Easter trip to Crete!

There are not so many public holidays in Germany, but there is a particularly long weekend in March or April over Easter. About a year ago, Rohith and I decided to go to Crete over the Easter weekend, as we were both fascinated by Greece. After that discussion, there was a lot of back and forth, but we took a final decision towards the end of last year, and we booked a flight to Crete together. Not so surprisingly, there were a few more people who were interested to join. Quite interestingly, the number of participants floated somewhere around 10, and we indeed ended up being 10 people.

From the moment he and I decided to go to Crete last year, a lot of things happened. Firstly, Amalia and I got back together (ok we weren’t separated for a very long time), which changed my traveling method significantly: I had to fly instead of going there by land and ship. Then Rohith got a girlfriend, which was, together with the fact that I got back with Amalia as well, definitely part of the reason why we tried to find particularly gorgeous accommodation instead of some random hut. Lastly, my Greek improved greatly, which allowed me to be confident with any plan we would come with, not to mention we had also Amalia. And then as always we got some new members like Anita and Bahareh, and old members like Kartik and Soumil, which made a quite promising group. In short, the whole changes were already leading us in a very promising direction.

So the overall plan was as follows: We would fly in the afternoon of the 28th of March from Düsseldorf Weeze and come back in the evening of the 4th of April. This makes it a trip of one week, that’s the longest of anything I have done so far in a group.

This time frame was basically constrained by the fact that firstly there were only Ryanair flights which were direct, and then the flights were also not everyday. At the beginning I thought it was unfortunate that there was only this Ryanair possibility to reach Chania, but in the end it was maybe good, because it made a simple yes no question of whether you take this flight or you don’t join. This made the whole decision making quite simple for other members.

The exchanges between Rohith and me were quite intense and frequent. Especially after we got the flight tickets we talked about a lot of different possibilities that Crete offers. There were a few conditions that we wanted to fulfill: No more than 2 apartments in the entire trip, and everything must be reachable within 2 hours by car. Considering the fact that the arrival was relatively late in the evening on the 28th, the first accommodation had to be around Chania, and as we wanted to be able to go to the south, which is difficult to reach by car, except for the Western, Eastern edges and in the middle, the second accommodation had to be towards the center of the island. We booked something like 6 apartments in total, because circumstances kept changing and we were always finding some problems. In the end we converged to two villas, one in Chania and one near Spili.

One day before the departure, I put the whole plan in Rohith’s Wanderlog, to have an overview of what was going to happen on which day. It was not so popular among everyone, but it really helped me have a good overview.

Day I (March 28, Thursday):

There was some discussion on whether to go to Weeze by car or by public transportation. In the end we all went there by train and bus, but somehow we took quite different connections. So Amalia, Anita, Madhuri, Kartik and I arrived at the airport around 1h earlier than the rest of the people. Except for Kartik who went to the gate, we waited in a café for the others. It was a miserable weather out there in Düsseldorf.

The Weeze airport, which I guess hosts only Ryanair, was a really small one, where it takes only a few hundred steps to reach the airplane from the main gate. As there were also not so many passengers, the whole procedure went extremely fast. I had the feeling I was just waiting everywhere.

In my previous flights to Greece, there were a lot more Greek people on the plane, but this time I hardly saw anyone from Greece. Those leaving were probably tourists who were also planning to take advantage of the Easter weekend as we did.

The much feared Ryanair flight turned out to be a rather normal one. There was also no luggage weight control or anything. For me it was almost instantaneous as I watched two movies in a row.

As soon as the plane landed in Chania, I cold feel the heat from outside, even before the doors opened. There was this strong sunlight on the tarmac, which was very much reminiscent of my previous trips to Greece. Ah maybe it’s worth mentioning that it was my fourth time in Greece within a year. Crazy isn’t it?

There was a bit of issue when we went to the car rental company: Amalia’s insurance company, ADAC, allowed a second driver, but we could not easily decide who was going to be the on for her car. In the end Soumil took the job. For the other car it was Soumil and Sophie. We were supposed to get 2 Audi, but in the end we got 2 French cars, which Amalia initially did not like at all. But in the end, it was a good size and did what it was needed to do.

