Holidays on Crete
The last week on August, Heidi and I went to the village Agios Nicolaos on Crete to enjoy the sun we missed in Norway
We took a plane to Heraklion from Gardemoen. It seems that they like flying at unsociable times those charter-companies, so our plane departed at 05:00. Check-in was 03:00, which meant that we got the last train from Oslo to Gardemoen at 00:30. After a flight I slept all the way through, we landed in Heraklion and met up with the Apollo guide “Sjur”. He explained that we had not booked the bus (”transfer”) from Heraklion to our hotel in Agios Nicolaos. I thought this was strange, as I pretty much expected that this was included…After some discussion he said that we could go on the bus for 15 euro each (the other passengers had paid 99 NOK for a round trip with the bus)… but then he changed his mind and refused to let us go on the (half full!) bus to Agios Nicolaos because of “some insurance issues”. I think this sounded like bullshit, and he explained it with something like “you get what you pay for… the taxis go from over there..” so here is a message to the Apollo guide named Sjur: fuck you!
OK, after a taxi trip for 50 euro (it started at 40 euro, but the taxi broke down and the next taxi that picked us up wanted more…), we ended up in Agios Nicolaos (Google Earth KML file: KML file for Agios Nicolaos)
The hotel was great, and we got one of the best rooms with a balcony and a sea view (panorama of the view stiched with a bad program below):
In Agios Nicolaos, we went to the beach every day…
had some beers in the sun… I don’t know about Greek beer though, “Mythos” and “Zorbas” did not please my taste buds too much…
There were several nice restaurants and snack bars around, and we ate a lot of Greek stuff like Gyros, Souvlaki, Mousaka and some tomato sauce meat balls. I thought Greek cusisine was quite boring (you know - very little spices etc) before we went, but now I know they can make some very tasty stuff. My facourite was the lamb souvlaki.
Agios Nicolaos [Link to municipal of Agios Nicolaos] is a very pretty small town with a nice small harbour and a very nice lake in the middle surrounded by restaurants. I would like to go back there one day for more sun…
One day we went on a bus trip to Knossos. Knossos is a place where the Minoans built a large palace around 1700 BC. The minoans where apparently a very advanced civilization at that time. Anyway, here is a pic of me at the palace (that was partly rebuilt in concrete(!)) ..
oh and I saw a cat lying on a office chair there…
In Agios Nicolaos, we met some other Norwegians, and one day we were on the beach with them, the son of an oil sheik (or at least so the rumors said) had invited all the Norwegians to his yatch. I did not go, but four of the girls went, and they said that the 35 million kroner yatch (or was it euro?) was pretty impressive… one day I will also have a yatch like that I think…
OK, after 8 days on Crete, we headed back home. I could have stayed longer! I did not get much of a tan (genetic I think), but I grought back some great memories of a great trip (except Sjur the Apollo guide - we actually had to pay 30 € to take the Apollo-bus back to the airport also…)