I was so disappointed. The most disappointing part of the trip. Why did Evans mess it up? Argh!

Iraklion
 
 
Prelude
Arrival
Glyfada
Sunion
Aegina
Corinth
Mycenae
Epidarros & Naphlion
Olympia
To Delphi
Exploring Delphi
To Crete
Hania
Samarian Gorge
Knossos
Iraklion
Athens Day 1
Athens Day 2
The End
Greece Photos!
  

Iraklion -- Ηρακλειο


 
Brown stuff invades the ocean after rain, as seen from the bus
On the bus again to Iraklion the next morning. An uneventful four hours later we were dumped at the train station in Iraklion, and I tried to decipher the map to find our way to the hotel. Unfortunately I missed a shortcut up the hill and I took us on a longer route that went through some construction. The sidewalk narrowed and went through some construction barriers, and as we made our way through that section I saw a couple of young kids riding the bikes behind us, and one of them was doing a wheelie while he rode up the hill. As he came up to us I signaled to Lin-Wei to get out of the way, but she went the wrong way, and this little punk rode a wheelie right into my wife! She said, "Hey, I was trying to move out of the way!" And he said, in a high voice, "Na naa nah na nah nah nah!" Oh, it was oooooon now.

They road up ahead of us, but the road got steeper and steeper, so eventually they were forced to get off their bikes and walk them up the hill. So there was two young dudes pushing their bikes uphill, followed closely by two battle-hardened travelers from Chicago (wearing large backpacks). For 5 minutes we trailed them, until we got to a convenience store. They glanced behind at us as they dropped their bikes in front of the store and headed in. We were caught up at that point, and somehow, and I'm not exactly sure how it happened, the kid who hit my wife was rebounding off my elbow and into the wall of the store. That was satisfying. And they went into the store, and we found the street to our hotel, and that was that.

We had a nice hotel in Iraklion, but no matter now nice your hotel is, there is the small trash can. Curse that small trash can!

We got wrangled into a place for lunch, but I was able to find a good pasta dish. Next, we saw about getting a bus to Knossos.

Knossos -- Κνοσοσ

 
Some of the rework at Knossos
I'd have to say that we were most excited about seeing Knossos. Lin-Wei had known about it since she was a kid. It is the birthplace of Western civilization, and was about 5000 years old. Mythology says that this was the palace of King Minos, and the location of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur.

Our bus was PACKED with school kids, and they stank. It was quite unpleasant. It was to be a theme for the afternoon.

Sir Aurther Evans rediscovered the Knossos site in the 19th century, and he took it upon himself to restore it to how he thought it would be. Historians have since found fault with most of the restoration work he had done, and so did we. It really looked kinda fake. While it was neat to see the palace painted and see how artwork was placed, it just was disappointing to see history abused.

 
Curse you, Evans!
Lin-Wei had looked forward to this more than any other part of the trip, and she was extremely disappointed. We cursed Sir Aurther Evans as we left, and got some dinner and walked around the city at night. It was quite lively.