On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, at 4:54 p.m., we flew out of MSP on Delta, on our way to Amsterdam. Delta has compromised the quality of its flight experience, cramming more seats, closer together, into the plane. If I were taller than I am (five foot ten) I would have been very uncomfortable. As it is, my knees were jammed in against the seat in front of me. It was even worse than the EasyJet flight we had later in the trip. The aisles were barely wide enough for one person to get through, and the flight attendants, when moving carts, had to call out to people to pull their arms in out of the aisles. For the first time on an overseas flight, Mary Joy couldn't sleep, leading to a continuing sleep deficit once we got where we were going.
Which was Chania (pronounced something like "hahn YAH"), on the Greek island of Crete. We were supposed to have about a four-hour layover in Amsterdam, and then I had taken the gamble of scheduling only a forty-five-minute layover in Athens, since there would be a (much) later flight on the same airline in case we were delayed. Unfortunately, due to a major day-long strike of civil servants to protest Greek austerity measures required by the nation's creditors, the air traffic controllers were out, so the Amsterdam-Athens flight on Aegean Airlines was delayed by forty-five minutes. Our flight to Chania on Olympic (owned by Aegean) had just left when we arrived. So we waited four hours for the next flight (for a while, it was iffy whether we could even get seats on that flight), and eventually got to our hotel (Porto Antico) in the old town after 11 p.m., Wednesday. But our room was very nice, with a view over the old Venetian Harbor. There was also a flask of honey-flavored raki (a firewater made from grape skins, like the Italian grappa--though we later learned that "raki" was actually the Turkish name for it--locally, it was officially known as "tsigoudia." There was yet another name for it on the Greek mainland), along with two shot glasses.
On Thursday, May 31st, we had a very nice breakfast on the waterfront, at the restaurant Pallas, which exclusively uses stylized Greek lettering on its signs--not "PALLAS," and not even "ΠΑΛΛΑΣ," but an artsy version of the latter that has the lambdas ("Λ") rounded at the top. Clearly, they are refusing to descend to pandering to tourists. Then we spent the day orienting ourselves to Chania, which has the reputaion of being the prettiest city in Crete. We visited the Orthodox cathedral, the Catholic cathedral (unobtrusive in a courtyard behind a door across the square from the not-at-all-unobtrusive Orthodox cathedral), the tourist information office and the central market. In the market we visited a cheese shop, and when Mary Joy asked the owner if a certain cheese was made from cow's milk, he indignantly replied "Cow's milk is water!"
We had a late lunch at To Maridaki--very good. That evening, we took a tour of the old town with Natour Lab's Tatiana, an archeologist. It was interesting and informative, and included some local food specialties at Phyllo, a bakery-cafe.
Which was Chania (pronounced something like "hahn YAH"), on the Greek island of Crete. We were supposed to have about a four-hour layover in Amsterdam, and then I had taken the gamble of scheduling only a forty-five-minute layover in Athens, since there would be a (much) later flight on the same airline in case we were delayed. Unfortunately, due to a major day-long strike of civil servants to protest Greek austerity measures required by the nation's creditors, the air traffic controllers were out, so the Amsterdam-Athens flight on Aegean Airlines was delayed by forty-five minutes. Our flight to Chania on Olympic (owned by Aegean) had just left when we arrived. So we waited four hours for the next flight (for a while, it was iffy whether we could even get seats on that flight), and eventually got to our hotel (Porto Antico) in the old town after 11 p.m., Wednesday. But our room was very nice, with a view over the old Venetian Harbor. There was also a flask of honey-flavored raki (a firewater made from grape skins, like the Italian grappa--though we later learned that "raki" was actually the Turkish name for it--locally, it was officially known as "tsigoudia." There was yet another name for it on the Greek mainland), along with two shot glasses.
On Thursday, May 31st, we had a very nice breakfast on the waterfront, at the restaurant Pallas, which exclusively uses stylized Greek lettering on its signs--not "PALLAS," and not even "ΠΑΛΛΑΣ," but an artsy version of the latter that has the lambdas ("Λ") rounded at the top. Clearly, they are refusing to descend to pandering to tourists. Then we spent the day orienting ourselves to Chania, which has the reputaion of being the prettiest city in Crete. We visited the Orthodox cathedral, the Catholic cathedral (unobtrusive in a courtyard behind a door across the square from the not-at-all-unobtrusive Orthodox cathedral), the tourist information office and the central market. In the market we visited a cheese shop, and when Mary Joy asked the owner if a certain cheese was made from cow's milk, he indignantly replied "Cow's milk is water!"
We had a late lunch at To Maridaki--very good. That evening, we took a tour of the old town with Natour Lab's Tatiana, an archeologist. It was interesting and informative, and included some local food specialties at Phyllo, a bakery-cafe.
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