Author: Matt & Andrea

Andrea and I woke up around 10 AM today. Whoa, that’s late for us this trip. We also drank an entire bottle of excellent wine the night before…but that couldn’t be related…

We made our way down to the Piazza Venezia, taking pictures of the cathedrals and monuments. From there we headed north to a little cafe to grab a quick lunch. We had 2 cokes, Andrea ordered lasagna (got spaghetti) and I got penne. The pasta tasted like every cafeteria pasta you’ve ever known. This sumptuous feast ended up costing us about 25 Euros (!?!). Needless to say, we won’t be going back there.

We made our way back to the Foro Romano (Roman forum). We wandered around taking pictures of everthing: the Monte Capitolino, the Piazza Campidoglio, and of course the ancient Roman ruins themselves. It was another really hot day, so we stopped for strawberry gelato and a roadside stand. It was absolutely perfect, and eating it we could swear shaved off about 5 degrees immediately. We had the Camelbak again, and constantly filled it with water. Andrea and I bought tickets that gave us access to actually walk in the forum, as well as the Colosseum. We wandered about taking pictures and video, loosely trying to identify what it is we were looking at. We took it upon ourselves to eavesdrop on nearby tour groups, which is how we learned where the House of the Vestal Virgins was, home to the guardians of the sacred flame, which they were entrusted to keep burning at all times. We also learned they were exceedingly good at their job, as this building burned down more often than any other.

It was truly incredible to walk amongst the ruins at the heart of the Roman Empire, and we took a boatload of pictures. We saw the Arch of Septimius Severus and covered the Palatine Hill, which was the location of ancient Roman Palaces, as the AAA Italy travel book puts it “Once covered with palaces, today the ruins of the Palatine lie among oleanders and cypresses, an evocative reminder of the transience of glory.” Well put. 

Quick travel tip: the line for the combination Forum/Colosseum ticket at the forum was very short, 5 people max. The line at the Colosseum was very long, probably about a 45 minute wait. Andrea and I were really glad we picked up our tickets at the Forum; we got to skip that line and head straight to the entrance.

We made our way south towards the Colosseo (Colosseum), which dates all the way back to AD 72, and at one point held around 55,000 people. Later in its history, part of it was recycled for building material elsewhere in Rome, hence the broken, incomplete look we’re all so familiar with. I’ve got to be honest; we got to the Colosseum, took some pictures, walked around, and we were ready to go. It’s a big, oval coliseum.  There are interesting stories if you get the audio tour, I’m sure, but we felt like we’re generally familiar with the structure, we’d seen it, so we were ready to head out. Plus, we’d been walking for an eternity, and we needed to find a new hotel for the next day (Hotel Oceania had only limited availability).

We came back to the room and took a short siesta to rest our weary feet. We showered and headed to a Japanese restaurant just up Via Firenze. We were insanely curious about what to expect from Japanese food in Italy. It was a sushi bar with a conveyor belt, which we were excited about, although we didn’t use this trip (we want to in the very near future). We ordered a California roll and a sushi platter that included octopus, squid, yellowtail, prawns, and salmon. Everything was fantastic, although the squid is a bit rubbery. I made a mess of the soy sauce on the white tablecloth, and Andrea only made a couple drops (“look, I made a mess too” she’d say in between bouts of laughing at me). 🙂 We finished up with green tea ice cream and lemon sorbet, both of which were fantastic. 

We got back to the hotel and used their computer to book 5 nights at another hotel in Rome, then headed off to sleep. We’re both really happy with the decision to take a bunch of time in Rome; it’s very comfortable here, and there’s a bunch to see. The only uncomfortable part is it’s been REALLY hot; in addition to the usual morning routine we’ve been showering and changing at least once a day. We’ve walked a ton; Andrea’s repeatedly wished we had a scale to see how much weight we must have lost and/or a pedometer to revel in how many miles we’ve walked. And before anyone gets concerned, we drink water from the Camelbak all day long, so we’re very well hydrated. 🙂

I think tomorrow we’ll get more gelato…

We woke up looking forward to another day of travelling on the train. Oh wait, we woke up bummed out we’d have another day of travelling on the train. We packed up, missed breakfast, and wheeled our bags over to the train station. I (Matt) was able to pick up train tickets at the self-service terminal that were leaving in just 10 minutes, which was excellent, since we wouldn’t have to wait around.

Walking to the platform, we saw the train was already there. We noticed there was only 2 minutes left till the scheduled departure, so we started hurrying. An enterprising individual at the station noticed this, and helped us run our bags down to the “appropriate” car, then turned and waited for money. He didn’t like the 3 Euros I had on hand, so I gave him 5. He didn’t give me back the 3, but I figured without his help, we wouldn’t have made the train, and would have had to buy new tickets. 

