Goodbye Heraklion~! Hello Athens~!

I went to Knossos opn Saturday which was very cool...but also made me very angry because Sir Arthur evans reconstructed it...out of concrete. And with no archaeological evidence. *sigh*. It was quite poorly done...he also "repaired" some frescoes and by that they actually mean completely changed the entire concept. Apparently the supposed prince of lilies was supposed to have 3 people on it, but he decided that there was 1 and added his own cultural interpretations--which are largely unsupported...but otherwise if I took down the reconstructed bits that were very obvious it was cool!

 

Then on Sunday I met a Canadian person who was going to Malia Palace, but I decided to go to the beach. And find a camera charger because I left mine at home. I decided that I should have gone then because a) Malia palace was closed today which was when I planned on going b) because I hit my head and that's very clearly an omen from Zeus or Apollo that I was being an idiot. but it was the first nice day out so it was good to be outside. So oh well.

 

Today I went to Malia, only to find out it was closed but I went to a nearby beach and didn't swim but I DID take pictures. Then I went and tried to get the best look at the archaeological site I could. It was actually pretty easy so yay! Who needs to pay money when you can be a super spy.

 

 

And now I am on an 8 hour boat to go to Athens! WOOHOO. Hopefully this time I won't sleep in. Although apparently they don't mind. waking up at 5:00 is difficult.

Heraklion, Chania, Rethymno, and Argardi

Hellooo again!

Soo first off I'd like to say that every. single. thing. i. eat. is. amazing. I had a vegetarian platter with three stuffed vegetables, cheese, tzatziki, free schnapps and dessert. Then when I went to Chania, we had amazing vegetarian food. Aaah so good. Who ever said that Greece was not vegetarian friendly is silly.

I toured around Heraklion on my first day, going to the Lion Fountain, the old town, the market, and the Venetian fortress. For anyone who ever goes to a venetian harbour in Crete...Do NOT decide to walk down to the little look out point, unless you want to kill a couple hours. It took far too long and my feet were dead by the end of it. BUT the venetian fortress was very cool nonetheless

Yesterday I went on a tour that visited Chania and Rethymno and they are BEAUTIFUL. Chania was probably my favourite and it was very very very pretty in the old town. Loved the buildings and it was generally very clean. I met a group of Americans, an aunt, a mother and the daughter, and they were all very kind. We had supper/lunch and it was AMAZING (as I mentioned previously haha). I really like travelling on my own, as I have already met so many people. ]

Tourist Markets start to all look the same in Greece so I think when I get back to Athens I'll try and find where the locals shop, as it seems all of the tourist places get their things from mass-producers...Even if they are usually hand made and from Greece.

Generally very incredible time so far and I will update as soon as I can later!

Oh and I should probably mention to make you all feel better that it's quite rainy here...Which is very unusual and depressing for the locals. Warm weather though, so oh well.

Athens and arrival at heraklion

So on Monday I arrived at Athens found my way to the metro and took it down to the station at syntagma, where I knew I had to get on another metro line, I just didn't know where that metro line was. So I got off, at first I simply got onto the same train (it looked like a different train I swear...) then I realized I was on the wrong train so I decided that there must be a different metro station nearby (wrong). So I walked outside and found myself at this gigantic pinkish building, With guards with skirts, tights, and shoes with pompoms on the tip (apparently that's where they hide their knives... I found out later that the guards were guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier, which is In front of the parliament building. So I walked around a bit until I realized that the metro station had MULTIPLE LEVELS each with a different metro line. I'm smart. So anyways I finally arrived completely exhausted at my hostel, and basically just went to sleep.

The next morning I took a walking tour of Athens that leaves from my hostel everyday at 10am,And was supposed to last for about two and a half hours for 5 euros. First stop was the temple of Olympian Zeus and hadrian's arch. The temple was once the largest temple in Greece, but now only 15 Corinthian columns remain, as it was a main target for enemies. Hadrians arch was built by a roman emperor with an obsession with everything Greek. Unlike other roman arches this arch was not decorated with sculpture, instead it only had Corinthian columns (the origins of these columns are appropriately the city of Corinth. We visited a stadium called

the panathenaic stadium, the first stadium there was built quite a while ago but the one there
now is only from about 1896. We then visited the national gardens followed by the parliament building where I saw the changing of the guards with the pompom shoes (that is their name now). We then went to what I think wAs mitropolis cathedral but I am probably wrong. The coolest part of that was that it had a byzantine church which had roman/Greek sculptures that they stole but put crosses on any with pagan themes such as nudity. Also saw a statue of constantine the great. We stopped at the market for lunch as well. We then went to hadrians library with fresh strawberries in hand, as well as the roman agora. Finally we went to the acropolis and concluded our tour (4 hours later) and a few of us went off to explore the acropolis. It was obviously amazing. The statues of the women were beautiful although i previously thought that they were larger, but they were elegant none the less. The pantheon is extremely large and you can still see some of the sculpture on the pediment, even though the british stole the rest. We went back to the temple of Hephaestus in hopes of a better view, then to the market. We ate there and I had the best Greek salad, with a large block of amazing feta cheese (yum!) and we went back to the hostel and then to Piraeus

After almost getting lost we arrived at the place I caught my ferry to iraklion and I said good bye go the people I met at the hostel. I got on the ferry which was like a 4 star hotel, had some real baklava (so much better than Canadian baklava) and some iced tea that tasted like soap lol. Anyways I arrived in Heraklion safely and my hotel is wonderful and I get three beds to myself Woot! The staff there are incredibly helpful and I'm going to take a tour to chania and rethmyno tomorrow for 38 euros.I'm also 3 minutes away from the beach!!!! Woohoo!!!! I think I'll go check that out today.

Overall I'm having a great time and with everything I've seen already I feel like I've been here for a week, not a few days :)! I'll attempt to post some pictures later!