Travels with the Benzes

Route for today marked in red After breakfast at our hotel, our driver for today (George) picked us up at 9:00 AM.  We headed across the western end of Crete and then south toward Elafonisi Beach which is famed for its pink sand, created by the breakdown of very small pink shells into sand size grains, unique to two Cretan beaches and found rarely across the world.     The drive took us through mountains, past many little villages, past gorges and many, many olive trees.  They estimate there are over 30 million olive trees on Crete.   When we arrived at the beach, George warned us that there is not a lot of pink sand left, supposedly because tourists illegally take it home as souvenirs (but more likely because it is constantly recirculated by the sea's action). But, there are now signs all over the beach warning not to remove any of the pink sand.  We asked a couple of people about the pink color; one person said it comes from pink rocks that the tourists have stolen.  But rather t

Today we left Heraklion to drive to Chania (the "C" is silent) west along the northern coast of Crete.  We passed through some mountainous areas and by beautiful beaches. We stopped for about an hour in the town of Rethymno …a popular tourist beach destination with a Cretan population of about 30,000. The city dates from the Minoan civilization but grew when the Venetians arrived around the 12th century. We spent our hour there strolling through the narrow Medieval and cobblestone streets lined with shops and restaurants admiring the Venetian era buildings...see pictures below. We then met up with our driver to continue our trip to Chania. We arrived there about 90 minutes later and he dropped us at our hotel…the Porto Veneziano, right on the old harbor. After we checked in and deposited all our stuff in our room, we headed out to explore the area. We walked along the old stone barricade walls designed and built in the 12 century AD by the Venetians to protect the port from A

  Our guide today (Rania) and driver (Anthony) picked us up at 8:30 AM.  We headed south with our first stop in the very small village of Agrio Myronae...named after Saint Myron. Village of Agrio Myronae Church of Agrio Myronae Just below the church, down a series of steps is the Holy Cell of the Saint , a natural cave in the basalt rock, from which healing water gushes. Next we visited the ancient city of Gortyn. The city has a rich mythological and religious tradition associated with many of the Greek gods including, Zeus, Europa and Demeter, but also major figures of Christianity including the apostles Paul and Titus. Gortyn reached its peak during the Roman period when it was the capital of Crete.  It was also the first city in Crete to accept Christianity.  It maintained its glory until 828 AD when it was occupied and destroyed by the Saracens. Theatre in Gortyn It is famous for the Law Code of Gortyn  which was written in 450 BC, it represents the legal code of the city and is in

We arrived in Heraklion last evening and checked into our hotel, GDM Megaron, which is actually an historical monument.  It is within easy walking distance of the west pier of the Heraklion harbor and the Venetian fortress (Koules)...more about this later. Our driver picked us up at 9:00 AM and we proceeded to Knossos for a tour.  The Palace of Knossos is a Minoan Bronze Age archeological site but the settlement dates back to the Neolithic age...about 7000 BC.  The first Minoan palace was built around 1900 BC.  It served as a religious and administrative center.  It was destroyed around 1700 BC (probably by an earthquake...common in Crete) and rebuilt around 1650 BC.  It was again destroyed around 1350 BC by fire which caused the upper stories to collapse...the palace was not rebuilt. The site was eventually covered over and forgotten about. The site was first excavated in 1877, but in 1900 Arthur Evans did more extensive excavations  and uncovered some of the most famous artifacts. I