I was wrong. The train didn’t leave for another 10 minutes. Looking back, I should have known this. The asterisk to the left of the train hadn’t shown up blinking yet, so there was time. Oops, we’re still learning. Then, we noticed we were not only in the wrong seats, we were 6 cars away from the appropriate one. We thought, if he looked at our tickets and stuck us here anyway, maybe it’s OK. Again, we were wrong.

So here we are, in the wrong seats, wrong car, our gigantic bags blocking the narrow hall, and we’re not sure what to do. So we stayed put. We were fine…for about half the trip. Then a quick succession of unfortunate events transpired. First, an old Italian couple got on the train, and we were in their seats. So we got up and moved to the hallway. We didn’t really want to drag those huge bags through 6 cars, so we just stayed nearby. Next, the conductor showed up and said we were in the wrong place, but didn’t really seem to care, so we stayed there. He also didn’t speak much English, so we didn’t know what to do anyway. Then the food cart showed up and couldn’t get around the big bags. So I dragged them out of the way so he could get through. This happened twice, and I got a little speech in Italian both times, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about. Then the little girl from the compartment we had started in kept coming out in the hallway, picking her nose and staring at us. To stay the least, we had both had it with children. And the train. I was really stressed out, and Andrea says she regressed blissfully into the puffy clouds in her head. Every time somebody stuck their head out of their compartment and looked at me or the bags in the hall and shook their head, I felt just a little bit more self-conscious and anxious. By the time we got near Roma Termini, I was definitely ready to get off the train.

As we approached the terminal, the train stopped. It stopped short of the terminal, and Andrea and I noticed there was this whistle repeatedly blowing, that may indicate a problem. Further, that whistle seemed to be coming from really close by. Two train attendants and the conductor appeared, looking around with stern faces. I am incredibly happy to report we did nothing wrong. Evidently a guy tripped an emergency switch when he was getting his bag down from a compartment nearby. So somebody got more head shakes and disapproval than us, and we left the train a little more comfortable.

Hotel Oceania is about 500 meters (as the crow flies) from the station, so we walked our bags. Rome was extremely hot and muggy, and it took us a little longer to reach the hotel because we didn’t know the streets. Actually, first it took us a couple blocks to figure out how the streets were marked (marble signs up on the building corners, not on street posts). We finally arrived at the hotel, overheated and tired. Hotel Oceania is on the third floor. We found a small old elevator and took it up separately, since it wouldn’t hold us and the bags. The room is small, charming, and excellent. After we checked in, we wanted to get some food. We’d felt like lost tourists all day long, so we decided to go for something familiar; there was a McDonald’s down the street and for once, it was open. 🙂

After we ate we took a short walk just to look around (and in the process walked past several interesting monuments, including Barbarini fountain), we headed back to the hotel for a short siesta. Afterwards we took the SLR and wandered northeast, in the general direction of the Spanish steps.

Rome is wonderfully ridiculous. When you turn any given corner, you can find yourself looking at a building from the 16th century, or a fountain that’s even older.  We decided we can’t walk anywhere without a camera. We made our way to the Scalinata di Trinita dei Monti (Spanish steps), off the Piazza di Spagna. The steps were covered with people, which evidently they always are (except, helpfully from 2-6 AM according to one book).

We wandered a few blocks away and stopped into a restaurant named “Sicilia…ndo.” We had a bottle of Planeta Santa Cecilia 2005 (red) which was excellent. Andrea had short, dense, spiral pasta with peanuts, saffron, and a very light white sauce. I had pasta with Mazzara shrimp and Porchino tomatoes, stuffed with fish (turned out to be ravioli form, lucky me). 🙂 Everything was fantastic; it may very be the best ravioli I’ve ever had. And it was definitely the nicest dinner we’ve had so far, giving us time to sit together and enjoy being in such a beautiful, timeless city.

Matt and I were both surprised today by the amount of time we spent in Pompeii…

We awoke a bit later today; around 9:30. Once again we attended breakfast upstairs in our hotel, and then set out for another fantastic day.  Matt had done some research and found out where to get tickets for the train to Pompeii so we set out around eleven for the train station.  We bought a package deal for 17 Euros each to go roundtrip to Pompeii via the Circumvesuviana rail, along with entrance passes to the ruins. We were aboard the train by 11:16 and arrived in Pompeii just before noon. 

On our way to the entrance to the historic city, we bought a book complete with updated routes and maps to help guide our trip. As we approached the entrance we found that they rented Audio-guides for 10 Euros; since we already had our book we opted not to get the audio. 

