Reythymno, Crete, Greece

July 9, 2012

I am sitting on my terrace in the old city of Reythymno. When you travel so many things happen in a day…today we left Kissamos by bus after a lovely breakfast (Greek Omelet) and a Greek coffee in the town square by the small church. It must be a very small town because after three nights I am already recognizing people. We transferred busses in Chania for a 30-minute bus ride to the airport to get our car. Everything went smooth and the rental people were very talkative and I used this to ask questions I have about Greece and the current situation. It was really fun. We hopped in our nearly new car and were giddy with the new freedom of being able to stop wherever we wanted. Our first stop was to have coffee and it overlooked a stunning beach. After we finished our snack, Dada had meatballs and I had a fennel pie, we decided to try and find our way down to this beach. It took us about 20 minutes but we finally found the way down and had a wonderful swim with the other 15 people who were on this fairly remote beach.

We finally made it to Rethhymno and walked in the old city discovering a superbly preserved fort, Venetian, with a beautiful Mosque inside the fort. It was designed to hold the whole city when they were under attack. The city has Turkish influences, with the wonderful wooden houses that overhang on the second floor, which I saw in Turkey and well as other Venetian homes. By then it was 7 pm and I did not want to not have a place when it gets dark so I saw a sign “rooms” and asked, no vacancies, I asked for a recommendation, she said go to the bookstore around the corner, sometimes they have rooms, so we went there and again no vacancies. I asked my same question about a recommendation and the woman sent us around the corner to a house that had a hand written sign “rooms”. The woman who answered the doorbell was 30ish and very charming and happy. She was pleased to engage in conversation about Greece. She told me she was an X-ray technician and she used to be paid 1000 euros a month, but now only gets 500 euros because her salary was cut by ½. She hates the way the Greek people are being portrayed in the media. And she thinks the politicians are corrupt.

The room was lovely on the third floor with a large terrace. We got our things up to the room, found a free and safe place to park the car and wandered the harbor and the old city, then had dinner. I had my usual Greek Salad. I think I could eat this every night.