We then directly went to the first accommodation. It was near the coast at Chania, a bit far from the city center, but a very large one, with a swimming pool. We were not so sure about swimming, but it was unusually warm in Crete during our stay, so it kind of made sense to have a swimming pool there.

The accommodation consisted of two apartments connected by a stairway. I say it was two apartments, because each of them had its own kitchen, bathroom etc. I remember in my podcast, Easy Greek, that they were talking about the so called “sandwich house”. I’m not gonna explain what it exactly means, but in short it is very common for Greek people to live with their parents even when they have a family and kids themselves. Maybe it was constructed this way.

We then went to a nearby supermarket (lidl, why?) and got stuff for breakfast and some drinks. As we were in Greece, we did not buy cereals, but bread, jam and some eggs. Well, the real Greek breakfast is apparently just coffee and a cigarette, but we don’t smoke and we also want to eat something reasonable, so I was glad to ignore this part.

After the shopping, we went to the city center, to enjoy the traffic roller coaster and to find a place to eat. We ended up going to a winery, which was in a beautiful pedestrian area of Chania. As Rohith’s car had arrived there a lot earlier, they had started dinner without us. But we could sit outside and enjoy the evening of Chania. It’s unimaginable to sit outside right now in Düsseldorf, but in Chania it was just a bit chilly but comfortable. The food wasn’t quite the most impressive one, but still we enjoyed being there.

After the dinner, we strolled through the city. There were not so many people around, maybe because it was a bit chilly, or maybe because it was simply not a touristic season. We did not have a particular goal at the beginning, but we saw the light tower when we reached the coast, so we went all the way there, to have a nice walk and beautiful pictures.

When we got back home, Amalia and I almost immediately went to bed. It was also already past midnight. Some people apparently stayed outside a lot longer.

Day II (March 29, Friday)

Official holiday in Germany. We were having a very easygoing morning. After the breakfast, we simply stayed around the swimming pool, pretty much doing nothing. I jumped into the swimming pool a few times. Since it was our private one, I could jump forwards and backwards without thinking much about other people. Soumil was getting a swimming lesson from Bahareh, although the result didn’t look particularly promising in the end.

This time, I did not take a book. I also like to read, but I did not have extra luggage. On the other hand, it is nearly impossible to use a phone in Greece because it gets too hot in the sun, which was also the case right now. Instead, I simply used my headset to listen to podcasts. As mine is an open ear one, I could also enjoy the surrounding environment, while listening to interesting stories. The plan flourished so much, that I started thinking about getting a full audio book next time.

Around 11am we took our cars to go to the Elafonissi beach, which was on the Western edge of the island.

Traveling there turned out to be relatively easy, as there was this highway connecting the East and the West of the island on the Northern coast line. Of course we had to leave it as we went towards the South.

Elafonissi is a famous beach, and I can imagine it is full of tourists in the summer. When we went there, fortunately, there was plenty of space to put the cars. Well as a trade off everything around the beach was closed.

It was warm, but very windy on the beach. Rohith had somehow his tarp with him, but it was visibly impossible to keep it stable. This island weather.

There was an island right in front of the beach, which could be reached on foot. Actually maybe the island is called Elafonissi, as nissi in Greek means island. There was one thing I really regretted to not have taken: a dry bag. I have one in Germany to carry a phone, but my wallet is probably small enough to be put inside alongside my wallet. Really stupid.

The water was somewhat cold, but it was not too cold. To be honest it was for me the great temperature to cool down after a short walk.

Some of us then walked along the coastline of the island. As I was the only one with the sandals, we could not go very very far, but we could visit a church on top of the island. Greek churches are so interesting: it’s often just a small hut of maybe 10 square meters, with just an altar and that’s it.

We took a few beautiful pictures on the sand dunes. It looked almost like we came to a famous desert or something.

When we came back, Rohith’s tarp was already long put together, and people were simply enjoying the sun. But as they were getting hungry, we did not stay longer and started looking for a place to have something to eat.

It was right in the middle of lunch and dinner, which is a siesta time in Greece, so we struggled to find a place to eat. There was fortunately a village on the way back home, where there were a few restaurants, and only one of them was open. The owner told us that it was the second day that it was open. So apparently even far from beaches people close restaurants in winter.

