Crete trip - Part 3
19/4 - Heraklion

In the early morning, my brother-in-law and I went to fetch someone from the airport at an unearthly time. I was very glad to see someone, since it meant I could go back to the hotel to sleep.

In the morning, we proceeded to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. For once I agreed with the guidebook - the museum had a 19th century design, with rooms lit only with fluorescent tubes (so the light was harsh yet not quite bright enough - the cases weren't individually lit) and most items displayed on cabinet shelves and enclosed by glass, with perhaps one label per cabinet or shelf identifying what the group of objects were. Basically it was what Singapore's National Museum was like in the 70s. Meanwhile someone said it was exactly as a guidebook to the museum dating from 1968 described it.


Festos disc


Minoan priestess statuettes

A significant portion of the items had the label: "Unpublished. No photographs", "No photos, video shooting or drawing" or variants thereof. So basically if they haven't gotten round to taking photographs or otherwise recording their collection, neither can we. I think that if they've left their collection unphotographed since the 19th century, they're not going to get round to photographing it anytime soon!


Double headed axes from Minoan mansion at Miron Chani


Bull's head rhyton (libation vessel), maybe of chlorite from Zakos palace (16th c. BC)

The guidebook had a few pages on the museum - it was infinitely more informative than the information panels in the museum itself.


Libation vase of rock crystal from Zakos


Pithos


Bull leaping fresco




Portrait head of Augustus


Persephone and Pluto personifying Isis and Serapis

Only 2 rooms had a modern design - the one with the Ring of Minos and the one with depictions of sports.


Backyard of the museum


Blue Bear is usually hung out to dry like this, or worse.

We then went on to Arhanes, which had an archaeological museum the guidebook raved about. It was tiny, consisting of only one room. The collection was alright, but the best bits had been shipped to the Heraklion museum, and plaster casts left in their place. This is a good idea - why make tourists travel for days around the island visiting hundreds of museums to view the most important artefacts? It might be even better to ship the good stuff to Athens, making it even more accessible. Most of the best stuff has been carted off to the Louvre, British Museum and Met anyway.

We then visited the Minoan palace of Knossos.


South house, Knossos


West Magazines


Bull leaping fresco, copy of the one in Heraklion


"Throne room" according to Evans

Considering that this is the biggest and most important Minoan site in Crete and the world, as well as the most visited attraction in Crete, the lack of information was glaring. There were signs informing visitors what each location was, and a little about how it was used, but the information on the panels was sparse. There was no on-site museum (there was a shop, of course) and no audioguide either. I think English Heritage has spoiled me for other archaeological sites (every tiny site has an audioguide and museum), but really compared to the rest of Europe this is unacceptable; the mainland is somewhat better, but it still fails (even at Delphi, IIRC, though little panels informed visitors what each location was called, there was no information on the location itself). At Knossos at least they're probably trying to generate work for their exorbitant guided tours (€12 per head, IIRC) but other sites *have* no tours so there's no market to spoil.


Central Court


North Entrance, North Pillar Hall


North Lustral basin


View of centre area

Before lunch, we wanted to get the key to see some church, but the key was kept by the archaeological museum, which was due to close at 2:30 (just an hour after we asked for it), and so they refused to give it to us. The key used to be kept by a taverna, an eminently more sensible guardian since it has much longer opening hours. On a more general note, most Cretan (and probably Greek) archaeological sites close at 3 or 2:30pm (presumably so the wardens can go take a siesta), which is extremely annoying.

During lunch, a cat was annoying us. I gave my brother-in-law the perfect opportunity to take photographs by pouring a capful of water on the cat, but he didn't seize the opportunity. Gah. Meanwhile the cat took the water well, just walking away without any other reaction. Greek cats compare well with his cat Rosie, who runs away the moment the water spray bottle is shown her.

We then visited a nunnery - Savvathiana/Savathiana, in the mountains above Heraklion, where in one building there was a basin by a window ledge, insde of which were eyedrop bottles filled with oil (olive?) and bottles of calcium pills. Uhh.


Wisteria drooping down the side of the mountain


Gardened walkway


Me in doorway of the nunnery

My brother-in-law kept taking pictures of the nuns when he knew they didn't like their pictures taken. Bah.


Nunnery


View from Savathiana


Hand painted sign


The cheapest cigarettes I've seen in Europe. I should send this to my smoker friends with the caption: "Wish you were here".


Someone claims that she needs to sit in the front seat of the car (thereby relegating me to the rear) because her carsickness is worse when she's in the back. I suspect the reason this is so is that the front is more conducive for sleeping.

Most Greek restaurants on the mainland give patrons iced water for free. In Crete, no one drinks the tap water, and so we had to order mineral water for most meals. Even the hotel had a sign saying that the water was not for drinking. Actually the water is fine - it just tastes a bit odd (hard, according to my brother-in-law). But then after drinking the water from the Island of Doom, nothing fazes me anymore.

Many places had shorter opening hours than stated in our guidebook (published August 2004). Only a handful had *extended* them.

Oddly enough, Greek meat is well cooked and spiced. The seafood, on the other hand, is almost always just light battered and deep fried (or sometimes, grilled) and served with a wedge of lemon. It gets boring.

I keep forgetting that my camera's LCD makes images look brighter than they really are, so I keep underexposing my shots wrongly. Gah.