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| Rethymno in the late 17th century |
Although we made it to our boarding gate in time, insufficiently fed, the flight was substantially delayed, without any information being supplied (in English, at least), as we stood in line for boarding. We took off over the Aegean; out the window we could see several of the islands,
We arrived in Heraklion shortly before 6 PM; our luggage was the last to come off the plane, and we headed to Enterprise Rent-a-Car where a new surprise awaited us: the staff person told us that Enterprise will not rent cars to non-European Union drivers who do to have either an EU or international drivers license. No exceptions, he said, It’s the law, and if you are caught without a proper license, you get fined a thousand Euro’s and the cars are confiscated. Just too risky, no exceptions. Maybe some other companies will rent to you, he hinted.
I had chosen Rethymno for our week in Crete because, even though it was about \ an hour's drive west from Heraklion, and was further from the major archeological sites such as Phaistos, Knossos and Gortys, all of which I hoped to see, it was, at the same time, closer to some of the hill towns and natural sites that I also hoped to visit, and it looked to me to be a smaller and more accessible town.
But now, we had a crisis on our hands. We had prepaid reservations for an apartment 75 minutes away by car, and no way to get there.
Various ideas were floated: try to hire a van and driver to get us there (plus vans and drivers to get Joe to the airport mid-stay, and to get us to our ferry to Naxos a week later; try to use Uber to get there. My own conviction was firm – we needed our own cars, and we were going to find a way to get them. Luckily, a couple of counters away was Hertz; they had automatic transmission cars available, and no compunction about renting to us vans and an In we were told . The staff member at Hertz pooh-poohed any notion that there was a problem driving without an international license. BUT – the cars were going to be 500 euros apiece, not the $370 that we would have had to pay Enterprise. I confess that I could not help wondering whether the international drivers license requirement might have been simply a way for Enterprise to rent a pair of cars to travelers swho had not made reservations and could be asked for $130 more apiece. In any event, I fault both Enterprise and the booking companies Orbitz and Expedia, whose emails confirming our reservation said nothing about needing an international license. Meanwhile, the information came in from other investigations – just getting us to Rethymno with cars and drivers would cost as much as the two cars. The decision was obvious.
So, we packed the bags into the trunk and even the back passenger seats, and off we went. It was after 7, but we had ample time to get to Rethymno, fifty miles to the west, before dark. Sam and Nafisa were firm that the children had to be fed before the drive; but oh, no, we missed the turn to Rethymno and the highway took us more than ten miles eastward before we found an exit where we could get back on going in the right direction. We paused at a beachside restaurant; the waitstaff were very accommodating and urged us to kick our feet back and relax. The kids ate spaghetti bolognese in the restaurant – a safe choice – while I got a salad and a dish of tzatziki to take in the car; I was increasingly worried about getting to Rethymno in the dark.
It was after 8 when we left the restaurant; we went west on the highway past the airport, past Heraklion, and into rural areas along the coast. It was a gorgeous road offering dramatic views of mountains and ridges and the coastline far below. It was twisty and turny, with hairpin turns on which the posted speed limit went down as far as 50 kmh (30 mph). It would have been much more fun to drive during the full daylight (and we did that later). But it was getting dark, and some of the passengers were nervous. By the time we reached Rethymno, it as close to 10 PM.
But it was a great place to arrive. Our host Andreas lives elsewhere (in Chania, as I understand it); but his brother Stephanos lives downstairs in the first first floor apartment and was waiting to let us in
Now, we had a very nice apartment in Athens, but this place – where both Stephanos and Andreas had once lived with their parents– was truly palatial. I recalled selecting a nice apartment on AirBnB, but this was even nicer than I recalled from the AirBnB listing. The main floor had a large, eat-in kitchen, with a full supply of dishes, utensils, glasses and mugs; a very large living room, a full bathroom, and three balconies with tables and chairs, some with nice views of the sea overlooking nearby roofs.
Then the bedrooms were upstairs, along with a full bathroom and a washing machine room. Hot water was supplied by solar panels (but there waa a water heater on a one-hour switch for when hot water ran out at night). Many of the surrounding roofs had solar water heaters.
There was the usual two-person elevator, so it took quite a while to bring all the bags upstairs. The two-seater stroller would not fit in the elevator so it was left on the ground floor. We put down our bags, and after Stephanos showed us around the apartment and explained some of the details, we chose our bedrooms, took showers, and went promptly to sleep
Our next two days were lazy ones – we went food shopping, walked around Rethymno and slowly got out bearings, spent a little bit of time at some of the beaches. The waterfront at Rethynmo, and for several miles eastward, consists of sandy beach.
Some of the sand is fine, of the sort with which I grew up doing to Jones Beach; in other areas it is coarse. At least in the downtown area, although there are some stretches of purely public beach, most of the beach is occupied by beach chairs with little tables and umbrellas, for which access is rented for 5 euros per day.
