Back to the Heat of Crete!

Heading back to Crete today and here we are, finished!  In my hour in Heraklion I plittered around some shops and bought some souvenirs one of which was the Spartan helmet you can see here. If I'm honest Heraklion really didn’t do much for me, although that said, the Venetian built Koules fortress down at the harbour was well worth taking a peek at and of course the fishing boats at the harbour. 

Here we are! In the background you can see the enormous Venetian shipyards, which gives you an impression of just how large the boats were that were built here. 

Nearer to Chania I decided to take a beach walk to an interesting chapel I could see which was built out into the sea, only reachable by a causeway, you can see it bottom left.

The Agios Nikolaus chapel is very picturesque BUT that causeway was a nightmare, had I been sensible I would have googled it first and not just set off bare foot, tourist guides advise you to wear solid footwear and they are absolutely right. The stones are sharp, slippery and often set far apart! Truthfully, I was lucky not to break an ankle, and was so glad when I reached the beach again but the chapel itself was plain, quiet and when I arrived there was a solitary guitar player strumming away on his guitar. Unfortunately, the beauty of his music, the chapel and the view couldn't calm my nerves from the thought of staggering back across the causeway. Lesson learned read the guidebooks first! A nice cooling Alpha beer back in the hotel managed to restore my equilibrium thank goodness.

Speaking of delicacies, Greece your desserts are fabulous, very sweet but melt in the mouth pastries, nuts, Greek yoghurt you name it I tried it all! One combination that I loved was a kind of chocolate cake/flan not very sweet but chocolatey with orange slices (in syrup with the peel on) and a dollop of yoghurt! Ooooh I'm drooling now. Yummy! One speciality I didn’t try was gyros, it would have been nice to compare it with the gyros served here in Greek restaurants but our hotel only served it with a surcharge of 25€ at a Greek event. As we enjoyed Greek food  like Lamb shanks and a speciality Greek buffet every night, it just didn’t seem worth it!