Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road...

The last couple of days we've done quite a bit of exploring which, of course, involved us driving our tiny little car (it's a Fiat Panda, not a Punto) on the wrong side of the road over winding mountain roads; through small villages where cars are parked on both sides of the road, and you have to breathe in to get even a motorbike through; as well as the towns with cobbled streets, heaps of people, cars and no rules about where to park or stop and have a chat with the guy in the next car.  It's been interesting, to say the least.  And I don't know how the bus drivers manage to manoeuvre through all this, but they do. 


Before we left Australia, Trevor loaded an app called iGo onto his phone, which has maps of Greece on it, and it has been really helpful - don't know how we'd have managed without it.


We travelled over the mountains through numerous little villages (all with their own tavernas) down to Paleochora on the south coast of Crete.  We both took a turn at driving, though we were going much slower than the locals.  The scenery was spectacular - we passed through olive groves, orange orchards, vineyards, fields of wildflowers, and the glimpses of the Lefka Ori (the White Mountains) were amazing.


We had lunch at Galaxy, a seafood restaurant on the beachfront at Paleochora - baked swordfish and papoutsaki - delicious.  Again, free raki and dessert.  The town is on a small narrow peninsular, facing the Libyan Sea, with a rocky beach on one side and a sandy beach on the other.  Very pretty, but the wind was blowing and the waves were crashing over the seawalls - although it was a lovely sunny day, the wind was freezing.


From there we took a different route back over the mountains to Kastelli (Kissamos) where we stopped for coffee before heading home to Stalos.


Next day we drove East to visit Ancient Aptera, a town that was first established around 1400 BC.  The ruins include Roman baths and cisterns, an amphitheatre, temples, a villa, as well as a monastery, chapel and monks cells.  Also in the area is Koules Fortress, built in 1867, which is largely intact and has a magnificent view of the ocean. 



Our next stop was at Almerida, which is one of the areas I had looked at when trying to find accommodation in Crete.  The beach here was just gorgeous, with varying shades of crystal clear turquoise water, sand on one side of the bay, and pebbles/rocks on the other.  We had some lunch, then decided to take the plunge - well, the water was certainly crisp!  I managed to get in and have a swim and a bit of a snorkel, but Trev took some convincing.  Eventually, he got in too, and we saw a few small fish, anemones and that was about it.  But we've finally had our first swim in Crete!