We could have an amazing meal there. For the first time I had Horta, which is a mixture of boiled mountain greens. It doesn’t look particularly attractive, and some people didn’t really like it, but I loved it really a lot.

We then went back home and started drinking. I was drinking mostly Tsipouro, which is a famous drink than Ouzo, which from my point of view is unjustified because Tsipouro tastes a lot better.

At some point Amalia suggested to learn the Cretan traditional dance. So I brought my projector and we watched a YouTube video of a guy explaining in Greek how to do it. It turned out to be physically fairly demanding. We managed it at some point, but it was still too difficult to follow it with the actual music. So instead we danced it on Macarena. It worked pretty well. In the end we were sweating so much that I had to take another shower.

We then continued talking outside on the balcony. It was such a quiet and peaceful environment with shining stars above us. We stayed there for some time to talk about random stuff, until we went to bed sometime after midnight.

Day III (March 30, Saturday)

The first accommodation was just for two nights, so we had to pack our stuff to move to the East. In order to make sense of being in the West, we went to the Balos beach, which is one of the most famous beaches in Crete. Rohith initially suggested to go to the snowy mountains, which by the way looked really impressive, but Amalia insisted on going to the Balos beach, which I also supported. The reason why Rohith was hesitant to go to the Balos beach is because it was fairly far from the second accommodation, but it was not a huge problem in the end because this East-West highway would allow us to go there easily.

The Balos beach, however, was more difficult to reach than we had imagined: In the last 5km or so, we had to go through a total off road along a steep mountain. We were moving with something like 15 km/h for sometime to reach the parking.

I felt really blessed when we reached the parking, because not only there was a parking area, but it was also quite empty. I don’t want to know what happens in summer in this area.

The parking area was actually on top of the mountain, so we still hike to the beach. I was very happy about it, because not only we could hike, but also we had a great view over the Balos beach from there. If you see the view, you can immediately understand why this beach is so famous, with this beautiful gradation of blue. Impeccable.

Just like at the Elafonissi beach, there was an island in front of us, so some of us walked there, and I somehow left everyone and continued my way to reach the top of the island. It was again somewhat chilly, but again I really enjoyed the water temperature after the short hike.

The island was largely inhabited. I did not take my phone so I don’t have any picture, but there was just a small chapel, and that’s it. From the front it didn’t look like it was possible to reach the top, but I could do so from behind.

From the top, there was another great view. I called Amalia from there, but could not hear the answer. I then went to a lower level and closer to the beach and did the same, still no answer. Well, I heard afterwards that they called me back but I just could not hear it.

I then walked down to the beach. The whole thing took only 50 min or so, but it felt like a real hike because it was quite wild. Magu was really regretful because he missed it. Yeah it was a nice experience.

We then went back to the car, and headed to the new accommodation. By that time we knew that the new accommodation had a BBQ place, so Rohith suggested to buy fish and do BBQ.

In order to make it efficient, Rohith’s car went first to the accommodation, while we went to a supermarket to buy food for the BBQ. Many of the supermarkets were closed, maybe because it’s not a tourist season, but we got a few fish and some vegetables in the end in a supermarket.

While we (second car) were heading to the accommodation, Rohith, who had arrived earlier, called me, because he did not manage to ask the owner whether we can play music in the evening, thinking it was because the owner didn’t speak good English. So I talked to her, asking pretty much the same question in Greek. Still it didn’t really become clear. The reason was probably not because of the language, but the fact that she didn’t understand why we shouldn’t be allowed to play music in the evening. Here in Greece apparently you just do things until someone complains.

Google by the way fails quite badly in Greece. Not only it does not know whether restaurants etc. are open, but also it tries to take you to unidirectional streets against the direction and off roads. That was apparently very much the case for Rohith, and they had to take a road that Apple and Komoot had clearly rejected.

The second accommodation was a very large property with an area of 500 square meters. From the description on booking.com it was not clear, but there were actually three independent apartments. One of them was larger than the other two, so it was used for the community activities, and we slept in different places. There were maximum two people in each room.

