Crete

Today caps the first full day on Crete, the world's 88th largest island. 

I got up uber early and cabbed it to the airport to pick up our rental car (an Audi, ooh la la!), which uses diesel.  That's not really noteworthy except for that it's kind of weird and to my knowledge the first time I've ever driven a diesel vehicle.  I drove back to the hotel and picked up the clan, and within 15 minutes we were touring the excavations of Knossos (but not before Juliet banged the car next to us with her door as she was getting out.)  For those not in the know(ssos), this was the royal residence and central administrative complex of Europe's first advanced society, the Minoans.  Two basic misconceptions about Knossos persist; 

    1.) Yes, the legend of the minotaur is based here, but no there is no labyrinth (or such a thing as a minotaur, for that matter).  It turns out that the architectural complexity of the site gave rise to the idea it was a maze, and that eventually spiraled into the legend of a dangerous labyrinth housing a princling man-eating man-beast.  

    2.) The most famous bit of the ruins with the red columns and frescoes are (speculative) reconstructions of what that part of the palace looked like, not what was really unearthed.  The 19th century British aristocrat and archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, who looks just exactly like you'd expect him to, did all that.  That kind of tampering is today considered a major no-no.  It seems clear he felt it was at least partly necessary to avoid the eventual degradation of the site, but we're not talking about setting a few columns back up where they once stood.  This dude poured hundreds of thousands of pounds of concrete everywhere, then painted much of it to "recreate" what he believed the original structure looked like (today's archaeologists doubt many of his certainties). While you'll still see plenty of authentic Minoan ruined walls and walkways and the like, the most famous stuff is all Evans (and all the famous artifacts and frescoes he recovered are actually down in the museum in Heraklion.)

Lest you think we thought it a total drag, it was actually very cool.  There were peacocks roaming around, which the kids enjoyed, and some decent signage which adequately communicated the sheer historical heft of the place.  I mean, not that there is really a "first" anything--even the Minoans had a predecessor culture--but this is the most obvious place to point to and say, "this is the birth of Western civilization."  And that is kind of rattling around in your head at you stroll the complex.  Trippy.  Anyway, here's that reconstructed famous bit:

Last thing I'll say about this: as is the case with the Elgin marbles (which aren't) on the Acropolis, Evans' meddling with Knossos is easy to hate on.  But as was the case in Evans' day as with Elgin's, it was a choice made in context, and that context was, "man, if we don't do this, this might not survive."  And it has survived.  Today, Evans' reconstruction has become, ineluctably, part of the site, and it's gained its own kind of historical gravitas of the sort that graffiti on an important monument from hundreds of years ago has which graffiti from today doesn't  Like it or not, it's now Knossos.

James surveys some ruins, but mostly the peacock

After Knossos, we got back into our car and headed west to Rythmno, a beautifully-preserved 16th-century Venetian port city about halfway to our hotel in Chania.  We strolled the old city for a bit looking for a bite, and since it was still before noon, we settled for a bunch place just off the harbor that is definitely, come nighttime, a dance club.  Like, it functioned fine as a restaurant, but was clearly made to appeal to the club set.  For a club, though, the brunch was pretty good--the kids got some pancakes absolutely doused in comical amounts of Nutella.  I got a tasty Greek omelet, and Erica had some kind of wrap--I dunno probably chicken souvlaki-flavored.  And cheap.  Everything here is cheap, particularly food and bev.  Giant stack o' Nutella cakes? 6 euros.  Big-ass, feta-rich omelet?  6 euros.  Beers, even at a restaurant? 3 euros.  I'm not lying.  After the meal, we walked around town, looking at souvenir shops.  James is addicted to the ones that sell little statuettes of the Greek gods, and that's most of them.  Erica bought some new sunglasses.  It was just lovely.

Rythmno's old quarter

We finally got to Chania about 2:30, and checked in to our hotel.  It's good.  It's fine.  It's...kinda deserted?  Not bad, just weirdly empty?  There wasn't anyone at the desk, and the back patio/lawn around the pool was unmowed and unkempt.  A cleaning lady happened to be there, and she let us in to the room.  The room is itself amazing--two bedrooms, a decent kitchen area.  Love it.  Just kinda desolate around these parts.  Luckily, it's just a stone's throw from the beach.  We pooled it in the afternoon, then went to a local place for...Greek food.  Or rather, Cretan food (tbh, there's not a ton separating these cuisines, as far as we can tell).  All in all, a very good intro to Crete.  I would be remiss if I didn't comment on how amazing the drive was here.  Like, Pacific coast highway amazing.  Driving in Greece, as I've said, is insane, but here on Crete, where there's way more open space than Naxos or Athens, and the roads ascend and descend legit mountains, it's all the more crazy.  More on that later.  But, woah, the beauty.  Mountains crashing right down into the sea.  Lots of picturesque beaches.  Lots of little memorials where people died on the roadside.

Dinner, night 1 on Crete.

I'll leave it there.  More in a bit.