Summer escapades: Greece

At the start of summer, Nicole and I travelled to the Greek island of Crete to volunteer at a Nature Park for a few weeks. Crete, as you can see, is a big island in the very south of the Mediterranean. This meant super duper hot weather! As well as volunteering we had a few days to see something of the island. (More about the volunteering in another post.)

Chania was the busy town in the west that we flew into. It had some cool old buildings- Venetian and Ottoman mixed together- and a stunning harbour. We spent a night and a day there when we arrived on the island. We had our first Greek dinner, explored the market, had a wee swim and tried to get used to the weather. 

Flying over the mainland

The wonders of the Greek marketplace!

Having dinner by the harbour on the first night, we found a
meal deal withseafood of a dubious origin.
The waiters also kept depositing bottles of raki at our table!
We chased the nasty stuff with chocolate ice cream.

Swimming spot! Wahoooo

The Venetian harbour

We were staying and working on a hill above the smaller town of Rethymno. It was a student city, so had a different vibe to Hania. We spent a bit of time in the town, going to the beach, wandering and exploring. 

This was the view from where we stayed. In the centre of Rethymno was the old town

The coast and Rethymno's fortress

Plenty of orthodox churches and their distinctive roofs

This church I stumbled across near a village between Rethymno and
Chania. I hauled all my stuff long the spit to check it out,
happy for my drybag!

When we got a day off we spent an eventful day travelling south to the town of Hora Sfakia and walking the Imbros Gorge. We got to experience the Greek bus system and see a bit of the island! 

Typical Greece: there were olive groves scattered around the
edges of the town

We saw tons of these little roadside shrines...
once we realised they weren't letterboxes,
that is!

Hora Sfakia is a wee place, as cute and Greek as you can get: besides tourism the main industries are sheep and goat herding, fishing and olive oil production!
You might've noticed that the spelling of place names changes every now and then. This isn't me being hopeless: the translation of the Greek alphabet into the Roman is tricky and there is no standard conversion: many place names have a few versions. This didn't make travelling easier!

We had a lazy swim (do you see our lone umbrella!?) and lunch by the water

Kiwi soldiers saw a lot of action on Crete  in WWII, particularly at Hora Sphakia and surrounding gorges

We caught the bus to the top of the Imbros Gorge and walked back down. Crete is famous for its gorges, particularly the Samaria. We'd heard the Imbros was less popular but just as pretty. We got to see some of the nature we'd been learning about. 

The gorge walls narrow considerably!

KIWIS!

Man I love the rocks!

National pride :)

 We came out of the gorge almost at the coast, and then walked the five kilometres back to Hora Sfakia along a hot and dusty rural road. Gorgeous scenery, but we were pretty happy when a Greek couple offered us a ride back :)

Greek countryside!
Since we were on the south coast, we were convinced the
indistinct mass we saw in the distance was Africa
and we got excited. 

Home again- the bus ride back over the mountains

Our last little day trip was along the coast to Panormo where we swam, lay and read on the beach, walked the cobbled streets and found the rather unimpressive remains of a castle. 

This was all that was left of the castle!
 We almost didn't find it.

So that was how we explored Crete when we weren't working on the Nature Park. Updates on that story coming up :)