As soon as we arrived, we started preparing the fire for the BBQ. The BBQ place was a quite extensive one – there was a grill place, a pizza oven and all the equipment you would need for this, with a large table which could easily accommodate a group of 10 people. All this in front of the swimming pool. Rohith already put loud music on the sound system, which was quite visibly made for a party. There was only one neighbouring house; not sure if there was someone inside.

We grilled 6 large fish and some mushrooms. We did a great job in this planning as everyone did something autonomously.

We had a short swimming session after the dinner.

Day IV (March 31, Sunday)

For coming to Greece we had lost one hour because of the time zone difference. Today, we lost one more hour, because we were switching to the summer time. We are going to gain one hour when we get back to Germany, but it’s a bit of a rollercoaster with time.

Maybe for this reason, Rohith had apparently decided to have a very relaxed day. We simply stayed around the swimming pool the entire morning. Here again my plan to listen to podcasts totally flourished – I could enjoy the environment and the podcasts at the same time with my headset, while being able to keep my phone in a cool place. We also played table tennis. Obviously the rackets were horrible but it was still fun.

Sometime in the afternoon we took the cars and went to the Kourtaliotiko Gorge, which was not very far from the apartment. On the way we got our Freddo Espresso, which is something we did nearly everyday, because we were in Greece. I would never have the idea of drinking cold coffee in Germany, but that’s the way in Greece.

We had to walk a bit to reach the Kourtaliotiko Gorge. Actually, we first went to a wrong location, because I took a wrong path following Komoot. As there was a nice monastery, it looked correct, and we took also a few pictures there. It was only when we started going back and Soumil or Anita decided to take a look at the other path that we realized that we should have gone in that direction from the beginning. As I thought it was only a short look, I told Sophie and Rohith they wouldn’t need to come. They ended up waiting for us for a very long time.

So the gorge was actually indeed a gorge, with very high walls on both sides. You cannot go very far without going into the water. But then as soon as you go farther from that point, the gorge became a lot more beautiful – with some strays of sunshine, the water falling from both sides looked like curtains made of pearls. The water was ice cold, but it was worth swimming there. Actually it was so cold that I thought I might get cramp in the middle of the gorge, which may have been fatal because there was nowhere to stand.

We stayed there for some time because after I took a look others wanted to see it. It felt really nice to swim there.

We then moved to the Preveli, which is apparently one of the most famous beaches of Crete. This was the first beach we had in the south of the island. I would say the beach itself was relatively normal, but we had a nice hike on the rocks to reach the beach. It was a little bit reminiscent of Marseille when we walked along the rocky coastline.

The first car had arrived a little bit earlier because some people stayed in the gorge a bit longer. I was in the second car and enjoyed a quite relaxed hike.

When we reached the Preveli beach, instead of relaxing there we decided to go to the nearby beach because Google was saying there would be a place for ice cream. It required another few min of hike. Well of course we wanted ice cream so we decided to do the effort. And again, the restaurant was closed. Google was so unreliable here…

So we went back to the beach and lay a little bit there. Then some of us walked back to the car and started driving towards the house. We were not extremely hungry since we didn’t have a full programme today, but we still decided to go to Spili to have dinner. On the way, we sent a message to the group to ask if Madhuri, who actually didn’t join us today, would want something from Spili. We got an answer from the other car saying Soumil wanted something vegetarian. There were some confused exchanges, but in the end the second car also came to Spili. We had pita and went for ice cream. The lady at the ice cream shop then started talking about tourist attractions around the area. Then she even offered us a shot of Tsipouro for each of us. At some point it started feeling a bit stupid for me to have bought a bottle of tsipouro of at the beginning of the trip because we were getting tsipouro everywhere.

Then we went back home. There was again a bit of evening session, but Amalia and I went to bed relatively early.

Day V (April 1, Monday)

When we started planning the trip to Crete, there was one name that was mentioned fairly often: Matala. It is apparently one of the famous spots of Crete, because it was apparently a hippie beach some time ago. We talked about it a lot, and we also planned a few things around Matala. So even though it was just a beach, it was a bit like the highlight of the trip, at least when we were planning it.

We left our place around 10am. This time we were a full group including Madhuri.

