0
I woke up early this morning, at seven. After a whole week (!!) of grey weather and rain it was delicious to see the blue sky again. The reason for such an early wakeup was Zoi, my daughters dog. I have been dog-sitting while the family had left for a weekend in Chania, and whoever has a dog knows that they want to go out EARLY.
Zoi is used to sleeping outside on the terrace at my daughter’s home, but Saturday evening a quick evaluation of the accomodation quality of MY terrace made me decide otherwise: the company of 10-15 cats is not the most reassuring environment for a dog. Zoi likes cats and is used to having them around, it’s just that she also adores running after them barking loudly, and I didn’t think I would get much sleep if I left her outside. Ergo, I opened all the windows upstairs in my bedroom and put a blanket on the floor for Zoi. And at seven this morning she started making small anxious noises which convinced me that I had better take her out for a walk.
After the morning walk and after feeding the regiment of cats when we got home, it was time to prepare for the day’s programme: I wanted to go to Iraklio to visit the Catholic church and after mass go as far as Rethymno to see what Anne’s car boot sale was all about.
So I turned on my PC to get a print of Anne’s directions and her phone number. The page you are looking for is not available. !!! Hm. Waiting five minutes and trying again, same result. Ten minutes later still the same, so I decided to get a start and then maybe find an internet cafe in Iraklio to get the number.
I loaded Zoi in the car and drove her back to Matala. Fed the cats on the terrace, and Zoi, too, of course. Now I had the whole day for myself! :-)
You should see how Crete has changed in just a week! The dried out mountains are starting to turn green after all this rain, allowing grass and small flowers to pop up everywhere between the olive trees to make it look like springtime. But at the same time, a lot a trees are getting dressed in autumn colours, whole fields of small trees (which I don’t know the name of, sorry) had changed the colour of their leaves into vivid yellow, other trees along the road to Iraklio had the wellknown autumn colours of orange, yellow and red, and in the middle of all this olive trees heavy with fruits, while orange and lemon trees participated in the colour fiesta with temptating spots of luminous orange and yellow. You get to enjoy this under a warm sunshine and temperatures around 22 degrees. Amazing. Especially when I think about the latest meteo news from Italy and Denmark: they are covered with snow and enduring temperatures around the freezing point. Am I lucky or am I lucky to live here? ;-)
Arriving in Iraklio I had received precise and specific information on how to reach the catholic church, both from friends in Italy and from Yannis: drive under the bridge, follow the road almost to the port, turn right towards the center and park. The church should be near the street “25 August”. Easy, right? Well, for starters: How do you find the name of a street if there are no signs on the housecorners? Some streets had names and had signs, others where totally anonymous. I managed to find the Armenian Church, The Church of Sinai, and then a big orthodox church, in front of which a military orchestra was lined up and actually started to play some vigorous military music while mass was going on inside. They were immediately silenced! But no catholic church was to be found, and whoever I asked were not able to tell me where it was.
In the meantime I saw most of Iraklio and after two hours of walking I eventually ended up at a square near the yacht harbour and had a rest for my sore feet in a nice big cafè in front of the square. While I had my coffee I had the chance to observe some kind of ceremony, today must be some kind of memorial day (pardon my ignorance) since many marine and army officers where attending a ceremony in front of a monument of a soldier in the square. Numerous crowns were laid down with the intervention of officials and priests – and like at the orthodox church the military orchestra started to play while the priest was speaking. They were not silenced, but at least they made it short!
Since I did not even manage to find an internet cafe I decided to call it a day and start the drive homewards. It took me some hours since I let myself be tempted by any deviation on the way, just to see where this or that road would bring me. No fear, I can never be lost in Crete, I always find a sign indicating Mires, eventually.
Tonight I’ll go with my German neighbour to Kalamaki to have roast lamb in the only very small taverna still open. Actually, they are closing down for two weeks now, and the roast lamb is made in celebration of this two weeks holidays ahead! At least I can find my way to Kalamaki....
Conclusion: I always get lost when trying to go somewhere – but I get to see an immense amount of interesting places while trying to find my way. And since I’m in no hurry – I’m in Crete, remember? – I don’t really mind. Whatever I don’t find today, I will find another day eventually when looking for something else.
