Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Honeymoon - Crete Island, Greece

Greece
  • 4/26/2010 Monday - Chania, Crete
    • As we landed early from the London-Athens-Chania flight, we saw the Chania on a Monday morning, which is many people standing around doing nothing (somewhat scary) on our way to the hotel. The hotel (Pandora Suites) was very beautiful (best part of Chania) with a wonderful view of the old port. We used this day to simply relax, rest, and walk around the old port. It was also our first and last meal of Mixed Greek Plate (it was good, but enough Greek food at once)

  • 4/27/2010 Tuesday - Heraklion, Crete
    • We woke up early to walk around the old harbor again, and jumped on the 3-hour bus to Heraklion (East of Chania). The hotel (Marin Dream) is 5 minutes from the bus terminal and nothing to write home about except thanking them for the honeymoon water & fruits.
    • We then jumped on the 30-minute bus to Palace of Knossos, only to find it closed at 3 pm!!! And nobody bothers to tell any tourist before boarding the bus. $5 wasted and it was the place we both wanted to see, a true archaeological site.
    • We came back to Heraklion disappointed, and headed to the 2nd largest Archaeological Museum in Greece - the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Another disappointment as it has been under construction since 2006 and only a tiny section is open. It took us 20 minutes to walk it with photography. On the bright side, they "only" charged us $4 instead of $6 and they did move all the important/famous artifacts into this small room.
    • After 2 disappointments in the same day, we were saved by a walk along the harbor and a delicious dinner at Ippokampus with their fresh seafood and affordable appetizer plates. Then we strolled into downtown to see the night crowd before walking back to the hotel.
Overall
  • Crete is quite different than your mainland or Cyclades Greece, as it is more industrialized and much less tourism-oriented. Everywhere we go, we are the only Chinese or Asian to be found and people look at us funny. In a way, it's good because we have more freedom (compared to Athens or Santorini where we hear Chinese everywhere)
  • The Minoan culture, however ancient or important, didn't excite me one bit because I am just not into history, but the Crete island has its perks, especially Chania which I loved (vs. Heraklion which I hated). Nonetheless, it is good that we were there to experience it all, and I miss the seafood at Ippokampus!!

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