Our adventures continue as we wake up in port on the island of Crete, near the town of Chania in the country of Greece. Our first Greek port. Off we headed as we decided to hire a taxi for three of us and head to the old town at the port. It was a short port of call. Our driver barely spoke english and not a word of greek is spoken among any of us. Finally, Lynne typed in our question, translated it to greek and handed the phone to me to show the driver. He laughed, read it and shook his head yes! We saw the port and took a few pics as it was so crowded you could barely turn around. We loaded back in the car and again with the question in the phone, shared our request for lunch. In a nice restaurant. In a quiet place. Far from the crowds. Off we went.
Weaving through streets leading down to the water, we ended up on a tiny one way street right at the beach. At the end of the street, he stopped, pointed to the last restaurant on our left, smiled and said “this is lunch”. He gave me a card with his name and number and told me to call him when we were finished and he would take us back to the boat. I said we would call in an hour. He laughed and told me two hours for lunch.
We got our bearings, barely able to take our eyes off the water, beach, sand and sky. This felt like we had stepped into a scene from a movie. The setting was perfect. What do you think?
Looking closer, take note of the hanging octopus.
We were seated and greeted by a young waiter who spoke great english. I guess I could become a food blogger if I kept having culinary experiences like we have been having. This was amazing.
First up was a greek salad (which has no lettuce if you didn’t know), very fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, calamata olives, purple onions, boiled potatoes and fresh feta cheese on top.
Next up was our appetizer of octopus in red wine. We ate every bite. It was so tender we could cut it with our forks.
We ordered plates of fried shrimp and grilled shrimp. I had never seen fried shrimp in the whole shell. It was interesting and very good.
We finished our two hour lunch, called our taxi driver who was the best. He took us back to the ship and we finished out our day with the rest of our group at dinner.
The next day we found ourselves in Mykonos. Oh. My.
So far, this is the most beautiful town we have visited. Our guide picked us up at the dock. We got to the port in town and began walking.
Enjoy the pics. Not many words necessary.
I titled this one – “on another note”.
I could post a hundred pictures, this island is incredible. Our day finished with a trip to the other side of the island to a beach protected from the strong winds. The guide prepared lunch for us on the beach and this was one of my favorite experiences so far.
Back to the ship and on to Athens