Zoi is used to sleeping outside on the terrace at my daughter’s home, but Saturday evening a quick evaluation of the accomodation quality of MY terrace made me decide otherwise: the company of 10-15 cats is not the most reassuring environment for a dog. Zoi likes cats and is used to having them around, it’s just that she also adores running after them barking loudly, and I didn’t think I would get much sleep if I left her outside. Ergo, I opened all the windows upstairs in my bedroom and put a blanket on the floor for Zoi. And at seven this morning she started making small anxious noises which convinced me that I had better take her out for a walk.
After the morning walk and after feeding the regiment of cats when we got home, it was time to prepare for the day’s programme: I wanted to go to Iraklio to visit the Catholic church and after mass go as far as Rethymno to see what Anne’s car boot sale was all about.
So I turned on my PC to get a print of Anne’s directions and her phone number. The page you are looking for is not available. !!! Hm. Waiting five minutes and trying again, same result. Ten minutes later still the same, so I decided to get a start and then maybe find an internet cafe in Iraklio to get the number.
I loaded Zoi in the car and drove her back to Matala. Fed the cats on the terrace, and Zoi, too, of course. Now I had the whole day for myself! :-)
You should see how Crete has changed in just a week! The dried out mountains are starting to turn green after all this rain, allowing grass and small flowers to pop up everywhere between the olive trees to make it look like springtime. But at the same time, a lot a trees are getting dressed in autumn colours, whole fields of small trees (which I don’t know the name of, sorry) had changed the colour of their leaves into vivid yellow, other trees along the road to Iraklio had the wellknown autumn colours of orange, yellow and red, and in the middle of all this olive trees heavy with fruits, while orange and lemon trees participated in the colour fiesta with temptating spots of luminous orange and yellow. You get to enjoy this under a warm sunshine and temperatures around 22 degrees. Amazing. Especially when I think about the latest meteo news from Italy and Denmark: they are covered with snow and enduring temperatures around the freezing point. Am I lucky or am I lucky to live here? ;-)
Arriving in Iraklio I had received precise and specific information on how to reach the catholic church, both from friends in Italy and from Yannis: drive under the bridge, follow the road almost to the port, turn right towards the center and park. The church should be near the street “25 August”. Easy, right? Well, for starters: How do you find the name of a street if there are no signs on the housecorners? Some streets had names and had signs, others where totally anonymous. I managed to find the Armenian Church, The Church of Sinai, and then a big orthodox church, in front of which a military orchestra was lined up and actually started to play some vigorous military music while mass was going on inside. They were immediately silenced! But no catholic church was to be found, and whoever I asked were not able to tell me where it was.
In the meantime I saw most of Iraklio and after two hours of walking I eventually ended up at a square near the yacht harbour and had a rest for my sore feet in a nice big cafè in front of the square. While I had my coffee I had the chance to observe some kind of ceremony, today must be some kind of memorial day (pardon my ignorance) since many marine and army officers where attending a ceremony in front of a monument of a soldier in the square. Numerous crowns were laid down with the intervention of officials and priests – and like at the orthodox church the military orchestra started to play while the priest was speaking. They were not silenced, but at least they made it short!
Since I did not even manage to find an internet cafe I decided to call it a day and start the drive homewards. It took me some hours since I let myself be tempted by any deviation on the way, just to see where this or that road would bring me. No fear, I can never be lost in Crete, I always find a sign indicating Mires, eventually.
Tonight I’ll go with my German neighbour to Kalamaki to have roast lamb in the only very small taverna still open. Actually, they are closing down for two weeks now, and the roast lamb is made in celebration of this two weeks holidays ahead! At least I can find my way to Kalamaki....
Conclusion: I always get lost when trying to go somewhere – but I get to see an immense amount of interesting places while trying to find my way. And since I’m in no hurry – I’m in Crete, remember? – I don’t really mind. Whatever I don’t find today, I will find another day eventually when looking for something else.
We had unseasonal snow on Thursday night and freezing cold winds on Friday and Saturday. Mid afternoon yesterday when it was grey, cold and dismal I looked on the weather page to see your temperature was 70f.
Keep up the blogg it makes me laugh out loud because I can visualise what you are describing and then Alan comes to see why I am laughing and enjoys reading it too.
Yvonne