Today marks our last full day in Crete. Personally, I am ready to wind down and relax as much as possible. Once again, we started out our day in a city. This time, though, we got up before 8. If I’m not mistaken, Trevor went to take a quick swim in the trillion gallon bathtub outside. It’s okay, I think he enjoyed it. We went to some place called Barrio the Neighborhood Cafe and got ourselves some sort of breakfast and then quickly left because I realized our checkout was at 11AM, and not at 12PM like I had originally thought.

I’d like to make a quick note about the elevator in our Rethymno apartment. This one was more of a Mediocre Elevator of Slight Amusement and Dad Jokes to the previous Amazing Elevator of Fun and Games. The elevator was still quite small; we barely fit us and our luggage into the space provided. It was also, ahem, a little bit disconcerting when someone decided to start jumping up and down with great glee in the elevator. [editor’s note: the author may use slight exaggeration from time to time] Apparently Greek elevators are not your average American elevators. Staircases in these apartments aren’t built to American “safety” standards either. The staircase in this apartment was a spiral staircase. I don’t want to give you the impression that it was beautiful, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t ugly either. It just was. Just, meh, you know? But it was spiral. Definitely not built to any existent or nonexistent fire code of America.

I’d like to just unhinge my rant a little bit in this paragaph. After typing and retyping Rethymno about 10 times in the last two days, I’ve mashed it into a little word salad several times. I wish I could enumerate all the ways there is for you to mess that one up, but I can’t remember them all. And not only that, I’ve seen and heard it spelled about 4 correct ways. People in this part of the world LOVE to do things this way. Rethymno, Rethimno, Rethimnon, Rethymnon. Which one’s correct? WE DON’T KNOW! I suppose it’s because when you transliterate to another alphabet, you tend to have a bit of a scrabble situation on your hands.

Back to our trip: We headed out of Rethymno towards Heraklion—don’t get me started on word salad again—which was just under 80km/50mi. We stopped in Bali because it looked beautiful. No, not the Bali that you’re thinking of, but Μπαλί, Κρήτη. Big difference. Anyway, it did have a decent beach that we walked around on for a bit, so I guess in that way it bore a small resemblance to the Indonesian one.

While we were walking around aimlessly on the deserted stretch of sand, I received a call from the gentleman in charge of the Airbnb we had booked on the island. He had warned me previously by message that his previous reservation was staying till 3PM, and that we couldn’t check in till after then. I had told him it was fine. Anyway, he wanted to check with me again, and told me that the house wouldn’t be ready till 6PM. I assured him again that this was okay, and we both went our merry way.

One of the things that Trevor and Weston were obsessed with today was calling boat rental places. We had struck out on motorbike and scooter rentals, so we decided to give boating a shot. Out of five or so places they called, only one had any boats. As luck would have it, the one that had boats said it was “too windy.” That was the first one we called, and we struck out on all the others. Oh well. Don’t go to Crete in winter if you want water sports or motorbike rentals.

At some point during the obsessive calling of closed rental locations, I decided to give Georgios, the previously mentioned gentleman, a call to ask him what there was to do. He, of course, felt bad that we had nothing to do, which of course, made me feel bad that I had called him in the first place. He said he’d figure some things out that we could do and let me know.

After we had headed east towards Heraklion again, I received a call from our friend Georgios (I plan to really get into how great of a guy this guy is later in the blog) who told us all the things he suggested in different directions from Rethymno. Since we were going to Heraklion, the places he lined out were the Church of Agios Georgios (Saint George), and then walking around the old port area in Heraklion, followed by a trip to the Palace of Knossos. We kinda did the things in the way he told us, but with a few differences.

We headed for the Church of Saint George after finally finding it on our maps. I followed Weston’s navigational instructions and we ended up at a convent that had just closed for the afternoon siesta. The view from the convent was beautiful, and the area was so serene. It was a very nice 15 minute break with the warm sun shining on our faces, etc.

After checking out the convent we decided not to find the Church of Saint George, and instead decided to head downtown to find beach towels so that we could, ahhhh, go swimming. This was unsuccessful, but we decided to eat lunch at one of the places our friend recommended for seafood. This whole escapade took us about two hours, and during said two hours, we discovered that it was cold and windy by the sea. This was not conducive to any sort of swimming ideas, so those got canned, much, I’m sure, to Trevor’s infinite [there’s the exaggeration again] dismay.