One the way to Matala, Anita realized it was Apr. 1 today. And people in our age still remember this thing called April fools jokes. Anita thought of a tiger that had escaped the Heraklion zoo, which sounds like something that I have heard millions of times on Apr. 1 in other years.

Soumil has a very particular way of driving: He’s extremely fast on straight roads and extremely slow on curves. Some cars behind us were complaining. Anyway it looks like no one really cares about speed limits here.

Again at Matala, there was a huge parking area and there were not so many cars. It’s so great to be in a touristic site off season. Actually the parking area right in front of the beach was not for free, but there was no one controlling it, and there was therefore no possibility to pay in the first place. Perfect.

To my eyes, Matala looked just like a normal beach, although with an impressive cliff right next to it. As soon as I saw it, I thought it would be a great idea to go to the top. With some of the people who were more interested in walking around, I went for an exploration. There was indeed a hiking trail leading to the top of the cliff, from which we could have a brilliant view over the beach.

The cliff was also very empty. There were a few more people hiking there, but most of the time there was no one to see around us. It was by the way so warm that I started getting worried about my phone. If it’s Germany, we would definitely consider it as summer.

There was also a shack in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there’s a hermit, maybe a former hippie.

We then walked back to the beach and stayed there for some time. I swam a little in the sea, saw a cave on the cliff. Then I went back to the beach. It was again nice to lie and have a deep nap. By this time it was already so hot that I had a hard time walking on the sand.

After spending some time on the beach, we went to one of the cafés right next to the beach. Again, many of the places were closed, but this one café was open. Unfortunately the waitress was super rude, so I didn’t order much stuff. But the food was good.

Rohith got some t-shirts in the shops. He was making a huge collection of souvenirs. Let’s see if he can carry all the stuff back to Germany.

Then we headed to a Minoan archaeological site of Phaistos. This one turned out to be a bit complicated, because it was 8€ per person and not necessarily everyone was interested. In the end except for Madhuri everyone entered. I liked it a lot, especially because it was civilization before the Hellenic era. But yeah some people were visibly not interested. It’s a fairly large area with a lot of details, I would say close to the level of Pompei, so if you are interested in history I’m sure you’d enjoy it.

Since there was still a lot of time, we decided to see the oldest olive tree of the area, because it was just nearby. It was somewhat difficult to reach by car, but we anyway did it. Allegedly it’s 2,800 years old, but in the end it almost only served as our instagram scene.

Near the olive tree we went to a supermarket to get stuff for dinner tomorrow, because we decided to do BBQ again. Since there was no fish it was going to be more with meat. There were more or less 6 meat eaters and there was a huge amount of meat. I don’t quite understand the huge deviation between huge meat eaters and vegetarians. Can’t everyone just eat only a little bit of meat?

Then we stopped at Agia Gallini, because the lady from the ice cream shop yesterday had recommended this place. It was already quite dark. When we parked our car, we first thought everything was already closed in the city. It was only when we walked for 5 min or so, a lively scene popped up. The restaurant was a bit far from the city center, but it was a nice walk along the coastline.

It was a very open place that you can see everywhere in Greece. It’s really beautiful when it’s sunny and hot. When we went there, it was somewhat cool and dark, and looked somewhat dirty, but the people were still enjoying the first warm days of the year.

Just like everywhere in Greece, we ordered a large number of starters for everyone. I ended up eating quite an amount on top of what I got because not everyone could finish what they ordered.

After the dinner we got a lot of tsipouro, because we did not get shots but bottles this time. The owner even joined us and started drinking. As I didn’t want to leave it behind, I was quite drunk afterwards.

We then went back home and I went to bed almost immediately.

Day VI (April 2, Tuesday)

Kartik decided to join us in the last minute in this trip. So he did not take holidays for today and tomorrow. Initially, we had planned to take a ferry from Sfakion. As it turned out yesterday, there was actually no ferry on weekdays in this period of time. So we created a hiking trail at Sfakion in a different direction. As I wanted to make a trip, I made a trail of 21 km for myself. For the others the total distance was something like 13.

After we got an iced coffee, which somehow had become the symbol of this trip, we arrived in a café in Sfakion. There were already some signs advertising the valley there. Apparently it was a very famous one.

