The last stop in Greece: Crete

Our last stop in Greece was the island of Crete. We took an evening ferry from Santorini and arrived in Crete quite late. Crete is actually quite a big island, so BK and I decided to rent a car and drive from the port city of Heraklion to Rethymno, which takes about an hour. Surprising, our navigation went pretty well, outside of a little trouble getting out of the port city.

I cannot say enough about the hotel we stayed at in Crete, the AVLI. It is a suite-only boutique hotel in the center of Old Town Rethymno. It has about 12 apartment-type suites in three old buildings in the city. It is also owned and operated by a chef and her family, so it also has an amazing restaurant attached to the hotel. When we arrived late that night, they happily welcomed us and provided a delicious meal. A traditional Cretian breakfast was served in the garden of the restaurant every morning as well.

Restaurant garden

Crete was a very relaxing island as well, and I really wish we would have dedicated at least another day or so to being on the island. I don't think we realized just how big Crete was when we decided to visit. We spent nearly almost all of our time in the city of Rethymno, which was only about 2 full days.

Old town alley

We wandered around the Old Town of Rethymno the first morning and afternoon on the island, as well as exploring a little bit of the coastline in the city. There are many shops and small restaurants you can visit, with many offering only local products and cuisine. Old town Rethymno is really nice and has lots of small streets and alley to wander down. Additionally, most of old town is pedestrian only, making it really easy to get around.

Cretian coastline

After BK and I walked around for a bit, we enjoyed some relaxation and then went to a cooking class hosted by the owner of the hotel and restaurant. It was only BK and I in the lesson, which made for a really unique experience. We started with the chef telling us about the history of Cretian food and gave us an overview of what types of food were native to Crete. As a fairly large and distanced island, Crete has to be fairly self-sufficient in relying on others for food. We cooked in the restaurant kitchen, making dishes native to Crete with local ingredients, including some from the restaurant garden.

BK in the kitchen

After we made a couple of appetizers, a goat main dish and an orange dessert, we enjoyed our creations in the garden. After our appetizers we took a break, then came back a later and enjoyed our main course and dessert.

Our appetizers

The next day we got up and enjoyed another breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to explore the island before catching an overnight ferry from Heraklion. During the afternoon we went through a number of small towns between Rethymno and Heraklion, stopping at an old olive mill, military museum and a traditional Cretian house.

Old olive mill

Our last stop before dinner and boarding our overnight ferry, was ancient Knossos. The ruins are really interesting. They are nothing like the ancient ruins in Athens, but mostly because in the 1800s an English archaeologist discovered the ruins then began to rebuild them the way he thought the would have been. None of the other ruins in Greece are like this, primarily because the Greeks want people to see them how they are now, not replicas. So when you visit Knossos, some of the ruins are rebuilt and some are not.

Knossos

We departed from Crete later that night and arrived back in Athens the next morning. We spent the morning in a harbor and had breakfast at was essentially a yacht parking lot. We spent the day wandering around, had a massage and enjoyed lunch poolside. We then headed back to Basel via Geneva to come home for a week before departing for our surprise visit to the US.

Yacht parking