November 2008

I’ve finally got around to editing my holiday photos from Athens and Crete and uploaded a few to my Flickr account, go check em out and let me know what you think!

Our final excursion before returning to the UK was to the Akrotiri peninsula located to the east of Chania. It is quite barren and its northern extent is lined by steep hills. We stopped at the beach at Kalathas which had a strange orange/brown sediment that was flowing into the bay creating a marked contrast

The second of our day trips was to Elafonisi situated on south eastern tip of Crete, 43km from Kastelli and 76km from Chania. We drove from Chania through the Gorge of Topolia and the mountain towns of Topolia, Myli, Elos, Kefali, and Vathi amongst others, taking in the breathtaking scenery as we went. The area

Our next excursion took us to the sweeping bay at Falasarna on the west coast of Crete. An amazing bay with a huge beach, backed by cliffs and agricultural land. The sea was crystal clear and looked really inviting if it hadn’t been for the howling wind. We took a little shelter at the northern

As part of our stay in Crete we went to see the Samaria Gorge, one of the longest in Europe. We walked the 16km from start to finish: 13km through the National Park of Samaria and then an additional 3 km to Agia Roumeli from the exit of the National Park. The gorge starts at

After our fantastic stay at the Ammos Hotel in Agii Apostoli, Rose and I spent the remainder of our 5 nights in Crete in the old town of Chania. Before we’d left the Ammos we had a trip into Chania and found the wonderful old town just west of the main harbour. It is composed

I found the Ammos Hotel on TripAdvisor when I was looking for a place to stay in Crete. Despite being a geography graduate, but shamefully not knowing anything about the island’s geography (or history for that fact) it was a bit potluck in deciding which end of the island we should stay. In the end

Our 2 night stay in Athens finished by taking the ferry from Piraeus port in Athens to Chania in north west Crete. We took the metro to the port and whilst en-route some guy tried to pick-pocket me. I felt a hand trying to get to my wallet in my pocket whilst boarding the train

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Greece as I’ve never had any desire to go there, maybe it is the lack of surf, but I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience after my girlfriend booked us 2 return flights to Athens for our first 2 week holiday together. Athens airport was clean, well