Today was our first Cretian excursion, known as Unknown Crete. We headed down to the bus pickup point we had identified the day before, and we were nicely early. There were some other people there, waiting for other tours, but no buses had been by to pick anyone up. We learned eventually that the pick-up times were more to give you an idea if it would be AM or PM rather than actually nail down the approximate minute or indeed hour they’d pick you up.

The Stop Sign is in english, no wonder it doesn’t work

But eventually a bus came and the three of us, and only the three of us, gleefully bounded to the door and boarded it. Our tour guide was a lady by the name of Stavroula, and she was quite amusing and easy going and we generally liked her. She kept us entertained until our first stop, which was the village of Archanes. Our bus seemed comically immense compared to the tiny streets we traveled through, and then when we all got off the bus, I felt as if we were a plague descending upon this tiny hamlet. There were very few people about as we walked around, but I pretty much went off to find a bathroom at this point. We didn’t stay long, and soon reboarded the bus.

Our next stop brought us to an ancient winery, of which little seemed to remain. I kept trying to take artistic shots down the ruined corridors of the structure, but they were pretty much crap. We then went to an actual winery where we were to have a tasting. We first had to watch a short video about the wine, olives and oil produced here, and it seemed more like a product placement than a historic film. It did have a hilariously bad opening theme with the visual of a woman from the past being pursued by an archeologist, she carrying a wine jug, wearing a dress with insufficient opacity, and generally sounding like it was going to descend into bad porno territory any minute. The actual wine tasting was alright, but I resisted purchasing anything. We tried 3 wines, the “Minos Palace Appalation D’origin Peza White”, the “Minos Palace Appalation D’origin Peza Red” and the “Minos Medium Sweet Wine”

We then had a traditional greek lunch at a large taverna. They said they offered both fleshy and vegetarian meals. I didn’t bother announcing my pseudo-vegetarianism since I was just going to be content with whatever I managed to eat, but one of the people we had befriended was a vegetarian. Martha and Brenda they were, and British, but then again, virtually everyone else on the Crete tours we went on fit that category. When they asked for the vegetarian option, it turned out to be just more of the same vegetarian thing that all the flesh-eaters were having as a side. It’s like serving steak and potatoes, and the vegetarian option is just a plate of potatoes. In any case, I just ate that myself, which were peppers, tomatoes and dolmades stuffed with rice and such. Alicia ordered a coffee near the end, but had to chug it since the bus was about the leave (we were nearly the last if not the last to board).

Our last stop was a pottery shop where I failed to resist purchasing anything. I bought myself a little bowl with a blue crackly glaze in the bottom of it, which I found several more examples of at virtually every shop I visited after that point, alas. But at least I finally had something for my Wall of Memories that is one of my memories. The guy making the pottery was, of course, and expert, and could churn out a new vase in about a minute.

This bowl is the representation of my trip, may it be filled with candy

We were dropped off at the pickup spot, and walked back to the Hotel. We went for a swim by the beach again, and this time I finally went in myself, but didn’t submerge my head so I didn’t experience the joy of my eyes stinging. But from a bit I tasted, I was surprised how concentrated the salt was, but then again, I had never been in the sea before. It was very rocky near the shore and it actually hurt quite a bit stepping on them trying to get out of the water. The trouble was that the sand itself were like very small pebbles, so when you stepped on them, you tended to get sucked down.

I didn’t take notes after this, so presumably we went to dinner and at some point slept. The next day we were to head off to Knossos Palace via Heraklion, the capital, by ourselves by bus.

To be continued