Malia Palace, Crete
The beautiful morning started with walk on the beach. I asked for a receipt and the owner, Dimitrios, a very spiffy gentleman, came and we followed him to another of his places, a bar on the beach, where he gave me the receipt and a business card with a mobile number. We followed the coast towards Malia where we went directly to visit the ruins of the Minoan palace. E4 entry fee. The palace is Interesting and quite large but not really great. It had some nice large pithos and beautiful walls to walk through. We went to the modern village of Malia for breakfast. We parked the car in the area of the clubs, very kitschy and probably a Zoo at night time, and we had a really great breakfast in a bakery, with cheese pies and spinach, frappe and kefir, etc.
Agios Nicolaos, Crete
We left towards Agios Nicolaos where we arrived around 1:00pm. We strolled on the shore and went to the harbor and asked in the info office what else is worth a visit. Agios Nicolaos is not large but it is pleasant to walk. Outside of the town are the village of Kritsa and the church of Agia Panagia that are worth a visit. We continued the walk on the shore to the public beach and went to the harbor and back into the center of the city and to the central lake where we took lots of beautiful pictures.
We left at 5:00pm towards Elounda and continued to Plaka on the Spinalonga peninsula and found out that the last boat to the Spinalonga island leaves at 5pm; E8. We chat with a guy from a restaurant who said that there are very few tourists and mainly few Americans and asked me if this might be related with the looming recession. I told him that is related with the $ exchange rate mainly. He regretted their absence because they are considered very good tourists, paying well and consuming a lot. We left towards the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula but the road was a dirt road so we gave up and continued on the paved one. We saw some nice villages where chickens were roaming the alleys. In other village men were hanging out in the main square for an evening chat.
Elounda, Crete
We returned to Plaka for a late swim and we drove back to Elounda, 4.5 km to get a hotel and eat. We stopped at Marin who offered an apartment for E50 after a long show and wait and, as the restaurants in Elounda were not on the shore, we returned to Plaka at Taverna Ostria, right on the pebble beach and had a great dinner of mushroom and fish soup with Ouzo and finished with some Cretan rakki, in a restaurant filled with cats. During the night a Brit came drunk, spoke loudly and left his door opened that banged in the wind all night. The island is a vacation spot for Brits.
Follow us on Instagram