The city originated during the 8th Century BC but didn’t  get its modern name until 89BC.  Pompeii was buried under about six meters of volcanic ash and sand around 79AD.  Over 20,000 people died by being crushed by collapsing roofs or gas inhalation. Pompeii was a lost city until the 17th century when it was accidentally found.  Excavation began on the city around 1748. 

Matt and I were extremely happy that we visited the National Archaeological Museum of Naples before we visited Pompeii.  We were able to connect pieces of art that we had seen in the museum with their original homes.  They have some replicas in place in the ruins, but they just don’t do the original pieces justice. It also helped us with the history of Pompeii.

The day was very hot; we’d guess it topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately we chose to bring Matt’s Camelbak today, so we filled it up at the drinkable water taps (acqua potabile) that are scattered about the ruins, and we drank steadily from it. Unfortunately some other kids in their late teens/early twenties did not. While I (Andrea) was in the bathroom, Matt was outside where one of these kids first tripped over the high curb and fell on his knees on the rocky street. I heard a loud thudding sound as I was making my way back out of the building that housed the bathrooms, but that wasn’t that kid hitting the street with his knees. That was the same kid hitting the sidewalk with the back of his head as he passed out, apparently from dehydration. This would be tragic, except that they had a bunch of water with them, which evidently they just weren’t drinking. Not only that, but according to Matt the three other friends just sat around while their friend wavered and passed out. There’s a happy ending to this story, though, as we passed them later in the day and they were all present (and seemingly coherent). But I’ve heard that you’re invincible until you turn 25, anyway.

We walked a tremendous distance, and covered a good chunk of the ancient site. We were both a bit surprised as to just how large the city was; seeing as it was obliterated in the blink of an eye, we were under the impression that it was a small town, almost a village, but this was really a sprawling ancient metropolis. 

When we finally exited the ruins (somewhere between 4 and 5 PM), we had a late lunch at an outdoor cafe in Domus Pompeiana. Matt had Lasagne al Forno and I had a pizza with ham, salami, and mushrooms. Both were excellent. We also got two soft drinks, and twice a bee came along and climbed into my Pepsi. The first time the waiter was kind enough to replace it; the second time there wasn’t  any Pepsi left in it anyway. 🙂

Today Matt and I walked our butts off, and for those who know me well I have a rather larger posterior, so we walked a lot.  It was an amazing day!

The room that we have has amazing black out windows so neither one of us knew that it was past eight when we awoke.  As we slowly got ready for the day, Matt and I mapped out a plan for the day; the National Archaeological Museum of Naples was high on my list.  We started out at the  fantastic continental breakfast at the UNA Hotel and then started walking towards the museum. 

Naples, as in Crete, is difficult to navigate; their street signs are almost non-existent so Matt and I walked north a few  blocks further out of our way, but finally made it to the Museum.  The Museum is more impressive than words can say…the pictures below hopefully will do it some justice. If you ever find yourself close to Naples it would be a shame if you missed this exhibit. There were more marble and bronze statues, mosaics, Vesuvian paintings, coins, gems, and other fantastic pieces; much of which came from excavation sites in Pompeii. Also, there was a huge reproduction of the remains of Pompeii, made between 1861 and 1864 of plywood, cork, plaster, and paper.  It isn’t the entire site, since more has been excavated since 1864, but the level of detail is amazing. The artist created tiny watercolors on the miniature walls, representing the artwork as it was found in Pompeii (some of which has been lost since, making this the only copy). Very cool!

Matt and I walked the massive museum for hours. When we finally left it was past lunch time and I was definitely hungry and once again we tried to find a McDonalds. After walking for  a ways we finally found one; it was closed. We have an uncanny ability to find international McDonalds that are closed for renovation.  We ventured down a street on our way to Castel Nuovo  (New Castle)and ran upon a little street cafe.  Matt had spaghetti with tuna and spicy sauce, I ate linguini with mussels and artichokes, both were great. After being on our feet for five hours it felt good to sit and enjoy the serenity around us.

After lunch we took pictures of Castel Nuovo. At this point the area was becoming cleaner more touristy, so we felt a bit braver and brought out the SLR camera for pictures. I (Matt now) am incredibly grateful that Andrea gave me this Nikon D40 for my birthday; it takes amazing pictures. Castel Nuovo is comprised of massive towers (look like chess rooks, see below) and was built in 1282, enlarged in the 15th century, and today houses the Naples city council. 

We continued down Via San Carlo towards Palazzo Reale, a huge estate built in 1602. The Teatro San Carlo, Italy’s largest opera house, is also nearby, just off the Piazza del Plebiscito, which is huge. We continued down Via Santa Lucia to Castel dell’Ovo (Egg Castle), Naples’ oldest castle, built between the 9th and 16th centuries. The name is either derived from the egg-like shape of the castle, or the story that it was built on top of an egg. The story was, if the egg broke, Naples would fall.

