Greece travel blog
After having a great time circumnavigating the island, it’s time for me to be leaving Crete. Although Crete is part of Greece, and I usually only write ‘Leaving (insert country name here)’ posts when I depart a sovereign nation, it seems appropriate in this case to make an exception. As the bloke who fixed my tyre in Ierapetra said, ‘Greece is Greece, Kriti is Kriti. Different Place’. From this beautiful and fascinating island I’m heading north to Athens on the…
Traces of War Suda Bay is around 5km south-east of Chania on the north coast of Crete. The Bay is the main port of Chania, and large ferries come and go from the protected waters, servicing the mainland and many of the Greek Islands. On the edge of the water is the Suda Bay War Cemetery, an expanse of green lawn and ordered headstones, where 1500 servicemen are buried or honoured. On the day I visited, the sun broke through…
Traces of War With the reinforced and well-supplied German forces closing in, the Allies waited to be evacuated from the small fishing village of Hora Sfakia on the south coast of Crete. On the nights of 28-30 May 1940, British and Australian navy ships from Alexandria picked up 11,000 Allied troops and returned with them to Egypt. When the Australian soldiers defending the ridge above Hora Sfaklia were outflanked by the Germans, the evacuation attempt was abandoned.1 With the remaining…
Traces of war Crete is characterised by miles of beautiful coastline, olive groves, and little villages set on the lower slopes of spectacular, rugged mountains. However, museums, memorials and cemeteries found across the island are testimony to the dark days of the Battle of Crete, and the determination of the Cretans to honour those that fought against the invaders during World War II. With German and Italian forces sweeping through mainland Greece, the Allies were forced to withdraw, with the…
The tourist season has ended, the summer visitors from northern Europe have all headed back home, and things are quiet in Crete. On a grey, drizzly day I headed up into the mountains in the west of the island to visit a museum. Upon arriving in the small village, I was pleasantly surprised to find the museum was actually open, and spent an hour with the owner touring the displays. On my way out I passed a small building, where…
Windmills of Crete You don’t have to spend long in Crete to realise it’s a pretty dry place. Most of the native vegetation is low and scrubby, the hardy goat is the grazier’s choice of livestock, and the ubiquitous olive groves are irrigated with thousands of kilometres of polypipe. The island gets about 500mm of rain per year (in comparison Sydney gets about 1170mm), and bugger all of it falls in the summer months. Back in the days before the…
Faster, higher, stronger If you had a look at the Tokyo Olympics back in July this year, you would have noticed a few sports making their debut at the Games. Four new events were added to the list in Tokyo: surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and karate. The addition of new sports is always controversial, with the crackers and French Onion dip flying as the revolutionaries and reactionaries passionately argue their positions. Back in the good old days of the Olympics,…
I was keen to do some hiking during my time in Crete, and thought the Dikti Mountains in the east of the island looked like a good place to start. After picking up a map from a hiking store in Heraklion, and doing a little touring on the way, I was ready to set out for a few days walking in the mountains. After heading west from Ieraptera, I wound my way up the freakishly steep mountains to the little…
(Dear reader, I do not have access to my laptop at the moment. Consequently I am unable to include photos, of the kind you know and tolerate, in my posts. I’ll be sure to add some in when I can.) Arriving late into Athens airport, and with a few hours to wait before my connecting flight to Crete, I decided that now was the time to try my first Greek souvlaki. In Greece, the Greek language is written, naturally, in…
None of us knew what to expect as we left Turkish waters. Would the Greek coastguard be on us as soon as we entered their territory? The Turkish Coasties definitely had been when we were on their turf, and we suspected their Greek counterparts would be similarly conscientious. The Greek government had banned private sailing vessels arriving from Turkey due to Covid-19, so we knew we risked being turned away, detained, fined, or a combination of the three. We were…