Our lunch consisted of the following menu items. Fried sand-smelts — Breaded and fried, whole. I kept crunching on what I thought was sand, but was apparently bones. Nom nom nom. Grilled squids — I thought at first this was a Greek translation typo, but it was actually multiple small squids. Red Snapper — The highlight. That’s all I can remember. Dakos — This was Mizithra cheese on top of some kind of grain situation. Tomatoes on top, cheese in the middle, and grain situation on the bottom. Sorta like cheese cake but savory. And very very rich. Bread — the bread. That’s all Complimentary dessert

After this two hour lunch, we headed back to the car to drive to the Knossos archeological site. Once en route, we discovered that the site closed at 5PM, not at 8PM like our friend had said. If Georgios ever reads this, he needs to know that we weren’t angry at him in the least about this. So, anyway, after I forlornly got out of my car, I forlornly walked to the front gate. It was closed, and I forlornly looked at the sign and hoped that someone would have mercy on the poor uninformed tourist. Unfortunately, no such things happened.

We then headed to a certain beach at Weston’s behest. After we got there, I saw a plane coming into Heraklion Airport. He wanted to go there to watch the planes land. We saw two planes, both flying from Athens.

After the beach, we went to some legit-looking Cretan bakery to get more food that we definitely didn’t need. I got some gold wrapped things out of a fridge and ordered another one of those Freddo Cappuccinos. I placed the gold wrapped things on the counter, and an old lady conversed with the cashier in rapid fire Greek. My items did not get checked out until my drink had been made, because there was another lady that somehow just needed to pay before me. I don’t know what was going on. So, while I was waiting I opened a nice little glass case with cookie packs for sale, and the lady pointed to me and said “Sorry, no!” So, like a hurt little puppy, I slid the door back shut and wondered what on earth was wrong with, you know, buying a pack of cookies.

After this, we drove back through Rethymno to go to our Airbnb. Our host arranged to meet us at a little store called Pit Stop. We beat him there, so I went inside to see what kind of foods they had there. I noticed that the lady behind the counter spoke very good English, so I asked her where she had learned it. She said she was married to a Californian from Redwood City. Soon after, Georgios showed up in a Toyota Prius. I was going to buy myself a little snack, but he paid for it. I thought this was unnecessary, but I was impressed by the hospitable gesture. After we left there, we followed him back to the village of Argyroúpolis. He wanted to make sure that we were happy, since we couldn’t check into the Airbnb until 6PM, so he gave us a bottle of wine, which, as I type this, is unopened. He also gave us some olives, some breadsticks, and some fruit to snack on as a thank you or an apology gift.

This town of Argyroúpolis is the oldest inhabited site in Crete. It also is the only village in Crete where you can drink the tap water, due to the fact that it comes from the waterfalls here in the village. Our villa is down a quaint little alley. Georgios told us that they tore this house down and rebuilt the entire thing using the original stone. They had to clean each stone by hand before they could reuse it. Sounds like a lot of work! If I recall correctly, he said that the house is 450 years old. I don’t know how to consider this if it’s been rebuilt since then. There is a glass floor covering about 10x10 feet of the ground floor’s floor space. In the basement below me, I can see a Russian grave marker and an old Turkish grave marker. I would highly recommend staying at this villa if you ever stay on Crete.

From the first time I heard Georgios speak, I thought he had a familiar sounding accent, but I couldn’t place it. I heard him once say “about” like the Canadians say it, but I didn’t really think much of it. But the more I listened to his accent, the more the question burned within my very heart of hearts. So, I finally asked him where he had learned English. Surprise, surprise! He said he had lived in Canada until he was eight. He seems to be a very interesting individual. If I ever were to get the chance to converse with him for an evening, I don’t think I would complain too loudly about it.

That about wraps it up for the day’s trip report.

And another thing: There are speed cameras on the National Road here in Crete. I suspect that I may or may not get a speeding fine after I leave here. I enjoyed driving on this island. Narrow roads in the mountains, and the driving on the National Road were interesting experiences for me since I had never driven in other countries other than Canada before. People like to pass in a lot more situations than we would in the U.S., but the people being passed very readily move as far as they can onto the shoulder of the road. This was very nice, maybe people in the United States should take a page from the Crete Book of Driving in that regard.