At this point we’d been walking for an eternity, and we were ready to get off our feet. Also, we wanted to know what it felt like to be in a car in Naples, so we caught a taxi down by Castel dell’Ovo and cabbed it back to Piazza Garibaldi (our hotel). You see, driving in Naples is a free for all, a complete charlie-foxtrot. Cars go every which way, and if a scooter isn’t satisfied with traffic conditions, they use the sidewalk. On top of that, people on foot cross where they want, when they want. On top of all that, everything moves very quickly. It’s like an obscenely large, high-stakes game of Frogger.  Andrea does a little prayer every time. The drive did not disappoint; it was winding, confusing; the thrill we hoped for. 

We ordered room service (turkey sandwich today, to split since we’re still pretty full from our late lunch), typed up our adventures, and read for a bit. We also watched more CNN, so we’re very up to date on U.S. politics and tropical storms.

We got up on the bright to catch a cab to the Heraklion airport. The porter helped us with our bags around 8:15 and by 8:30 we were checked out and on our way. The Heraklion airport is a very busy and confusing place, especially if you’re flying a small airline like Olympic. Once we’d located the appropriate check-in desk, we were vaguely sent to take our baggage to the scanner. We went to the first scanner we found, which was unmanned. Happily, we weren’t the only travelers with this confusion, as two other folks were standing in the same place, and were equally confused. Andrea made her way back to the counter to figure out where we should go, finding an irate woman from the UK chewing out the lady at the desk over the same confusion. Fortunately Andrea was able to overhear where we needed to go. Likewise our flight wasn’t on the board, so we had to ask which gate it would leave from (6, naturally…all Olympic flights leave from 6. Silly us).

We took the puddle jumper from Crete to Athens and dashed across the airport to the Alitalia desk; we needed to check-in again for this second leg of our flight. Andrea and I were separated by 8 rows, each with a middle seat. Bummer. Andrea met some very nice Athenian women on the plane, and talked with them a good portion of the flight. I (Matt) met a sleepy guy and a sleepy woman, and they slept through a good portion of the flight. I’m not so good at sleeping on planes, so I watched the video, which included Looney Tunes and a cool series of animated shorts called “Animaliens.” These were neat videos of stylized, animal-like creatures, each telling a brief 15-30 second story. They gave us a sandwich composed of three pieces of crust-free bread, with two thin layers of salmon spread. Andrea didn’t dig it, but I ate the whole thing. I was very hungry.

We landed in Rome, recovered our luggage (made it this time), and dragged ourselves across the airport to the train station. We bought tickets from the airport to Roma Termini (the train station in the heart of Rome) and then second class tickets from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale (Naples) on a high speed (alta velocita) train. This is where my Visa card barfed. When I called the states later to get it reactivated, I got disconnected. OK, when I called the second time to get it reactivated, the lady would tell me that the fraud department carefully monitors transactions, and since I hadn’t told them I’d be travelling, they promptly declined my card. This is totally true, and I forgot to call; but I didn’t bother asking why they hadn’t picked up on a week’s worth of charges from Greece. 🙂

The public train from the airport to Rome was extremely crowded, and extremely hot. We would later learn that the air conditioner had just broken. We didn’t get any seats, so we stood with the luggage. This is when I used my cell phone (which was now picking up international carriers) to straighten out the Visa card, and when a very nervous man kept a close eye on Andrea and me, since we were standing somewhere near his luggage. 

We got off the train and checked the departure sheet for Napoli Centrale Stazione. The electronic status board showed our train had been delayed, with no departure platform. We took a seat near the status board, a really unusual seat, as it was lined with 1.5″ diameter short steel poles, cut at an angle such that they formed a bunch of mini-spikes where the butt part of the seat should be. There weren’t sharp, just awkward and uncomfortable. The train was about 30 minutes late, and finally arrived at platform 10. We got on board and took some seats; shortly afterwards, we realized they were not OUR seats. We noticed other people debating and checking tickets, and that’s when we realized there was subtly assigned seating on our ticket. We quietly moved to the right seats, in the right coach. Once again, we weren’t seated together. About an hour and half later we arrived in Naples. The hotel we got (UNA Hotel Napoli) was across Piazza Garibaldi, about 200 meters from the station. We dragged our luggage there and had arrived at last, exhausted and hungry. The room is very nice, and features a bidet, which neither one of us knows how to use. 🙂

We wandered out onto the piazza to find a place to eat. We chose a little Cantina (Cantina Dei Mille), and sat out on a small table on the sidewalk. We shared a Peroni (Italian beer), gnocchi, linguine with seafood, fried prawns and calamari, and meat ravioli. Everything was fantastic. We struck up a conversation with the couple next to us, Gunnel and Börje Freudenthal from Sweden. They were very charming and engaging people, with 3 sons and 9 grandchildren, all of which live within 70 km of  Varberg, Sweden. We had a great discussion about how dirty Naples is (they don’t plan on returning), American politics, large trees in California, merchant marines, and how Americans all go to church, have too many bathrooms, and all own swimming pools. We’ve been invited to visit them in Sweden, and we do firmly intend to write.