Maybe it was in fact too famous, as we could not enter the area for free. It was almost like nothing, but it still appeared weird that we had to pay.

But it is true that this valley was quite impressive. The stone walls were sometimes so narrow that there were just enough space for 2-3 people. But then it was also quite high, giving a really weird sensation. Maybe there was a river before or something?

When we reached the turning point, we realized that Madhuri was already very far on the longer trail, meaning I had to keep going because I had promised her to do the hike. It was same for Soumil, so we had a short break with everyone else and continued.

Right after we restarted walking, we found a very small restaurant/bar. It looked like it has been there in the last 100 years. There was one very old man, who spoke very little English. I felt really blessed to be able to communicate with him, especially because I also wanted to eat something. He said he had nothing, only pita. That was actually perfect for Soumil and me, because we did not want to stop for a very long time.

I don’t know exactly what’s the definition of “pita”, but I was imagining something like a sandwich. However, this guy brought something like a pancake and honey. I didn’t wonder much and simply ate what we got. Later I found out that this is a famous local dish that Amalia was looking forward to trying in Crete.

This guy also offered a lot of water. I guess it must have been kind of expensive for him because he was offering bottled water. As always, he was also offering us Tsipouro, but this time we refused it because we still had a long way to go.

After this point, we first had to cross the top of the mountain. We had a great view over the valley, but somehow Soumil and I had a very intense conversation and I forgot to take photos. It’s so weird because we were both not really talking in the group, but as soon as we were alone we were talking like there’s no tomorrow.

Things became a lot more difficult when we crossed the half way point: Firstly, we could not properly recognise the paths, and so we took wrong turns multiple times. Well, thanks to this we also found this beautiful church in the middle of nowhere.

Then the ground was also super unstable. We had to walk on relatively large stones. Since it wasn’t like there was a path, we always had to see ourselves how to proceed. I don’t quite understand how those who created the path on OpenStreetMap thought this was a path.

On the way we finally found Madhuri. I hadn’t really believed she was doing the full track. Not bad.

Towards the end Amalia called me to know whether we needed a lift. The others had been to the beach and they were relaxing there, but then they decided to return. So I said yes and we joined them on the main road, which was really the last stretch of the track on Komoot. It was a huge help because we were super thirsty at this point.

At home, Kartik had already started preparing BBQ. I joined to make the fire while the others were preparing the food in the main house. It was kind of very late when we started eating. And not only late, but also I didn’t prepare the meat very early, so that there were mostly vegetables on the table. It was actually a pretty bad idea, because there was a lot of meat remaining on the table. Even Soumil started eating meat at this moment. Eyeyey.

I don’t know whether people started getting drunk, but after I started taking a bath, people started jumping into the pool with clothes (I changed). Maybe they wanted to represent crazy German tourists.

Day VII (April 3, Wednesday)

Today was the last full day, and we wanted to do one of the highlights of our stay: pottery workshop. There was already some discussion over whether we should do it or not, because it was not very cheap (30€ per person) and was supposed to take 2 hours. We had made a reservation day before yesterday, which was easy to do.

Just like yesterday, Kartik had to work from home. Madhuri also decided to stay there. The rest of us went to the village of Margarites, which lies somewhere in the middle of Crete.

As soon as we reached the village, we could see that the main product of the city was pottery. There were some souvenir shops, but otherwise we could see only pottery shops, and above all, a lot of pots. We parked our car and visited one of them, Kerameion.

It was said this was the only one place where they were still using the traditional wood furnace. All the other places now use the electric furnace, which gives the pots a brighter orange color. Just for historical reasons, Kerameion keeps the traditional furnace as well, and that was the reason why Rohith had seen them in the television.

The owner of the atelier, Giorgis, was a very friendly person, explaining the background and the history of pottery in details. We could really see his passion for pottery. We also had a chance to take a look at his products. As a matter of fact, even though there was hardly any space in our luggage, Amalia and I bought quite a few items. Let’s see whether we manage to take them back to Germany peacefully.

Then some of us moved to the workshop site, which was next to the traditional wood furnace. There, we learned how to make a pot by hand. We first thought we could use the rotating machine, but Giorgis told us it would be too difficult, so we did everything by hand.

