We awoke this morning at the Port of Heraklion on the island of Crete. It was a bit of an uncomfortable night as the sea was high the ship bobbing up and down. Heraklion is the largest city on the island with a population of about 200k.
Once again, an early start. Off the boat and into to our bus by 7:30. Our stop this morning was the ancient Knossas Castle. This was the Minoan civilzation dating back to 3000 B.C. Frankly, it didn't look much different from the ruins we'd seen from 100 B.C. Much progress had not been made! The place was crowded with many groups, all off our ship.This site wasn't particularly exciting. The Cretans do their best to make the most of this jewel of their tourism industry.
Our group is pretty much in agreement now. Enough of the ruins already!
We returned to our boat for lunch and a rest; the boat is still pitching about in the nasty looking seas. After lunch we sail south for about three hours to the celebrated island of Santorini. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived there it was nearly dark. Who visits Santorini in the dark?
Nevertheless, Santorini is quite unusual. Its a group of volcanic islands, with the village perched high on the cliffside of the caldera. Whitewashed buildings, blue roofs. One accesses the village from the dock by means of an incline - very cool! That whole operation looks fairly new and can accommodate lot of people very efficiently. Once up on the ridge, there are perhaps hundreds of small shops, mostly selling really nice, expensive looking stuff. Lots of jewelry. There are also many cute little cafe and small inns/B&B. There is a beautiful Roman Catholic cathedral that we were not able to enter.
While we were the only cruise ship in the harbor, our guide said that at the height of the summer season he's seen as many as 9 ships in at once!
So while Santorini is cool little place, it was a real shame that we couldn't be there in the daylight - and sunlight at that! We didn't get to see the picture on all those postcards.
Our weather today was like the previous few -showers around, but we never had any actual rain. The seas were pretty rough for sailing.
This is our last night on board. Tomorrow morning we should wake up in the Port of Pireaus (Athens), check into the Met once again and have a tour of Athens.
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| Knossos Castle |
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| Santorini |
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| Nope, didn't see that! |
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