Finally we went back to the room and hit the sack. It’d been an extremely long, interesting day.

Today was an awesome day, top to bottom. We got up a little later than usual (sometime around 9 AM) ate some cereal and did some writing for the webpage. Then we agreed we’d head into Hersonissos again for some lunch. We chose a place called Aohna (we think. It looks like that. See menu photo below). It was staffed by a really friendly guy that chatted with us a bit about Cretan weather, compared it to the states, and provided wonderful recommendations for lunch. Andrea had a wrapped pita gyros and I had lamb Kleftiko, and both were very good, probably the best food we’ve had. We took our time with lunch, enjoying the view of the sea, people watching, and occasionally chatting with the maitre’d. After we finished our main course, he recommended  kataifi with ice cream, so we went for it. He’d mentioned the ice cream would balance the sweetness of the kataifi, which it did, beautifully. Kataifi is basically this bunch of super thin strands of sweet nectar of the Gods, wrapped around crushed walnuts. It resembles shredded wheat in the shape of a croissant. It was really good, and we really appreciated his kindness and attention. He brought us a plate of fresh fruit, and two more shots of Raki, our favorite. This time we drank them all the way down; it’s been a good day.

At this point we were extremely full. We were sure we’d never eat again. Positive. 

We did some more window shopping and headed back to the internet cafe we’d originally used to email home. I (Matt) checked the Cubs results. I’d seen the 7 game winning streak (that was awesome), now I caught the 4 game losing streak (that was NOT awesome). We also took this opportunity to look at some websites we’d seen selling new construction on Crete (’cause we were curious). It really isn’t as expensive as we’d thought; you can get a pretty sweet villa on Crete for 100k-300k Euros. So we bought 2. One for us, and one for Toby man (he’s stinky).

While we were waiting for the bus back up to the resort, we got pulled into a conversation with two couples from the UK, also a first for this trip. They were engaging people, and we listened to a really poor story about Olympic Airlines timeshares in Greece. Needless to say, we will not be using Olympic for lodging in Greece (stick to the flights, we were told).

When we got back to Village Heights, we played mini golf. We tied, and each got a few holes-in-one. Andrea is a Tiger Woods-like mini golfer. We arranged for a cab to the airport in the morning, did our laundry, and watched what was left of X-Men. Returning the DVD to the front desk, a man driving up that way offered me (Matt) a lift on his golf cart (by Lamborghini, by the way. That’s no joke). He was a very friendly guy, and heartily congratulated me on our recent wedding. This was another first for this trip. It’s been a good day.

Andrea’s freckles are out in full force; they’re very cute.

We caught the bus to Hersonissos again in the morning. This time we bought two round-trip tickets on the city bus for Heraklion, the biggest city on Crete (as far as we know), and the one right by the airport. The bus ride was a very hot and crowded 40 minutes. On the way into the city we passed a McDonald’s, a strangely familiar sight given everything else we’d seen. By the time we got off the bus we were both very hungry, and we were wondering how different (or the same) that McDonald’s menu might be, so we wound our way to it. I say wound our way because there are quite a few elevation changes (and very tall, steep walls) in Heraklion. We did find the McDonald’s, and evidently it’s still being built. So I couldn’t tell you how different (or the same) their menu might be.

We wound our way back into the heart of the city, finding the statue of Venizelos, which told us we were right by El Eftherias Square. There were many cafes in the square, and we picked one right on the edge so we could eat and do some people watching. I (Matt) had the Spaghetti Bolognese and Andrea had a club sandwich. We weren’t feeling too food-venturous today, although everything you get is never exactly what you expect. The Spaghetti Bolognese, as an example, was more buttered noodles with some meat on them. We were struck by just how much graffiti there was in the city. I mean, every concrete surface was tagged, and not in terribly interesting, creative, or colorful ways.  It really lent to the impression of a city that wasn’t quite comfortable being a big city yet, a city that converted a chunk of roads to pedestrians only because they were just too narrow and too crowded to handle the population growth.