The chairs’ proprietors chase you off the sand near the chairs, although it appears that they do not try to control the tidal area of the beachfront itself. There is a continuously pounding surf, but, at least at high tide (which is was each time I have been at the beach), the sandy bottom remains shallow for quite a ways out, so one can walk fifty years into the water and still have waves no bigger than my height, and be standing in between waves in water well below my waist. Still, I did my customary diving into these smallish waves, and enjoyed my first swim in the Aegean.
The old town of Rethymno, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries when Venice ruled Crete, consisted of a series of narrow lanes, seemingly too narrow for cars (OK for motorcycles);
Still, most of the lanes and squares were maintained as pedestrian only; lined with shops selling fashions and souvenirs, plus restaurants.
Interesting 17th century architectural detail leaped out at every turn, including this public fountain, built in 1626 over an even older one dating back to 1588, by the Venetian governor Rimondi, still known as the Rimondi fountain
Along the waterfront were small hotels, restaurants valore, and small travel agencies promoting drives to the inland as well as boat trips to Santorini and other islands. A long jetty ran out into the water; a smaller jetty ended in a lighthouse
And on the far side of downtown is the 16th Century Venetian fortress (fortezza), a remnant of the time when Crete was the sole remaining Venetian territory. (But more about that in future blog posts)
Our dinners, and to some extent our lunches, were one outstanding meal after another. Our first night we ate facing the Venetian Harbor
at Taverna Knossos, run by same family since 1950,
Our wait person greeted us almost shyly, saying, “welcome to my house.” She presented us with a large plate containing four different whole fishes to show what was the fresh catch of the day. Other fish (and shell fish) were available to be cooked, but they had been frozen. The choice was obvious. Inside the restaurant itself, the wait person’s mother (grandmother) could be seen presiding in the kitchen, looking, Joe commented, ever so much like Strega Nona.
The main dishes of grilled fish were uniformly excellent.
We did not plan to stay for dessert, but we were offered a “treat from the house” (we didn’t understand this at the time, but that is common in the excellent restaurants we visited in Crete). The treats included a barely sweet baklava (this is intended as a complement – the sweetness of honey did not overwhelm the other flavors) and astonishing drink made from citronella and flavors similar to rosewater but, our host said, coming from a plant growing right next to our table. Nafisa recognized the plant as something that grows in Zanzibar, and she resolved to try to figure out how to make the drink.
The place was empty when we arrived at 6:15, but jammed by the time we left. Meaanwhile, throughout our meal, a man standing in the sidewalk nest to the much larger (but nearly empty) place across the alley, stood begging people to enter his restaurant, even blocking their way a la an aggressive panhandler in DC. It was a terrific first dinner in Crete.
We walked back to our apartment along the shoreline, restaurants now packed with diners and the pedestrian square full of strolling tourists and locals.
One of the nice things about the vibe of the Rethymno waterfront and old town is that although we saw plenty of foreigners like ourselves, there were also many Greeks and, indeed, it looked to be hangout for local teenagers as well
On the way back from dinner, we paused at a small area with small carnival-like rides, where our grandchildren got their first experiences with a small ferris wheel and train and plane rides.
Our next day was also a lazy one. Sam, Joe and Nafisa took the children down to the beach (this time, they rented beach chairs). We met them for lunch at a sidewalk restaurant facing the shoreline, the Gorgona. They had finished eating by the time nanchy and I arrived. I had grilled squid, which was OK, not up to Capetown standards. The children went back to the apartment for their afternoon naps; meanwhile, Nancy and I walked along the beach and then settled into beach chairs under an umbrella, using the receipt from the morning, I had a nice swim in the Aegean. Although there was surf, the shore is shallow for a long way out, so the waves generated are not large enough to rise over me, the way they used to do at Jones Beach on Long Island when I was growing up. Big enough to dive into, though. It was a good swim.
Rejoining the rest of the family, we wandered the a main street past the Church of the Four Martyrs, Teesaron Martiron,
and then down the lanes of the old town toward dinner. I could not figure out what this odd-looking tower-top was
Ducking into the interesting Mikrasiaton Square, we saw the triple-domed Naratzes mosque
and a building festooned with murals
02
We had another fabulous dinner, this time at Raki Baraki, which had both an inside dining froom and tables along pedestian-only lanes on either side of the restaurant. Indeed, there was another place ACROSS the alley, Avli, that seemed to have some relationship to our restaurant; but the tables on its side of the lane were occupied by Raki Baraki diners. We heard fhat Raki Baraki serves the more traditional cuisine of the two, while Avli serves more modern takes on Cretan cooking. Our wait person explained the name: (aki is diminutive, so baraki, refers to drinkking drinking raki in a small bar, a play on words. The signs for the restaurant said 1600 Raki Baraki; this deferred to the fact that the building dated to the year 1600
Our dinner dishes included these starters: a less salty version of the tirokafteri I had eaten in Athens; a fennel pie with yogurt; and Dagos salad (rusks topped with tomatoes, minced onions and cukes, and cheese).
Our mains included slow-cooked lamb in yogurt sauce (three of us had it, and nobody was disappointed); beef liver for Nancy; and chicken wings w/BBQ sauce for the children.
But enough of lazy days. It was time for some sightseeing. That is the next blog post
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