DAY 9

We arrived in Iraklio, Greece's fifth largest city, last night after a very bumpy ferry ride. Not to mention that the ferry was two hours late.

We had breakfast, then headed to the Archeological Museum (yes, another archeological museum...there are many of them in Greece). We learned the history of the Minoans in preparation for our trip to Knossos. We saw many old objects in the museum. Somehow, we still managed to make it out of the museum in just under an hour.

Now the real adventure began as we picked up our rental car and drove to the ancient Minoan ruins of Knossos.

At Knossos, we hit the maximum historical exposure threshold. All old things became just rocks to us. We were totally unable to appreciate the many probably very important rocks at the ancient site. So after a quick visit, we decided not to see anymore historical sites in Greece.

As we were leaving the parking lot at Knossos, Steve almost killed us! Steve had decided to leave the car in first gear (which he has NEVER done before in his many years of driving a stick shift car) because we were parked on a slight hill. After we got into the car, Steve inadvertently switched on the engine without hitting either the clutch OR brake. Guess what happened? The car, along with both of us inside, lunged forward at full speed. There was a small ditch in front of the car and we plowed right into it. Luckily, there was a fence directly below where the car was parked and that fence prevented the car from careening all the way down the hill. The car ended up caught on the fence and stuck in between some wires. It took 4 men (with Winnie) and about 30 minutes before we were able to extricate the car. All the locals were extremely helpful, everyone tried to help us. The most amazing thing was the lack of ANY damage to the car. We felt extremely lucky because we DID NOT buy that extra scammy insurance when we picked up the car that relieves you of all responsibilities in an accident. Maybe next time we should!

Needless to say, we were a LITTLE shaken by our near death experience (ok...a little exaggerated!) We proceed to our next destination, the Boutari Winery. We had read a few favorable reviews on this winery so we decided to pay a visit. The Winery was situated in the rolling hills of Skalani, a small town near Knossos. The scenery was beautiful, even though we were a little too shaken up to fully appreciate the beauty. The Winery itself is definitely worth mentioning.

The wine we tasted there was good, but the most outstanding part was the tour. It included a crazy, futuristic film about the history of Crete. I think it might have made more sense if we were drunk, but it was VERY entertaining! I don't want to go into too much detail, but the film included such items as: woman in futuristic tin foil suit, lots of interpretive dancing, and instruction on wine tasting. Besides the film the building itself was also remarkable. It was totally out of place compared to the rest of Crete. It was a brand new building and everything inside was so high-tech (everything else in Crete is very old and NOT high-tech).

After an action-packed day we headed back to Iraklio. Before dinner we walked around the city and caught the sunset along the old Venetian harbor wall. Later we got dinner at a restaurant called Ouzeri Terazakis which had amazing Moussaka.

DAY 10

We left Iraklio in our rental car (still intact!) and headed for the Moni Preveli Beach. The Beach is the most photographed beach in Crete, at least that's what the guide books say. It is situated on the Southern coast of Crete. On the way there, we drove through a few mountain passes and canyons. The beach was very nice, and even had some natural shade where Steve was able to hide from the sun. The beach consisted mostly of little pebbles which made getting into the water a little painful but once we were in the water, everything was great.

We left the the Moni Preveli beach and headed toward the town of Rethimnon. The main purpose of our visit to this town was to search for the most traditionally made baklava in all of Greece. Yiorgos Hatziparaskos is one of the last traditional filo masters in Greece. His method involves kneading then throwing the dough into a giant bubble and stretching it over a huge table. We found the little shop and met Mrs. Hatziparaskos. She was very pleasant and gave us a few samples of the baklava. We ended up buying an assortment of greek pastries to take with us.

DAY 11

When we first began planning our trip to Greece, we saw this picture of a beautiful white-sand beach on the Southwest tip of Crete in the National Georgraphic guide book. Ever since Steve saw that picture, he has been obsessed about going there. The beach is named Elafonisos, and it is only 190 miles from North Africa.

Guess where we went? Elafonisos beach! We drove about 2 hours, following a long line of cars that were also heading to the same location. We finally arrived at the beach and it was definitely worth the drive! The beach was breath-taking. Beyond the shades of the straw umbrellas was a long stretch of fine white sand running into the clear blue ocean water. The coolest part was the small island about 50 meters from the beach connected by a huge sandbar. The entire area had very shallow water so you could walk right out into the ocean.

DAY 12

We got up really really early (5am) and got on a tour bus heading to the famous Samarian Gorge. We were so hard-core that our tour group was the first one to arrive at the Gorge. The Samarian Gorge is the longest gorge in Europe at 18 km. The width varies from 150m to just 3m. The vertical walls reach heights of 500 meters and there are beautiful wild flowers found throughout. The gorge is now a national park with a well kept trail leading from the town of Omalos all the way down to Agia Roumeli (a beach) on the Libyan Sea. Most of the hike was downhill, NOT Winnie's favorite.

The hike was wonderful. There were beautiful views, and the temperature was not too hot. The whole time we were surprised by how NOT crowded the trail was. One of the guide books warned that in July and August "on the most crowded days, you can find yourself walking single file with several thousand other people, many of those 18 km." Well, we have to say, it was not true. There were definitely people walking on the trail, but since almost everyone was walking in one direction, we really didn't encounter that many people.

After we finished our 18km, we went right in the water at the Agia Roumeli beach. It was definitely a nice way to end the hike. The water was clear and we saw a few interesting fish underwater. After a quick swim, the only thing left to do was to sit in a cafe drinking a huge beer.