Greece Day 4

In Tzermiado

We got up pretty early our second day in Crete and headed down to the beach for an early morning walk by the Aegean. It's a nice short walk from the Villa, through some lanes and past some homes. One thing that's obvious in both Athens and in Crete is that the country still has some signs of the recession, or as the Greeks call it, the great crisis. In particular, there is lots of graffitit, pretty much everywhere, lots of unfinished buildings and additional security to mitigate against crime. Saw plenty of the latter on the way to the beach. Virtually every house had a guard dog.  Frightened me with barking as we walked by!  But we got to the beach, a very rocky beach but beautiful clear blue water.

We didn't stay at the beach long, as we wanted to catch a ride with Carol and Jo, who were heading to Chania, on the other side of the island, for a couple of days. They dropped us off at the airport in Heraklion on their way so that we could rent a car.  I have to say, the whole car rental business was very laid back. Negotiated with three different car rental companies, settled on 25 euros a day, for a tiny little Nissan Micra, supposedly including insurance, filled out a form and headed off. She told us there was about a half gallon of gas in there and to bring it back with the same amount. Also, she said, if nobody's here when we return the car, we should drop the key in a little slot. Very easy.  We headed back toward the villa with Gordon getting used to the Cretan style of driving. Don't stop at a sign. Pull toward the shoulder when somebody passes you.  He caught on pretty quick!

We decided to head up to the plateau of Lessithi for the day. That's more inland on the island and up in the mountains.  So it was a fairly long and very interesting drive. We were on the national road until we got to a village called Neapolito, then we got onto these extremely windy mountain roads, taking us through very beautiful scenery, going through a couple of tiny little villages on the way. James had suggested this route as there are very few tour busses. In fact, I don't believe a bus could make it across these roads, and there was just very little traffic at all. So it felt very remote, very slow going and gorgeous scenery. We stopped outside one of the villages to buy a local liquor called reki, pronounced rocky, from an old lady running a roadside stand. You can't go to Crete without buying some roadside rocky!  

We finally made it to a town called Tzermiado, where James had suggested we have lunch at a place called Kronio. Kronio did not disappoint, either the food or the experience. Tzermiado has a lot of the signs of the crisis, lots of empty building and graffiti, as well as lots of little shops catering to tourists, so not particularly picturesque.  There are a couple of other restaurants, all pretty quiet, but Kronio is bustling. Family run, very busy.  The teenage son served us and asked for our order by saying "Tell me what you want before my father kills me". When Gordon ordered the lamb chops he was repeatedly told us that this would mean we would have to wait, it's not fast.(in fact, the lamb chops came before my moussaka). The restaurant was so busy that they had tables on the sidewalk and had even set up some on the sidewalk across the street, so the son was running back and forth across the street serving customers. The food was great and it was friendly, I would highly recommend it. 

Diktaion Andro Cave

Tzermiado is right on the plateau. In essence, the plateau is a highly elevated green valley, beautiful, fertile, remote. Because of the elevation it was actually a little chilly up there. We heard from Tzermiado to the cave of Diktaion Andro, one of several,places that claim to be the birthplace of Zeus. We parked there, and several locals tried to rent us a donkey to carry us to the cave.  We declined, opting for the walk after being in the car for so long. And it was quite a steep climb up to the mouth of the cave, followed by a descent into the cave. But it was totally worth it, lots of stalagmites and stalactites and just generally cool.

We took a different route back, another windy road and more fabulous views. We came back through the tourist resort of Malia, hoping to visit the palace ruins, but we were too late. We drove through Malia, definitely very touristy, not really our type of place at all.  Since we are slightly off season, it was not too crowded but I understand that during the high season it's a madhouse, packed beaches and lots of partying. We arrived home around seven.  We ended the day by taking Joyce, James and Billy to dinner at a restaurant called Medusa, where we tried some local dishes, including Dakos, a sort of bruschetta thing on a barley rusk, and tignarito, a wonderfully meat dish with a nice sauce.  All in all a great day.