As promised, this is the account on our week in Crete, Greece. We are not party people so no crazy stories here. Enjoy the photos! 🙂
As mentioned in the post about our two weeks abroad, both my sister and I wanted to have a real vacation in Crete. You know, the kind where you don’t feel like you need a vacation after being on vacation…Making notes on what we did to write this post, I realised we didn’t do much at all. That doesn’t mean our vacation wasn’t worth it, it was exactly what we wanted!
Chania Harbor
Ok, back to the point of this post: We flew in straight to Chania from London and quickly found a bus just outside the airport to take us to Chania city centre. I figured it would be easy to find our hotel since when I booked it gave us what I thought where pretty good direction to get there. Once we arrived at the bus terminal in central Chania, I knew we had to find a local bus to take us to where we needed to be. Since I ended up booking the best deal (aka cheapest) thing I could find, I unknowingly booked a hotel a little ways from the city centre. We found the right bus stop with ease, bought our tickets and we were on our way. After a few minutes of being on the bus my sister asks if I knew were we were actually going and getting off. I didn’t. I looked at the directions to our hotel for help but it said to get off at a market (can’t remember the name) and then had other possible routes listed. It said something about being close to the beach so once I saw the ocean I told my sister we should get off, I figured it shouldn’t be far and we could just walk. Wrong. We jump off and, well, we don’t know where we were or where to go. I go into a shop and pray the sales associate speaks enough English to help us. I tell her the hotel name and she looks confused so I show her the directions. She seems to have an idea of where to go so she points us in the general direction. I will spare the details but I will just say that we were way off. It was hot, I was tired and we had no clue where we were, needless to say I as very grumpy. After about an hour of being lost we, thanks to my sister, somehow found our way! I was so annoyed with myself for booking a place that seemed impossible to get to. When we arrived at the hotel, we checked in, dropped off our stuff and decided to head to the beach which was less than a 5 minute walk. Not long after we decided to head back and find some food.
Walking around Chania
We headed back to the hotel quite early to try and plan out the next few days but also to crash, after the day we had it felt like time for bed. Two of the things that were on my list to do while in Chania were the Samaria Gorge and one of the ‘top’ beaches in our guidebook. The Samaria Gorge tours started very early in the morning and left from central Chania. Since we were a ways from the city centre, and the local buses seemed to start running too late in the morning, we did not make it to the gorge. Although it broke my heart, I tried not to let it ruin our trip. It would be just another excuse to revisit Crete 🙂 So instead of the gorge we opted for a day out in central Chania. We did not really do much, just walked around, enjoyed the gorgeous harbor, walked to the lighthouse, had lunch and window shopped. Oh and took tons of photos of course. After spending the day in the city we head back to out hotel and went out to the beach again. The beaches near our hotel were very quiet, very few people and essentially no waves. Maybe it was because it was late afternoon both times we went but there were hardly any people in and out the water. The beaches were also very windy which I found annoying but beautiful nonetheless. That pretty much concludes our first full day in Crete.
Chania Harbor
Elafonisi. Pink sand!
The next day was the day I was most excited about. We decided to take a bus to Elafonisi beach! I had been on pinterest for weeks before arriving in Crete and photos of Elafonisi immediately caught my attention. It was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to experience while in Crete. Crystal clear waters and pink sand! 🙂 I had read online that it wasn’t easy getting there, blah blah blah so I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up. Upon arriving, however, we realised that there was one bus that could take us to and from Elafonisi from central Chania. Yes, one bus all day. I think the bus left Chania at 10 am, which gave us enough time in the morning to get there and it left the beach at 5pm. I was still a little nervous that it wasn’t going to work out (maybe I was traumatised by the failure of making it to the gorge) but we headed over to central Chania early morning, purchased our tickets, got breakfast at the bus station and soon after we were on our way! I honestly don’t remember how long the bus ride was, maybe about 2 hours? There is pretty much nothing but the beach in the surrounding areas. No fancy resorts and no houses. It was truly like a secluded little paradise. I was in
Elafonisi Beach: Only beach chairs and food stand (not in the photo).
awe. Before I say what is going to sound like I am hating on this beach, I have to say that this was by far the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. granted I haven’t really been to many beaches but I can’t think of anything that can top Elafonisi. I honestly think that having experienced this beach as ruined me for life and perhaps has made me into a beach snob. Ok, now on to the hating. Elafonisi was windy. Like hella windy. It was annoying and I hated it. I felt like I couldn’t enjoy the beach like I wanted to, just because of how windy it was. We were there for a total of about 5 hours. In those hours we walked around, walked into the water, which is incredibly shallow and you can’t really swim because you’d have to go in really
Pretty water!
deep. After many pictures and some time in the water we fell asleep on our beach chairs and got a tan. I was so sunburned, I was in pain for days. I think 5 hours was way too long to be there, unfortunately we had no choice since there is only one bus to take us to and from the beach. Nothing is perfect right? So I have to be happy with the beauty that Elafonisi proved to be.