After lunch we walked over to the Archeological Museum. The main building has been under renovation since late 2006, so we went to the smaller, temporary exhibit. They’ve got a cool collection of early Minoan artifacts, from early stone tools and ladles to Greek marble statues and frescoes. One piece of note is the intricately crafted gold bee pendant. It’s incredible to see the amount of fine detail this civilization was able to achieve, especially given that we’re talking about 1000 BC. Another was an ancient figurine of the (from the display) “Snake Goddess. The goddess, or priestess, is depicted with exposed breasts and wearing a rich garment. Her bared breasts suggest her capacity as a fertility goddess. The snakes and the feline on her head are an allusion to her dominion over nature. [From] Knossos. New-Palace period (1600 BC).” Haha, Carol we found an ACTUAL fertility goddess, and it’s not a pig. 😉 We also saw a bunch of touchdown statues, clearly to celebrate a touchdown. I don’t even know what they really represent…I think we can all agree that’s the universal sign for touchdown. Interestingly, these would predate “Touchdown Jesus” by  almost 3000 years. Food for thought. We made our way through the exhibit and back out onto the streets of Heraklion.

We did a little window shopping and made our way to the Morozini fountain. It’s a cool looking old fountain. I can’t imagine what else to write about it, other than there were many pictures by it. Nearby we saw the Basilica of St. Mark and town hall, cool looking old stone buildings surrounded by what Andrea coined “dead” dogs. There were dogs all over, and I (Matt) contend that they were sleeping, but Andrea’s convinced one (laying down, surrounded by hot dog pieces) was dead.  Because of this, town hall was renamed “The Hall of Dead Dogs.” 😦 That’s just sad; I still prefer town hall. Hi Toby, we love you!

We wandered the streets, heading towards the Cathedral of Ayios Menas. At one point we wound into what we would name “Party City,” which was this long collection of indoor/outdoor clubs absolutely packed with young Greeks. It was about 1 PM on a Tuesday, and these places were absolutely packed, and everybody was there to see and be seen. We were not. We were in the wrong place. I overheard some laughs and an “Americanos” comment, and it was the most uncomfortable I’ve felt, I admit. We were very happy to get out of Party City, and back to doing our super touristy things.

After leaving Party City, we finally made our way to the beautiful 19th century Cathedral. We sat there and enjoyed the area for a few minutes when we realized that there was a smaller church to the left of the Cathedral. This church was a wooden Medieval church; I (Andrea) preferred this church to the large ornate church.  

On the way back north we swung by the Venetian arsenali, an ancient fortress on the water’s edge. It’s old, it’s made of stone, and it’s massive. It’s also awkward to get a decent picture of. See my (Matt) crappy pictures as proof positive. Unfortunately this area also had some open dumpsters, so a bouquet of rot and trash permeated everything. Time to move on.

It was getting late and Matt and I were both getting tired. We walked back to the bus station and caught the number two bus back to Hersonissos (this bus luckily had air conditioning) and then caught the Village Heights bus back to the apartment.  Having the sun beat down on us as we walked around Heraklion was  exhausting and resting in our room sounded great to both of us. We picked up a movie (X-Men 3: The Last Stand) from the club desk and finally arrived back in our room. 

After a few hours of resting in our room we decided to go to Asian night at the buffet. Coming to Greece we knew that everything would be an adventure; this was most true about the food. Matt: The spring rolls and sweet and sour pork were pretty good;  everything else was blech, bland and wrong.  I (Andrea) also enjoyed the spring rolls and sweet and sour pork but I also liked seafood salad, and the vegetable rice.  Matt got a bowl of ice cream for us to share. None of the types were labeled so he picked us the neon yellow, bright red, and brown ones. The yellow, we thought would be lemon, ended up tasting like banana Laffy Taffy. The red was a very sweet strawberry, and the  brown was chocolate.  

Dinner was done and we both were concerned with how the food would settle in our stomachs; luckily we were just fine.  Back in our room we watched our movie and finally headed to bed around 10:30PM. It was a really busy day, and we were exhausted.

After going to bed early the night before, Matt and I woke up around 5:30AM. Matt had taken pictures of the sunrise when we first arrived but we decided to take them once again. I had the video camera and Matt had the SLR and we headed out on our early morning adventure. We had decided that we would try to get the sea with the sunrise behind it. This was a bit more difficult than we thought since our apartment faced the hillside. 

There were more activities early in the morning than I ever would have imagined The cleaning crew was just arriving to work and the gardening crew was hard at work watering the flowers and lawn. We must have looked like idiots walking around the property with our cameras in hand. 