I had done the same a long time ago and I knew how difficult it is, but this time it was still just as difficult. We all experienced more or less the same, and in the end our results looked quite horrible, but still we had a really great time there.

Unfortunately, since we went there on the last day, there was no possibility to dry the pots, and therefore we couldn’t take them back home. Giorgis offered to send them to Germany, but as they were not looking particularly great, we decided to ask him to recycle them.

We also used the rotating machine, and quickly understood what Giorgis was saying when he said it would be too difficult. Yes, it was very difficult.

We then joined the ones who did not join the workshop in a nearby restaurant with a great view over the valley. We then had another round of shopping in the village.

As the large part of the day was still remaining, we decided to visit an olive oil factory without contacting them in advance. There was an American lady of Greek origin, who had a very American rhythm of talking. She showed us the whole factory, although I think we spent the most time on listening to her complaints about the US election candidates.

After the factory, we visited a cave nearby. There was a similar one in Ioannina, and since it was a nice experience we decided to visit this cave here as well. The entrance area of the cave had another great view over the valley, and this summer-ish atmosphere was bringing us fresh breeze. It was such an ice-cream weather, but the café at the cave did not have it, saying it was unexpected that it was already so warm.

We paid something like 4€ for the cave, which was not an extremely large one, but had still a large area inside. It was used a few times in history, with the description passionately explaining how the Ottoman soldiers burned the refugees from a nearby village (?) from outside.

We then visited one more beach, Spilies beach, for the last evening on this island. As I was not really interested to enter the water anymore, I just simply walked around the area. There was one restaurant/café, which was getting ready for the season and did not have any customer. They looked at me as if they wanted to tell me there was no one who could speaking English, when I talked to them in Greek.

We spent some time on the beach, with Amalia and me dancing this traditional Cretan dance again. We then went back home at some point.

At home we had to finish a lot of the remaining food from yesterday. In the meantime, there was a total separation between the Netflix group and the board game group, ostensibly only annoying each other. As I didn’t really want to belong to any of the group, I went back to our room and Amalia and I watched the documentary about Kerameion.

Day VIII (Apr. 4, Thursday)

We spent the whole morning clearing our mess in the house. We had a huge problem with the remaining food, but I somehow came into contact with a neighbor, who was willing to get all the stuff. I was very happy to not have to leave any mess there.

In the meantime, Rohith got into some trouble with the owner of the apartment because she started saying we had to pay sustainability tax, which was not written on their webpage. In the end she said we don’t need to, because she acknowledged it was not written on the page, although according to her she had informed them beforehand. Anyway we didn’t have to pay it, and we left the place at some point. We still had some time to take a group photo, but not enough time to have the last bath in the swimming pool.

On the way to Chania, we stopped in an olive oil factory, where we bought another range of bottles. Frankly I had no idea how they wanted to transport all the stuff. On the other hand it’s really a pity that I couldn’t buy the handmade olive tree items, because they looked really amazing.

Then we moved to Chania. We bought some souvenirs and had lunch there.

On the way to the airport, we tanked the car for the last time. 1,90€/l for the last time.

The transfer of the car went seamlessly, and we had enough time at the airport. The whole process of going through the airport was super rapid, although Rohith had to pay more for his luggage, because it was obviously too heavy.

With the sun nearing the horizon, we left Crete. The arrival in Germany almost seemed like a punishment, with cold and rainy weather. Still I was also glad to be in our bed again.

So much for the trip to Crete. I wanted to make a detailed feedback round, but in the end we didn’t have time and also no chance. There are a few points that I noticed, so I simply leave my notes here.

Missing items

• Swimming goggles
• Dry bag

Redundant items

• Nothing!

Success

• Wanderlog (but maybe we can think of other possibilities as well)
• Podcasts instead of books
• Driving hours

Failure

• Workshop should have been on the first day
• Check tax situation
• Unreliable Google opening hours
• Check ferry schedule
• I should have been used to the sandals

Well all this together, I would like to express my gratitude towards Rohith, who organized such a huge trip, and all the participants, who cooperated flexibly. This trip was such a perfect one that created a precedent that’s gonna be difficult to beat in the future, although I’m gonna still very much looking forward to the great adventures we are going to have!