Yesterday afternoon, we could have gone ashore in Heraklion but decided against it and instead watched a Mission Impossible film (Fallout if you must know) before going to dinner. I think it’s number six in the series. We had only got to Number 3 at home, so we are a bit out of sequence. Oh dear.
This morning, we did something that I am always a bit wary about doing – just going for a brief walk in to town is fine, but going somewhere else using local transport can be a bit stressful for me.
I don’t like it when people get in your face, the locals were very keen for us to use a taxi or to take a road train trip (as we did in Ajaccio, but that was not stressful at all – they weren’t in our face) or one of the open top busses – there were about five different services on offer. In each booth there were ladies shouting at us. That disturbed me. We ended up buying tickets for a city scene tour we were almost first on and got the seats at the front on the top deck. They were loose, very loose, ok when accelerating., but when braking you tended to lunge forward. Rather disconcerting to say the least.
Geek driving (I don’t think it is exclusively Cretan) is interesting. Roundabouts are obviously an inconvenience and don’t seem to have any discernible rules such as giving way on entry, or when you have an accident on one, just get out of the car and start arguing. To be honest, I didn’t see the accident, but I could not see any damage to the car of the offended party.
We got off at Knossos, a Bronze Age site, and capital of Minoan society.
It is also the site of the labyrinth and the Minotaur, the monster having the head of a bull and the body of a man. Unfortunately the labyrinth isn’t open to the public, but a maze certainly does exist.
The remains of the Minoan kings palace are available to be explored and are fascinating, well worth a visit. I can’t help comparing the level of sophistication in a Stone Age society in Crete with the same time in the uk. I get the impression we were a millennia behind. The quality of the construction and the artistry has to be seen to be believed.
The lack of precision in the timing of the return trip left a fair bit to be desired. But it is like many places, Heraklion is interesting to visit.
Bills Posts 