Crete pt. 1

At 6 this morning, I returned from Crete on an overnight ferry, exiting it in the pouring Athenian rain (it never rains in Athens, so of course it will rain me when I'm with all my luggage). I slept in my apartment bed for hours after that.
The trip, a school-sponsered "study-trip", was from Monday evening (where much Bananagram fun was had on the ferry)
until this morning.

We arrived Tuesday in the main city and capital of Crete, Heraklion, visiting that day the tomb of Kazantzakis (famed Creten author of Zorba the Greek), the Venetian fortifications, the Archaeological Musuem which was sadly being refurbished and had only a limited exhibition, mostly of Minoan stuff. Then we had lunch in a small, charming Creten village that day, before returning to Heraklion.

Heraklion wasn't exactly charming. In fact, it has the same bland, repetative, "hurry, let's urbanize as cheaply and quickly as possible" look that Athens has. Thankfully, all of the cities are flanked by the Mediterranean on the one side and mountains on the otherside.



The drivers are just as frightening as in Athens, the only difference is that Crete has less of them.
 I didn't see anyone hit at least.

I saw Knossos on Tuesday, too. Sadly, it was very tourist-y, and there wasn't anything close to the peacefulness I was hoping for. They also removed everything they found at the sight to put in museums, which is understandable. The ruins are old and cool, though.

On Wednesday, we visited the Monastary of Arkadi. Arkadi is up in the mountains, and the monastary has a rather Alamo like history. During (one of the many) Creten revolts against the Ottomans, one thousand Cretens, (600 women and children, 300 fighting men) holed themselves up in the fortress-like compound rather than surrender, and fought it out with 14,000 Ottoman soldiers for three days.

The Ottomans fought for three days before finally entering the compound, at which point the surviving Cretens holed up in the powder house and, rather than be captured, blew up all of the gunpowder, killing everyone inside, destroying a good portion of the compound, and taking many Ottoman soldiers with them.

After the morning at the Monastery, we arrived in our second town of the trip, Rethymno. The hotel had what they call in the business a "kick-ass view." I took a swim at the beach, and found the Mediterranean to be the saltier than the Atlantic and what I remember of the Pacific.

Decimus enjoyed the view and beaches. Also, the weather in Rethymno is much cooler (temperature) than Heraklion.



I also learned about the history of the Jewish and Muslim populations on Crete. Currently, there is no Muslim population on Crete, despite there being a majority Muslim population during Ottoman times. When Crete united with Greece at the start of the 20th century, Turkey and Greece had an exchange of populations, basically sending all of the Turkish Christians to Greece and all the Greek Muslims to Turkey. Crete had an unbroken Jewish population from the time of Alexander the Great to World War II, where they all died after a British submarine sank the boat that was carrying them to Auschwitz.

Finally, we ended up in Chania (or Xania with a "H" sound). Decimus found a high place so that he could "look tall and imposing against the landscape of these conquered climes."

 The view was pretty astounding. The town also had some other pretty neat looking spots, including the lighthouse, lit up at night, at the end of the Venetian walls guarding the port.

View Larger Map
Finally, a map of my travels! The last part, down south, is an archaeological site we hiked to on the last day. I'll write about that soon.