Wednesday 18 October 2017

Crete holiday with family.....


I haven't blogged for ages so went into this to maybe start a new post and to have a little browse at what had gone recently.......when I noticed it, in draft, an unfinished unpublished post, not an unimportant waffle but a lovely holiday memory.

I'm now assuming it was my impending surgery and all that related to that before it that was the priority and distraction from this.

Now more than three months later I can't do it justice with details, nor can I have no record at all of a really lovely holiday for Hubby and me with sisterS and bilK. So as a compromise here are the notes I'd left for myself, added to a bit, followed by some of the photos.

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Thursday 5th October
Dinner out and sleep over here with sisterS and bilK so we get a very early start to the airport in one car to save car park costs. 

Friday 6th
4am start and Hubby is doing all the driving from now till we are home again. Uneventful travel thankfully.

At Gatwick airport we had a Lebanese breakfast because all the main eating places were really crowded and this one was the furthest away and had plenty of vacant seating. We only ordered normal breakfast stuff but it was nicely cooked and very good service so we were more than happy.

Kokkino Chorio was the name of the small village we were staying in. The villa we had rented from a friend of sisterS who also included use of their car. We were told that it's not usually rented out so fully stocked for family use. The owner said to feel free to use anything already there (food, beer, toiletries, etc) but replace them before we leave ready for their next visit.

When we arrived there was no power! We had been warned about Greek electricity supply being a bit irregular and told all about the consumer unit upstairs, unable to get anything to work we had to knock next door where neighbours Margaret and Allen were very helpful.

Made use of their car into the next village Plaka for the supermarket and noticed lots of places there to eat. So back to Plaka in the evening to one of the many taverna's for dinner. We all loved traditional Greek food and it also seems traditional here for the taverna to charge for the bread and oils/dips they bring out first without asking but not to charge at the end when they bring a repeat of your drinks orders and cake or fruit and Raki. I actually don't do well out of this as I don't drink alcohol so only on water and the fruit arrived in Greek yoghurt which I also don't eat but the others made the most of it all.

This is the villa, cloudy when we arrived but that didn't last long. Only two villas within a gated area and sharing the pool.

Beautiful views, so breakfast outside every day. Only got the sunbeds out by the pool once as it was a bit too hot for me to just lie there for long. BilK was the only one to use the pool and he only did that once as the water was freezing.



Saturday 7th
Outside having breakfast that bilK cooked when we heard an enormous crash so Hubby went to investigate and discovered a very large picture had fallen off the wall and glass was all down the marble stair case! Hubby spent ages clearing it all up. Knew it wasn't our fault but still not the best start to the day.

Heading out in the car and unfortunately Hubby caught the back of a delivery lorry which scratched the car badly when it took the door mirror off! The lorry was fine of course and the driver waved us on but we all felt really bad, especially Hubby.

Georgioupoli
Trying to find a picture to replace the one that smashed, but all these were so expensive.

Another taverna in Plaka - more free stuff

Sunday 8th
Hellenistic and Roman ruins and baths and amphitheatre in Aptera
Mishap of the day was Hubby banging his head on a very low ceiling
Lunch in Aptera where we just wanted a small snack. S&K ordered what looked to be starters off the board and Hubby and I asked for small Greek salad and with the complimentary loaf of bread etc filled the table. We were brought complimentary plate of grapes and asked if we wanted Raki, but even K can't do that stuff lunchtime! We thought it was called Tabepna but discovered that was just another word for Taverna.
Our two men in the front using two different satnav and the driving around these roads is always eventful and taking twice as long  as it should because of missed turns and roads too narrow to drive through. Apparently we were only about seven kilometres from home and it took nearly 25 minutes hahaha.
K is walking ahead to see if we can fit through, we couldn't and had to reverse.

Evening meal back into Plaka

Monday 9th
First thing to do today was send a happy birthday message to our son.
We took a drive into Chania and had a good walk around the market. Hubby had said he wanted a day not driving so we bought provisions for lunch for tomorrow, the cheese stall holder gave us lots to taste before we bought.
Lovely lady at a clothes stall pulled me in to say, only in Greek, she had tops in my size and showed me one after another after another until actually there was one I really did like enough to buy.

We walked back to the car to put our purchases in the boot then off in the opposite direction to find the old town and the old Venetian harbour.

It was beautiful and stopped for lunch looking at the posh boats docked there. According to my phone app we've walked nearly 10km.

Tuesday 10th 
Lazy stay at home day


Wednesday 11th

Thursday 12th


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Can't remember much more now unfortunately and couldn't understand why I hadn't done more while we were there, which I would normally do, often writing up the day before while I'm waiting for everyone to get ready in the mornings. But now I remember getting frustrated when I'd typed up loads and the flaky WiFi didn't save it.

As another afterwards note we'd obviously told the owners about the broken car and picture and they were really good about it. No problem about the picture they were just glad we hadn't been hurt by broken glass. They said they would take care of the car when they arrive the day after we leave and let us know the cost as we insisted on paying of course.
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6 comments:

Michelle said...

Bites and Bumps of car and head. Aargh. Glad food all good. A holiday (say in Cornwall) that seems hard work can be just about saved by lots of good food :-). Like the history and views there. x

MumB / @mumbosh said...

To be fair it was 95% great holiday and 5% unfortunate things, but they do make for a more interesting story rather than "yawn she's on holiday again" hahaha

Michelle said...

:-D

MumB / @mumbosh said...

Arrrggghhh now I'm totally confused. The Crete post was in draft and I was convinced I'd done it but couldn't find it at all. So I redid it and just hit post thinking it would go in as today (31st Jan 2018) but it jumped into October and lo and behold there are already comments! So I had done it and it was hiding! Now I've replaced it with scrappy notes!!!!!

Michelle said...

LOL. It still reads like a good holiday the second time around.

MumB / @mumbosh said...

Laughing about it now but thought I was going mad. Knew I'd typed up lots more and was sure I'd posted the end result. Gremlins huh!