DAY 9We woke up this morning in Heraklion aka Crete. It’s the southernmost city in all of Europe and is super close to Africa. We had also heard it was going to be super hot here, and that proved to be correct.
After breakfast, we caught a cab to the Palace of Knossos and our driver waited for us there to take us to our next place. J and I could have signed up for an excursion today, but decided we wanted to do our own thing. I knew the palace was a must-see on the island and that we’d go, but assumed it was a large current palace, but nope, it was another archeological site of an abandoned palace from around 1100 BC. It was discovered around 1878 and excavation began in 1900. We’re not really sure how or why it became abandoned, but it was huge and must have been amazing back in its heyday. There were some really cool parts of it, and then some more ruins. We’ve seen a whole lot of ruins this trip, which I totally didn’t expect, but maybe should have.
When we bought our palace tickets, we paid an extra euro to add a ticket to the Archeological museum as well. When we finished at the palace, we headed there afterwards to see, you guessed it, more statues, vases, jars, tombs, etc... There was some cool stuff in there like giant axes and really large vases, even one with a skeleton in it, but a lot more of the same stuff we’ve seen at other sites this trip.
After the museum, we walked to the city center to explore. We wandered around for a while and up and down a bunch of side streets. We walked through Lion’s Square and saw the little fountain there and also saw St. Mark’s Basilica and St. Minas Cathedral. We also went into a bunch of clothing and shoe stores, including the local department store called Hondos Center, which was very underwhelming. There actually wasn’t much to see in Crete, but we kept busy. It’s not very much of a tourist town, which is totally different from everywhere else we’ve been thus far. There was limited signage in English and seemed much more local than the other places we’ve been. It’s kind of nice to be in a more unique, local Greek city, than a vacation town. We walked down to the port and the Mediterranean Sea was an amazing aqua color with the mountains in the background. It was so beautiful and the breeze was welcomed too. We stumbled upon another historical site, the Venetian port ruins, and walked along the water for a little while before stopping for lunch. If we weren’t so hot, I would have gotten some fish or calamari since we saw all the fishing boats pulling in the harbor. There was actually a real octopus hanging from the rafter behind us. Greece is known for its fresh seafood, but its been so hot here that its been hard for me to want to eat anything of hot temperature.
After lunch, we walked back to the city center and just up and down the side streets. We found some really cool street art and took some pictures, and J even bought a pair of Nikes at a shoe store. There wasn’t much to see in town so we unwillingly decided to head back to the boat. We spent some time in the duty free shop at the port smelling different perfumes from our childhood. We “tried on” Sunflower, CK one, Clinique Happy and a bunch of others trying to kill time. Remember those? We smelled of our junior high selves and couldn’t stop laughing about it. Like this legit entertained us.
When we got back on the ship, we decided to bite the bullet and go in the pool. Like most cruise ships, it’s a salt water pool which doesn’t thrill me, but once in, it was definitely refreshing. It was so hot out and we just wanted to cool off. I don’t think there were any beaches around here or we would have headed there, as long as they were sandy beaches and not rocky ones. It’s a shame that our ship sucks because the fact we didn’t want to come back is shitty. But we are continuing to make the best of it here.
We had snacks and drinks on the pool deck and hung out with our Canadian friends before going to the room to rest and listen to our podcasts. We planned to have dinner with the Canadians on the ship since we didn’t want to bother going back into town to pay for dinner again, plus the boat was leaving at 8. Again, there wasn’t much to see and do around there, so why bother trekking back in town. It was a chill night in before our last stop tomorrow in Turkey!
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