Mafia Strongholds, Wax Museum, and Being Fed in Crete, Greece

Wednesday, May 20 This afternoon Andronikos, Eric and Christi set out to go to an archeological site called Axon, located in the mountains. We followed the same road that we took the day we took the day we went to the monastery and cave last summer. Last year it had been and the hills were dry. Right now the hills are verdant and green, with the flowers in full bloom. It is absolutely gorgeous. Just like last year, we saw lots of goats running around on the hills and several hanging out on the road.

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We passed the monastery, but before we got to the cave we turned off onto a different road. We passed through several more small villages. One of them was the village where we had gone to the wedding with 3,000 guests a few years ago and has a reputation for being one of the most traditional villages left today. In another village, we spotted a 16th century church that looks like it is still in use. We tried to go in, but it was closed.

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The towns are nothing more than Continue reading

Chania, Crete Revisited

Tuesday, May 19 — Today Christi, John and Andronikos went to Chania. Andronikos has never been there and wanted to see the old Venetian city. Eric was still feeling a bit under the weather, and since the long day yesterday had made him feel worse, he decided it was best to spend the day resting.

When the three of us left Bali, the weather looked a little bit ominous. Shortly after getting on the road, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge storm with heavy rain. However, as we neared the outskirts of Chania, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It was gorgeous out with idyllic temperatures. We lucked out. This time, we found Chania with no problems (last time we got seriously lost) and made a bee-line for the historic district.

The three of us walked around town for a while. In terms of new sights for Christi, we saw some ruins that pre-date the Venetian era on the edges of the historic district. Something that Christi found weird is that some modern buildings share common walls with ancient ruins. She finds that to be almost crazy.

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We also went inside the traditional market, a cross shaped building with Continue reading