We finally found some good shots by the mini golf course but couldn’t stay long because they were watering the surrounding areas.  The clouds were out in full force, making for some very dramatic pictures.  After the mini golf course, we headed up to the main swimming pool and front office. Matt and I found that a few of the apartments have their own pool, I really wondered how much those must cost. $$$ 

Finally we got back to our apartment and got ready for the day. This meant taking showers, eating a bowl of Golden Grahams, watching CNN (again), and putting on our bathing suits. We had decided that today would be a poolside day.  

The pool was empty when we arrived a little after 10AM, so we got our pick of lounge chairs.  We got out our books and sat for an hour until people began to emerge from their caves.  Around 11 AM Matt was kind enough to go get me a Margarita and he was going to get a tequila sunrise.  (Matt: up at the bar one vacationer from the UK asked me “it’s a bit early, eh?” Fortunately the wife was with me; we’re on holiday, we can drink at 11 AM 🙂 Not to mention we’d already been up for hours). Previously when I had tried to get a Margarita I had ended up with a pizza, since then I had been craving the fruity drink. When Matt got back to the table he had a huge grin and was carrying his tequila sunrise and something in a martini glass, I knew instantly that the martini was my margarita.  The drink really wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. Matt  said the woman had filled the glass with tequila and he was afraid it would be extremely strong. Lucky for us she used good alcohol so it was a very smooth drink.

As we sat sipping our drinks the pool became more crowded and we realized it was around lunch time. Matt headed back to the apartment to make tortellini’s (what an amazing husband) and I followed shortly after. We rested, out of the sun, for an hour and a half and then went back to the pool, where we remained until around four.

Matt and I knew that there was no internet connection in our apartment so until now we had been sending emails from  an internet cafe in Hersonissos. We decided to ask the front desk if there was an internet connection anywhere in the resort. Happily they informed us that  they had wireless in one room in and all we had to do was buy a card to connect. For only six euro’s we could have two hours of wireless internet and finally update our travel blog. We were ecstatic.

We sat in the room and updated the webpage for an hour and decided to head back to the room. We cooked up some traditional Greek sausages we’d picked up at the supermarket. We don’t know exactly what they were (and hope to find out when we get back), but ewww. They were pretty bland, had a thick casing, and were not especially good. We each ate one and had another half bologna sandwich each. By then it was time for bed.

We slept in a little more today (still up by 8, though), and had some of the cereal we bought at the supermarket. We watched CNN…again. You see, there are about three channels in English: CNN, another copy of CNN, and Bloomberg, which provides exciting worldwide financial news. CNN, helpfully, has talked about absolutely nothing except Gustav, the Democratic National Convention (until it ended), and Gustav the entire time we’ve been here. We want to write a letter and thank CNN for their miserable programming and plodding repetition of the same story. Oh, I forgot, we get BBC World News, so we get the same stories in less time. 😉

So we got our swim stuff together and a couple of books and took the bus down into Hersonissos again. We wandered up to the beach, which is on the North side of the island (facing the Cretan Sea), and settled on the West side of the Early Christian Basilica. The beach itself is covered with umbrellas and lawn chairs, and to reach it, you walk down a set of steps adjacent to the beachfront restaurants we talked about yesterday. We didn’t know at the time, but for a few Euros you get to sit in the chairs, and the guy that spies out people coming down will offer you an umbrella (hand gestures, no English) and bring you a basin to rinse your feet off (very nice). Again, we didn’t know this, so it was a bit confusing when this guy that’d been hidden around the corner at the base of the stairs started following us around and smiling, pointing to chairs. A woman up in the restaurant area, leaning over the rail, would yell out when new people came down and seemingly indicate when he should go pick up basins and umbrellas. We admit, it took away from the “let’s go relax at the beach” atmosphere a bit, but we had fun nonetheless.

We read our books, got some sun, and each took our first swims in the Mediterranean. The Cretan Sea is very salty, comfortably warm, and the shoreline is covered with broad, flat rocks, each of which is covered with smaller rocks and sea plants. This makes for awkward footing, so you kind of stumble your way out into the water for about 20 feet, then the rocks fall away and you’re floating around in the waves. It was very relaxing, and I (Matt) used some of this time to practice treading water for my upcoming scuba classes (back in Seattle, getting ready for Hawaii next year). Treading water is EXTRA easy when it’s so salty. 🙂 There were a lot of topless women at the beach, of all ages. Andrea’s thought about it, but has not yet. I myself have been, because I’m a boy person. Such double standards… Making your way back into the beach, the riptide is surprisingly strong, and the rocks are still nice and slick, so you slowly make your way back, trying to look as coordinated as possible, but usually failing and stumbling again. We watched a girl catch a few facefuls of white water, another flip over on her raft, and realized we weren’t alone.

