21/4 - Gortys, Festos
So-called "Bottomless lake" in the town where we spent the previous night. Banks are to the left and right of the picture. In the States this would barely qualify as a "pond" (maybe it would be called a puddle).
We went to Gortys, one of the biggest (or at least most extensive) archaeological sites in Crete.
Aiyos Titos - a church dating from the 5th Century. My brother-in-law asked if it was BC or AD.
Odeon, law code in background
Law code of Gortys
I considered hiking up to the acropolis, but it was too far and didn't look that impressive.
Besides the stuff in the fenced area, we wanted to look at the Roman ruins of the Praetorium/Nymphaeum, given how much the guidebook gushed about it (then again, the Eyewitness Guide listed it in the Top 10 list of Gortys also, so). However, when I was sent down to recce the general direction, I was met with multiple examples of:
Huge dog guarding sheep/goats
Goat-like sheep or hairy goat
Crete actually has hairy goats, so it's not just me.
One unfriendly dog was sitting in the middle of the path in front of me (albeit chained) so I beat a hasty retreat. We went around a bit but couldn't find the place, even with the unclear directions we got from the Aiyos Titos attendents. In the end we gave up. There must be a reason why the area is not fenced and ticketed, I suppose.
Mutant orange
We got a huge bag for €5. We had to give 3 to a parking attendent on the last night because we couldn't finish them.
Gortys acropolis
In the end we took the car to a place only 5 minutes from the place, and my brother-in-law and I got down. It wasn't all that impressive, and as expected, the guidebook author gushed greatly about it.
Acropolis closeup
I went up the hill while he was taking pictures of:
Pelts
The next location was Festos. Chracterestically, there were almost no information panels there.
Festos
Following in a time-honoured tradition, we then went to the Matala caves, which hippies used to frequent.
Matala caves
Me at caves
With Blue Bear
Caves
Cave interior
Caves
Matala Beach
Caves
Breakfast. What non-vegetarian would not pay €0,50 more for an English breakfast?! English Breakfasts were offered at many places.
Matala caves
For dinner, we were looking forward to the roast rabbit at a taverna in Agios Ioannis recommended by the guidebook (in food recommendations at least it wasn't suspect). However, we got conned - at 4+ I asked and was told that on that day they were open till 10, yet when we arrived at 7:30 they were closed.
Funny cruise. I suspect the only thing funny is their grammar.
In the supermarkets I couldn't find palm oil at all - on the shelves there was only sunflower, corn and above all else olive oil (some in the large tins industrial palm oil comes in).
Paulaner and Amstel beer are very popular on Crete (the latterly brewed). There're even more signs for Amstel beer than in the Netherlands. This might explain why there're many Dutch tourists - not as many as French and German, but some menus are in Dutch, there were one or two Dutch signs and we saw a caravan with a Dutch license plate.
Quite a lot of private home owners offer their rooms out to rent; we stayed at one such place on this night. Must be a good way of making money.