Crete again

This year we've decided to go to places we can get to from our local airport, East Midlands. This usually means Ryanair, but this is OK because they started losing profits, largely, I think, because they were so rude to their passengers. So it has improved, although you do have to pay strict attention to Ryanair's little quirks. So on the flight out, Phil was at one end of the aircraft and I was at the other. But we'll be more careful next time. And it allowed me to get on with my book. 

At Chania on time, we picked up the hire car, a Hyundai I 10, with which we're very pleased, although it does rather mark us out as tourists, and went straight to a hotel.We got up in the morning to rain, which continued all day with short gaps. It was my turn to drive and apart from tending to forget it isn't automatic, I enjoyed driving. I used, years ago, have awful trouble changing gear right handed, to the extent that when I took my mother to her brother's grave in the war cemetery at Rheinberg, I hired an automatic. I felt the whole trip was going to be fraught enough, without gear problems. But for some reason, I don't find it in the least difficult any longer. You'd think it would be harder to adapt as you get older, not easier. Anyway, for whatever reason, I can do it now, and Cretans are quite relaxing drivers; it's not like driving in Italy.

We stopped at Hieraklion. We'd read that the museum of antiquities is fully opened after goodness only knows how many years. We were a little worried, as last time, there was one gallery of the "best bits", and we were worried that the rest of the Minoan stuff might be a bit of a letdown. We were completely wrong. There are about nine large rooms full of the most staggering stuff. The craftsmanship is of the highest possible quality. The jewellery is so wearable, even nowadays. I particularly liked the hairpins which opened out into a flower at one end. The effect must have been really pretty. The stone vases, beautifully using the natural veins and colours of the stone, apparently carved using obsidian tools, were just gorgeous - those, and the pottery, made me think of the arts and crafts movement, and were just as desireable for a modern home.

Then there were the every day bits - a cooking pot, which when found contained a stew of two hares, a lizard and a snake, plus, I think, a rabbit and some snails. It seemed to show an "if it moves, we'll eat it" attitude.  There were bee smokers and wine presses. It was fascinating.

The explanations of what is known of Minoan life were very clear and helpful, although explanations of the rituals made Knossos sound even more like Ghormenghast than it seemed when we visited the site. One small thing that intrigued me was that the rhinocerous beetle was venerated. It doesn't seem the most obvious thing to pick on. And we did like the representations of the goddess with  snake in each hand and a cat sitting on her head. Not sure what that was about. 

So after three hours or so in the museum, and without looking at any of the Hellenistic stuff, we got a late light lunch and drove to Aghios Nicolaos (or Ayeeos NiKOLaos, because of the Greek habit of putting the stress in what seems a very strange place. (KefalonYAH; ePIDaurus; iTHAKa  - where Odysseus came from, in case you don't get it - I didn't the first time I heard it pronounced that way.)

Aghios Nicholaos is a really nice resort - quite smart but not pretentious, and its situation on a bay and under the mountains, is fantastic.

 

Aghios Nicholaos

We have a lovely sea front room at one end of the town and right on the rocky coast, and we went for a walk before dinner, although it was still raining. The shops are quite smart, and in fact there are some very expensive ones, selling furs and ostentatious jewellery to the Russian market. But we haven't seen any Russians, so I don't know whether it's too early in the season or if they have stopped coming here. I hope not, for the sake of the Cretans. Some of that jewellery will be pretty hard to shift to anyone else. There is often a small cruise ship but they only stay one day.

We ate at a brilliant restaurant called Piato, on the seafront. It has a rather cool and modern take on the decor of a traditional Greek taverna and the food is the same - all the classics, including less usual ones, cooked very well indeed.

The next day, Monday, we got up to beautiful sunshine, so I went straight in the sea. This is a low, rocky coast and there are highly convenient steps down, so it's easy to get in and out, as long as you don't mind being out of your depth. There are a group of four or five Greek ladies who swim every morning. They wear shower caps with baseball caps on top and swim a little way out and then tread water and chat. It's a kind of aquatic coffee morning.

 For breakfast we have been given cake with what looks like chocolate sprinkles, but it's spicy, and I've realised that it's carob. There are loads of carob trees around. But there are thousands upon thousands, probably millions upon millions, of olive trees. They are without exception cared for and carefully pruned into a bowl shape, and not allowed to get too high. Imagine the labour! And God only knows how they get picked. I've picked olives and I know how labour intensive it is. I can only imagine the Cretan farmers draft in the army - the Chinese army, not the Greek one.