Bus stop in Heraklion
The next day we took a bus to Heraklion where we were going to spend a few days. Again, we took the bus to the city centre then we had to take a local bus to get our hotel. And again, we got lost. Thankfully, the buses make a loop so once the bus driver made his last stop he asked us where we were going. My sister showed him the name of the hotel and he dropped us off where we needed to be. We were across the road from the beach again. Yay! That day we just ate and walked around, swam in the hotel pool and ate some more. After dark we walked around some more and decided to go into one of
Knossos Palace
the bars for a drink and caught a glimpse of the word cup that was playing on the tv. The following day we had planned to visit the Knossos Palace archaeological site. I had read that it was very close and easy to get to from the city centre, I had doubts but it was! We took a bus into the city centre then we caught another bus that took us straight to the entrance of the palace. It was no more than a 15 minutes bus ride. I majored in anthropology so this was right up my alley. Knossos is an ancient Minoan palace but of course we now just have remains. We went in without a tour guide but in retrospect I wish we would have splurged a little to get a tour guide. We walked in and around the palace and saw the remains and excavations but I don’t know much of the history behind it. This is where the tour guide could have been of great help. It’s not an enormous space so we were only there for just
Archaeological Museum in Heraklion
over an hour. Along with the entrance to the palace you can buy a joint ticket to enter the archaeological museum back in town. We did that. So after Knossos we took the bus back into town and got off at the stop for the museum. We spent another hour or so at the museum and it was still pretty early in the day. Starving, we decided to find food and relax. At this point we had visited all the sites we wanted to and now we could go back to taking it slow and simply enjoying Crete, the food and its people. We walked around a lot and window shopped and ate. That pretty much describes the rest of our day.
Knossos Palace
Ivette and I walking along the coast in Rethymno
The last city we wanted to visit was Rethymno, a city between Chania and Heraklion. We took a bus there the day after our archaeology filled day. Rethynmo was cute, like all the other towns we visited. As was the custom in this trip, we didn’t really do much. When we arrived at the bus terminal we had about a 20 minute walk into the city centre. It was a beautiful walk along the crystal blue coast. Starving as we were, we looked for a place to eat. Like every other place, there were dozens of places to choose from, which makes it really hard to pick a place and eat. Finally, we found a charming little restaurant where we had omelettes and relaxed after our walk in the sun. We had nothing planned for our trip to
Venetian Fort in Rethymno
Rethynmo, our guide had sites and tips but really we just wanted to enjoy the town. We walked around and window shopped and we were going to go into a venetian fort but it wasn’t free and I didn’t care that much to see it. There is a beach in the city but it isn’t nice (or maybe after Elafonisi, everything else sucks =P). We sat and hung out for a while on the beach. We decided to get something to eat before catching the bus to Heraklion so we sat at a restaurant on the coast to enjoy the view as well as some food and wine. The perfect way to end a relaxing day.
What the local beach looks like in Rethymno
Food and drinks by the coast in Rethymno
Our time in Crete was coming to an end and given the day after Rethynmo was our last day, we had to take a bus back to Chania where we were flying out to Italy from. After hours of being on the bus we finally arrive in Chania. For our last night I actually booked us a place in town and we were supposed to have views of the harbor. Yay! Unsurprisingly we got lost again. After asking a local for directions, we found the place This wasn’t a hotel, it was essentially someone’s house. The owner-lady come out to greet us and gave us seats and drinks and told us to wait. The night before I had been checking and rechecking our booking and I had read some really bad reviews of this place. This lady was all over the place. She had told someone else they could stay in our room (before we arrived) but when we arrived she basically kicked them out because we had already
Walking to the lighthouse in Chania
booked…I was a little confused. She was super friendly and chatty and all the Greek stereotypes. We had to walk a long and step set of stairs but we had beds, a bathroom, shower and views that left some to be desired but it wasn’t bad, just different. After all it was only for one night. After settling in, we headed out to town again. Our last day. Wanting to soak it all in before we left, we walk around and sat by the harbor enjoying the gorgeous view. We ate, we drank bubble tea, we hiked up places we hadn’t been and just before sunset we went back to the harbor.
At times this trip felt so unplanned, and it was! But with the pressure of school, placements, work and life, I didn’t have much time to do a lot of planning. I think it worked out nicely though. It was a real vacation and we got to enjoy Crete without the rush. I think what makes a trip is not only where you go and what you do but who you go with. I was ever so lucky to have my best friend/sister with me. Those moments when we just walked around or just ‘chilled’, we were probably deep in conversation about something or simply enjoying the view with the silence we are both comfortable with. During trips with my sister I am always the one that freaks out or gets upset about something. Naturally it happened a few times along the course of this trip. I just want to end this post by thanking Ivette, my sister, for putting up with me. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to see Crete with! ❤
Chania harbor by night
P.S. The spellings of the places and cities we visited vary, even within Crete. It gets a little confusing but Rethymno/Rethymnon/Rethimno same thing. Iraklio/Heraklion Same thing. Also, I think I mentioned it in a previous post, but we stayed on the west side of Crete the entire time so this was by no means a comprehensive Crete trip!
Rosa Roaming 