Crete - Rethymon Area

16th - 21st Jun15, Bali, Rethymno Area, Crete


It was a little tricky finding the airport in Athens for our flight to Crete. We seemed to keep missing the turnoffs and ended up being shunted all around the city.

Finally, we boarded our Ryan Air flight arriving only 1hr later into Chania, Crete. From here we took a shuttle to the car rental, picked up our upgraded Audi (nice and unexpected)

and drove east along the beautiful rocky coast to the ‘Filion’ resort. Here we where we were to stay for the next five nights.




Filion Resort, Crete

We normally avoided ‘resorts’ but this one looked particularly good, we got to stay in our own villa with its own private pool and with use of all the other facilities (3 communal outdoor pools, playground, tennis court).

This 5-star resort was extremely good value, normally we couldn’t factor this quality of accommodation into our budget.  

The downside or upside (depending on how you view it) was that it included buffet breakfast and dinner, dreadful for the already expanded waste line as it was actually quite good.

On arrival Jarvis and Ollie started off ecstatic about the buffet meals, I did warn them that by day five they might be less enthusiastic.

By evening three Jarvis asked if he could skip dinner! Ollie maintained his enthusiasm for food, especially for soup after having not long had the ‘best carrot soup ever tasted’ in Delphi.

The waiters looked on in amazement as Ollie ate bowl after bowl, his most impressive was three large bowls of herb laden vegetable soup in one sitting.

 

 

After a day of resort rest we made a 45min drive to the archaeological site of Knossos, 5km southeast of Heraklion. This was one of the most significant sites recommended to visit in Crete.

Once again knowing nothing, we decided on a guide, hopefully it would encourage the kids a bit too?

Just as well for the guide as the site seemed quite visually underwhelming despite its huge historical significance. Guides had been instructed to be quiet and unobtrusive so it was all a little odd.

Knossos is considered to be Europe’s oldest city. There is evidence that this location was inhabited during the Neolithic times (6000 B.C.)

On the ruins of the Neolithic settlement was built the first Minoan palace (1900 B.C.) where the legendary Minos dynasty ruled.
This was destroyed in 1700 B.C and a new multi-storey and intricately planned 22,000sq.m palace was built in its place. This scale and complexity has led to legends, such as the myth of the Labyrinth,

which King Minos had Daedalus construct to retain his son, the Minotaur. The remains of this palace occupy the excavated site in the present day.

 



Knossos

 

 

We could see the remains of what was once an elaborate system of drains, conduits, and pipes which provided water and sanitation for the palace.

Some of the Minoan fresco paintings could still be seen. It was here, at Knossos, that fresco painting reached its peak.

The Minoans also replaced their hieroglyphic script with a linear script known as Linear A and later again with Linear B. The complex was connected to other Cretan towns and ports by paved roads.

The royal road (170km from Heraklion to the Theatre in Knossos) is one of the oldest and best preserved ancient roads in Europe.

It was a bit hard to convince the boys that they should try swimming in the sea given the number and quality of the resort pools. At 35C air temperature, the non-heated pools were perfect.

However, after much insistence we dragged them down to Bali, the closest beach located 3km away from the resort.

Much to their delight, in one of Bali’s five sandy coves, there was a huge blow up obstacle course on the water.

Jarvis and Oliver raced out to it swimming with their compulsory life jackets on. Lachlan arrived on-board sometime after. All in all, they had a lot of fun, although Jarvis did get motion sick.
 




Bali



Gerontospilios, Melidoni

Taking a day trip to Rethymno we made a detour to visit the Cave ‘Gerontospilios’ in Melidoni. Apart from being a beautiful cave to visit, a natural beauty, it was also of historical and archaeological importance.

In was in continuous use from the late Neolithic period to the Roman times and was dedicated to the God Hermes and bronze giant Talos during classical antiquity.

In this cave 370 civilians, mostly elderly, women and children plus 30 soldiers, died as martyrs in 1824. They had fled from their village when the Turks entered and barricaded themselves in the cave.

After many failed attempts to remove them, the Turks lit a fire and channelled the smoke inside, resulting in their tragic death.

The largest of the interior spaces, called the ‘Heroes Room’ contained an ossuary which held the bones of the martyrs. I’m not sure if the boys could really take on the gravity of such tragedy,

it was definitely beyond Lachlan’s comprehension (probably just as well). After a walk through the cave’s designated pathways we left to make our way onwards for lunch in Rethymno.

 

 

 



Rethymno

With little idea of what we were supposed to do in Rethymno, we parked and made our way towards the small Venetian harbour. Here we tried to run the tourist gauntlet of waiters vying for our business.

We failed with the offer of free drinks and ended up seated outside a very pleasant taverna on the edge of the harbour. The boys soon started feeding the multitude of fish in the harbour waters with scraps.

There was certainly an old aristocratic architectural appearance to be enjoyed in the old town as we wandered through.

Some of its buildings dated from the 16^th century, arched doorways, stone staircases.  But it did have an overly tourist feel to it, far too many souvenir shops.



Venetian Harbour, Rethymno

 

 

After five nights staying at the Filion resort we made our along the North West coast to spend the next week at Maheri, a village located close to Chania.