leaves several times and had no idea the amount of work that goes into them. Why? Basically it’s rice in a leaf.

The rice part starts with an uncooked herb seasoned risotto rice wrapped in a blanched wine leaf. It gets boiled/steamed in all the excess juices. The whole thing gets placed in a pot lined with the extra vegetables to prevent burning and cooked for 20 minutes or until done.

Check out the filing. Risotto rice, fresh herbs, cumin, vegetables and you guessed it, olive oil! Mix it around and finish.

The grape leaves.

Throw your extra veggies on the bottom to prevent burning…

Stuffed tomato in the center for fun

Cover, add juice from filling, water and cook on the stove till rice is done.

Tzatziki is a simple Greek yogurt sauce enjoyed with gyros and grapes leaves and whatever you want to dip in it. No pic of this but it’s shredded cucumber squeezed to get the water out, fresh garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Mix and get fat.

A welcome phrase and, you guessed it raki!

Vinegar sausage is fried sausage, peppers, garlic, a huge amount of honey, tomato sauce and wine cooked down into deliciousness.

Dakos is a hard dry bread that can keep for 6 months. It gets dunked in water a quick one, drizzled with olive oil and grated fresh tomato and crumbled feta cheese. Don’t forget the olive oil. Get fat.

Olive oils are rated by acidity. The lower the number the higher the quality.

And if you weren’t full by this point, it was now time to get fat.

After souveniring up we went to the town of Agios Nicholas for haircuts and even more souvenirs.

Not to mention a few wrong turns. Ok not a bad view.

And to remention ice cream for the birthday boy.

We had a hard time finding a place to cut hair. I should rephrase that to say we had a hard time finding a place with availability for today. We did it though! The cost for 2 women’s, 1 boy’s and 1 bolohead haircut=€65

My takeaway from this experience was about the working hours. This and most other places were closed between 2pm and 5pm daily. Turns out the reason for this is that if you work 12 hours a day, a long break in between is ideal.

Time to go nainai early, wakeup time for tomorrow is 5:30 am for…

Day 5-Elafonissi (pink) beach

Whoee. We’ve been to white sand, black sand and green sand beaches. June read that there’s a pink sand (kind of) beach here in Crete. Only thing is, we’re based on the east side of an oblong island and Elafonissi is on the far west. It’s a 4 hour 40 minute nonstop drive to get there. We headed out at 6am with homemade sandwiches and snacks, and most importantly caffeine.

Although there was a constant stream of cars entering and rows of tour buses parked when we got there, what was amazing is that it didn’t feel crowded. I thought that it was unbelievable that there was plenty of room for everybody.

This was amazingly clear. I thought that coming from Hawaii I would find this beach uninspiring but it was really interesting and beautiful. No waves to play in but that’s the trade off for crystal clear waters.

This is looking inland.

What’s neat about Elafonissi is that two elongated shallow bays meet side by side creating so many long stretches of areas to hang out at. The waters in the bays are knee to thigh high deep and you can also go to the outside and explore the rocky areas outside the bays via snorkel. The waters are much cooler in the deeper areas. There are small lizard fish and wrasse as well as what look like a salt water mullet, large oama with no whiskers and a Greek fish that I saw in hand bag form at Kalimera Market by our place.

Like many of the Cretan beaches we’ve been to, there are wooden plank pathways that lead to the beach. Most importantly they take you out afterwards with less sand and dirt than would be otherwise. I think we found working showers at every beach we went to also. I saw 2 changing stands and there was a bathroom that cost €.50, which means fifty cents to poop. Need I say more? There are a few overpriced snack stands that weren’t busy considering the people volume but I thought there might be at least a beach type bar/restaurant. Maybe that’s for the better since we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.

The pink colored sand is visible on the tiny peaks that form on the under water sand as well as where the waves lap on shore.

When I went off by myself to explore and take this pic, June texted me and asked where I was. The second after I joked to June that I was collecting pink sand to bring home I stubbed my toe and got a cut. Bachi.

Here I am living my best life. Eat your heart out, Ris. Shirt and hat in the water. What a weirdo.

One thing I became more familiar with (finally) was driving. Passing on a two lane road going 80 kph is common and everyone cooperates and makes it happen.

On the way back through Heraklion we stopped back at the place the kids remembered as best gyros so far. Politica mostly grilled. Truth.

Last day for us-gameplan->hike and laze around

Mylonas waterfall and gorge. Both are nearby our hotel. There was even a backroad way from our hotel that didn’t even cross the main road.

Since the turnoff looked like it might send us tumbling down the mountainside, we decided to back down and take the main road.

We drove in for a few minutes along a one car at a time dirt road to this. June didn’t want to cross the shallow water via car and fortunately the entrance was right around the corner.

The pathway had an old water irrigation channel, on the side of it the modern equivalent.

We hiked in for a good 25 minutes to get to this.

Despite June’s warnings, I put my head into the heavy waters of the falls. Worth it. (Update-no leptospirosis for me)

Afterward we feasted at the trail head on a mostly homemade gyros meal that we brought.

Then I got kinda drunk back at the hotel. Not on purpose though. We went back to the hotel to pre check out and square up on additional charges. Hudson saw his hotel friend Zac (South Africa), and decided to stick around and play in the pool. I stayed behind with him while June and Paxton went back to the tidepool beach.

Next thing I know I’m standing next to Zac’s dad Peter and two other guys-one a Californian turned Central Brit named Brad and an Athenian orchestra musician named Sergio.

As I was talking, I was handed a Mythos beer. Then a South African rum, coke and lemon from Peter. Sergio placed a plastic cup with clear liquid and ice into my hand and when I asked what it was, he said it was “Greek magic.” Turns out he had a 1.5L water bottle filled with raki he bought from a shepherd. Wow. It was like an alcoholic Colors of Benneton ad. I brought out store bought raki and I really could taste the difference in how much smoother the shepherd’s raki was. As slurred words were shared amongst us I realized that travel is the adult equivalent of kids in a playground. If you’ve ever watched kids in a playground befriend each other and just be kids, it’s beautiful and innocent. This is what we had.

After we were done solving the world’s problems and breaking a glass or two on accident in the pool area, the fam and I regrouped and headed off to dinner next door at Rodos.

At Taverna Rodos the first thing they do is take you to the kitchen and show you what food items they’ve got prepared for the night, sort of like a set menu. If it’s ok then they proceed. At one point we asked how much the menu was, the owner was very precise with updating us on cost as we added drinks etc.

At one point the owner shooed out a cat that had walked in through some stairs going down and out. The boys and I went to follow it after our main course. There were many more cats. They all were much friendlier than the other Cretan cats that we came across.

I guess this is the Greek version of cat lady. She has 20 extra friendly cats.

Final thoughts on Crete?

Your beaches are calm, numerous and share a similar European character. Umbrellas and plank ways and showers are a bonus.

Your streets-big and small are frightening to drive on and the memorial shrines dotted along the highway are a constant reminder to be wary. Still, there is a system to the chaos. I shall be more tolerant of tourists back home.

You are much larger than I originally imagined.

June was a great time to visit you. Your weather was nice and you didn’t feel crowded. (Come August the Greek people will be on vacation and the island will be much busier and more expensive.)

Your people are genuine and unexpectedly wholesome and heartfelt, something very precious in today’s times.

Next time I’ll bring a 1.5L water bottle to fill with Raki!

Thanks for the memories Creta!

Is it time to go already?