We left the beach to get lunch and stopped at a beachfront restaurant called “G Captain.” While we’ve been eating mainly Greek food to this point, we went for a cheeseburger with fries, a Mai Tai and a Mythos beer. The cheeseburger was on a big potato roll, the cheese was gouda, and the meat itself was a pork patty. It was surprisingly good, although Andrea was surprised by the mushy texture of the meat. It was a great lunch, the staff was friendly, and we once again had to wait awhile trying to figure out how to flag down our bill. People really leave you alone, don’t rush you through meals, which is great. The only trouble’s been sometimes we can’t find them when we’re finally ready to move on. No worries; we’re not in a hurry, we’re on our honeymoon.

We caught the 4:45 bus back to the hotel and passed out around 6. We promised we’d relax on this leg of the trip…we’re getting very good at it. 🙂 The sun and the salt water really sap the energy out of you. Plus, on Crete places open a little later (more like 10:30 – 11 AM) and close down early (around 4 – 5), so we’ve adjusted.

I (Matt) woke up again around 6 AM. I didn’t want to wake Andrea, so I took some videos of the sunrise. It’s a beautiful island, Crete. Andrea woke up not too much later, and we made our way to the first shuttle into Hersonissos. Our hotel is about 8 minutes from town, and they run a shuttle about every hour and a half. The first shuttle was at 9:45, and we quickly discovered the town doesn’t wake up that early. 🙂 Much of our early strolls through town found shopkeepers hosing down front steps, unlocking gates, and generally setting up shop.

We walked down what appeared to be the main street (none of these are marked), window shopping at various souvenir stores. One standout was a wood carving store that included dragons, Pinnochio, Mickey Mouse, and 3 wrestling dinosaurs (super awesome). We’ve included some pictures so you can see what we’re talking about. We also saw stores with knockoff designer watches, clothing, and glasses. We passed some internet cafes, and cafes with Wi-Fi, so we knew we’d finally be able to get a message home (my cell phone wasn’t finding an applicable network, and there’s no internet available in the room).

We wandered down towards the beach. All along the beachfront drive there are restaurants and bars that have both a storefront and beachfront section; in other words, you can either go into the air conditioned main building or sit on the open air beach side. There’s gotta be a good nightlife in this area; there were a whole bunch of bars along the strip that vary from Irish pubs and rock clubs to disco bars. One of our favorites was Club Tiger Club, which sat above Disco Bar Tiger Disco Bar. OK, yes, it’s all one club called “Tiger,” but we’re very literal sometimes and really enjoyed this interpretation of their signage. Club Tiger Club is probably an amazing place to party, if you were 21 or 22. Seriously, we saw inside while they were cleaning up and it’s a sticky, dark, dirty mess of a club. For those that went to Illinois, this is like Kams. For those that didn’t, it’s like that sticky, dark, dirty bar you knew of in college.

We followed the road down to a little ruin that turned out to be an early Christian Basilica. We climbed on the old broken stone steps, then out onto the rocks jutting into the Cretan Sea. It’s an  amazing sight, and a beautiful view of the city. The water’s really salty, of course, so all the little eddies in the rock face had crystallized salt pools. We took some pictures and shot some of our first video.

We wandered back into town (Andrea found a shoe store, although she didn’t buy any 🙂 The American dollar sucks), and made our way back to the supermarket near the bus pickup. We bought a bunch of groceries for our apartment, including milk, juice, chips, pasta, sauce, lunchmeat, bread, and cereal. I also bought Andrea these little Happy Hippo cookies she was eyeing in the store (Andrea: they were tasty!). 

Back at the resort, we took a little nap that stretched till just before our dinner reservation at Elia, the fancier restaurant at the resort for Matt’s birthday dinner (there don’t seem to be any real super fancy restaurants around Hersonissos, at least not that we’ve found). In case you’re wondering, we were celebrating on the 30th because it was still the 29th back in the states, and we were more awake on the 30th. The food was actually pretty good, and we started it off with a bottle of wine (Vin de Crete, 2006, abstractly “white,” which best I can tell was a Pinot Gris) and a bowl of potato salad. This was not potato salad like we are familiar with (or expected). It was literally chunks of potato with slices of tomato, slices of green pepper, slices of onion, slices of cucumber, and olives.  Everything was very fresh, and it was a good starter (although a bit filling). Andrea had the grilled kingprawns (heads and all), and Matt had the grilled swordfish (bones and all). 

The server finished the meal for us with Raki (as Andrea has come to call “Icky”). That’s powerful stuff; neither one of us was able to pound it down.

There was a magic show/fire dance poolside, but we weren’t interested in the straight jacket escape set to loud Greek pop music, so we headed back to the room. It was a great day, and I can’t think of a better place to celebrate my 30th birthday, nor a better person than my wife, Andrea. 🙂 We’re still getting used to that idea.