| Glenn's Crete Journals 5-6-02 to 5-7-02 We awoke around 9:00 am and quickly showered and packed prior to our 10:00 am check out. I also had a chance to enjoy breakfast before checking out. The hotel had a place that we could leave our bags for the day until we needed to leave later that night. Today was another day to bum around Athens with limited ability to see many things as the Easter weekend extended into Monday, and possibly Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday, etc... Our first point of business was to get with the travel agent and obtain all of the paperwork we required for the week in the Greek Islands. We found Mark (the travel agent) swamped with many people awaiting his services (as it was Monday and he was one of the few travel companies even open today) so we headed off to breakfast and told Mark that we would return. We headed off to breakfast at the same spot that we had breakfast on Saturday when we arrived. They had made a pretty good omelette and, even though I had breakfast at the hotel, Erin had not eaten yet. The omelette was as good as the first and we enjoyed it with juice. We then returned to the travel agent and waited while he ran down the street to finish the required paperwork. He returned promptly and settled all of the paperwork with us and off we were. (P.S. Do not use a travel agent as the week ending up costing us a little more than if we had done it on our own, especially in off season.) (Sorry Mark!!) We then headed off to the internet to catch up on emails from the weekend and write to a few friends. We also needed to check on any news that was important to our travels, like the newly announced strikes in Italy for the month of May, which a friend of ours had warned us about (Thanks Jana!!!). At least they plan and publish these strikes so we can plan around them!!! Once we had completed emails we walked around for a little longer before heading back to the hotel to relax and await our departure time. We had a chance to play darts with Shoan and his wife, Zlata. They were tremendously friendly people that managed the hotel and were courteous in every way. It definitely made the stay at the hotel much nicer. We played a few games of darts with them before taking off towards the port. The journey to the port meant walking around to the metro at Monastiraki and taking it into the last stop at the port, Pireas. The metro ride was uneventful and, after asking one policeman at the port, we found our boat and were on it safely by 8:00 pm. The boat left on time and we were off around 8:30 pm for Crete. The boat ride this time was our first experience at "deck" seating. It was definitely the least expensive as all you were allowed was a place on the deck. We ended up spending the night in the lounge reading books and playing games before Erin finally laid down (around 10:30 pm) on one of the benches (cushioned) to attempt to sleep. I stayed up until around 2:30 am, when I could not stay awake any longer, and switched places with Erin. I awoke around 4:30 am and we reached our destination around 5:00 am in Iraklion, Crete. The hotel Daedolos did not have anyone waiting at the docks for us, as that was the plan, but we had a business card that had directions to the place. No worries as it was just in the town near the port. Well, with little sleep and heavy backpacks heading mostly uphill we were a little sweaty and tired by the time we reached the hotel. Luckily the Greek alphabet that I had learned during my fraternity years in college paid off. I was able to interpret enough street signs to find the hotel. Conveniently our room was available, and to say the least, we headed straight upstairs and off to bed. We slept until early afternoon, cleaned up, and headed out to check out the town. (The hotel was a double room with our own bath, television, sitting area, and balcony overlooking the city street below and the surrounding area.) Iraklion was a bustling port city but it was even quieter than usual due to the Greek Orthodox Easter weekend. We found a nearby square, with the Morazini fountain as it's centerpiece and a few restaurants, so we enjoyed a nice lunch in the square. After lunch we headed down to the port to check out the views. Erin even took some pictures of the surrounding area. As you enter a new town one of the events on the first day is to become acclimated to the area, looking for internet cafe's, laundry (possibly), and as many choices of restaurants as possible. We were able to find a couple of internet cafe's and the advertisement for the hotel that we were staying in was from a self service laundry near the hotel. We also passed by another laundry in case the first was either too expensive or closed whenever we would decide to go. After our tour of the city and walking through the many market areas that had opened up after "siesta" we headed back to the hotel. We had lunch so late and were tired that we skipped dinner all together. We caught a little television, and I believe that Erin actually watched a movie, and off to sleep we went. Tomorrow we had decided to go to Agios Nikolas for the day. |
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| The Morazini fountain and square |