Crete: So Much to See and Learn, So Little Time

Although a Greek Island, Crete is a destination onto itself. Now that we've visited, we know we'd like to return directly there to base our island travels.

Crete was on our list of places to potentially visit and we decided to make this the other destination on our trip to Greece, specially because it was recommended by a Greek friend. There is so much to do and discover on Crete. So much. You could just visit Crete for a couple of weeks of relaxing, discovery, eating and trekking and not go anywhere else.

So, let me first share about our arrival on this awesome island.

We took the overnight ferry from Athens to Heraklion (or Iraklio, or Heraklio, I've seen it spelled different ways...). It departed at 9:00 pm and arrived at 6:15 am. We thought accommodation (we got a little inside cabin, it was comical getting in, like clowns in a car) and transportation at the same time was a great idea, woo hoo! And it really is a woo hoo idea, but of course we were tired and knew we would be. Additionally, the ferry arrived early in Heraklion at 5:30 am, so ouch. The speaker announcements and attendants banging on the door telling us the ferry was arriving at port really woke us up. We quickly got ready and stepped out into the darkness of the city to make our way to our hotel, the Ibis (which was AMAZING, so comfortable and wonderful breakfast), a 15 min walk away. I was very proud of S and B, there were no complaints despite the tough early start and walk with packs. We arrived at our hotel and of course it was too early to check in, so we slouched/melted into the lobby couches until the sun rose and then dragged ourselves out for some (strong) coffee and breakfast at a lovely place nearby where you could sit with your legs hanging by the sidewalk. We also took the opportunity to rent a car (where we rented was way cheaper cause the cars are older but we had zero issues) so we could wander around the beautiful island. The guy at the rental place, not knowing we had no hotel room yet and arrived at 5:30 am, was an interesting combo of helpful/kind/blunt and initially told us to go away and get some rest and then come back to rent the car, ha ha! I seconded him on his bluntness and mentioned it was great the car he was going to rent us had a CD player but darn, I hadn't brought my CD collection from the 90's. He smirked, sarcasm landed successfully, phew. Anyway, where we were going to wander in said CD player-equipped car was yet unknown, we just knew from reading and advice that getting a vehicle was a must in Crete. So, in order, and in various degrees of tiredness and wakefulness, this is what we did during our 4 days on this awesome island.

Knossos Palace

Have you heard of the myth of the terrifying Minotaur, King Minos and the Labyrinth? Either way, this is the place. We rented two virtual/audio guides at the entrance (iPads with an app that guided you through the palace ruins and showed 3D renderings of what it would have looked like), and off we went. We devoted about an hour and a half to visiting Knossos Palace, and although incredibly interesting and definitely worth the visit, it was quite hot and we were pretty tired.

We returned to our hotel and were able to check in. Grateful for the beds and AC, we rested for a couple of hours before we headed out for dinner. We wandered the lovely pedestrian streets of Heraklion, which also comes alive at night (so many teenagers!) and found a rooftop restaurant called Minos. Seeing as we have friends with that last name, and the menu looked great, we had to go there. We had a lovely and very well-priced meal along with some Cretan wine, desserts like ravani (so yum), and the Cretan after-dinner drink called raki, which we were told can be 40% alcohol and is often distilled within families.

Rethymno and Chania

This was our first day driving and we were unsure what to really expect in Crete. Overall, we quickly learned that its common to drive very close to, or overlapping the shoulder to let faster drivers pass, whether the line is solid or not, winding or not. No problem, when in Crete, do as they do.

Our first stop from Heraklion, only an hour away, was Rethymno, which was wonderful! It was only a 30-40 minute pit stop, but this is a place where you can just stay put. There are abundant and lovely beaches, many places selling good food and fresh juices, and a beautiful old town harbour (from the time of the Venetians, more history I was unaware of and would like to learn about).

Two hours later we arrived at our destination for the day, Chania. This is the place where we’d stay and base our Crete travels in the future. Chania is nearer to many beaches, including Elafonisi beach, a beach with pink sand (which we endeavoured to go to, but were unable to because of the very long drive) and one of Crete’s many gorges which we were also unable to visit because of time constraints (sob), the Samara Gorge, which takes about 4-5 hours to trek, but it’s best done one way to then stay at a town on the south coast of Crete. I think this would be very doable with bigger kids.

Chania is stunning, again with a Venetian port. We arrived to an intense sun, colourful harbour-side buildings and strong (and very welcomed) sea breezes. The town was beautiful to look at, lively, but not overwhelmingly busy, and so inviting. We walked around Chania for a couple of hours and then found a spot on the beach to have a swim, which we’d promised S and B we would do. Of course the water was perfect and cooling, and it was a great way to end our short visit before driving back before the sunset (we didn’t want to drive windy, unlit, coastal roads at night).

Matala Beach

This was the day our intention was to go to Elafonisi Beach. However the drive to the beach from Heraklion was 3 hours and 40 minutes with smooth traffic so… we left with the will to get there, but lost it once we got stuck in traffic for a while getting out of Heraklion and saw that it was now going to push 4 hours of driving, each way! We pivoted and went to a beach 1 hour away called Matala. It was apparently a hippie haven in the 60’s, and the cliffs are full of fully carved-out or modified caves. Matala Beach had Sayulita, Mexico vibes, but much less busy during our time there, and smaller. The beach has no waves and is made of small, smooth pebbles, not sand, and as you enter the water you walk on large boulders and rocks. It doesn’t sound like the ideal beach-scape, but it was actually great! We spent our beach day there, kids floating in the water for hours and hours, us two adults jumping in and out when we wanted and bringing our lunch from a restaurant to the two loungers we rented. It was a much-needed day of relaxation. A vacation from the vacation?

Psychro Cave (aka Dikteon Cave or Cave of Zeus) and Omalia Olive Press

I loved, loved this final day trip, and it was wildly different from our beach day. The drive there was all hairpin turns and sometimes a bit worrisome (cause of drivers coming down around corners too wide on quite narrow roads, and our car not really wanting at times to do the climb, so yes, I got nervous, but WOW, the views), but we did have to get to an elevation of over 1000 meters to the plateau where we would then trek up on foot for about 15 minutes to the cave entrance to then descend the many steps into the very cool (literally and figuratively) cave.

Mythologically, Psychro Cave is the birth place of Zeus (his mother Rhea hid him there so Kronos wouldn’t eat him like his other children, bad dad), and culturally it was also discovered to be a significant place of worship. Geologically it is dazzling with endless smooth, twisted and contorted stalagmites and stalactites. It was a magical place to visit, I can’t recommend it enough.

When we completed our cave visit, we went to Omalia Olive Press, one of many olive oil factories run by Cretan families for generations. When we arrived it was empty, we got the whole factory to ourselves and watched videos as we rotated via the many machines required to extract oil from the olives and store it. We also saw the machines used previously to extract the oil, which are no longer in use. It was fascinating, and I learned so much about olive oil. I think even S and B enjoyed this. As we were completing our self-guided tour, a monstrous tour bus arrived and tourists like us inundated the factory. We quickly did some olive oil tastings, bought a little can of their oil in the shop and headed back to the hotel.

Goodbye, Greece

This is the end, we are sad to be leaving Greece. On the evening of our fourth day in Crete we walked back to the same overnight ferry, this time in the opposite direction and in daylight, to head back to Athens for an epic trek via land and sea to Rome. More on that next time…