Allan Rogers
Opens a Crete package and meets some island hoppers.

Crete - 
The Great Island.

One of my happiest memories of Crete is of standing on a country road waiting for a bus. 
The sun was still warm on my back and the first glimmerings of the moon were appearing above the mountains as I heard the singing of a young goatherd  drift down through the trees. 

Earlier in the day we had strolled down to at the little beach at Bali and it had been well worth the hike from the main highway.  

The water was beautifully warm and as I watched the fish 
I  paddled backwards and almost tripped over a girl drifting on a pea green lilo                                    

 She was one of four nurses who were ‘island hopping.’  
This is very practical.  Flights are readily available and there’s an express bus from Athens Airport to the port at Piraeus where the ferries run to the islands of the Ionian. 

Rooms are easy to find and cheap and you get good bargains if you steer away from the more touristy places.   As to food,  join the Greeks who seem to eat out at the tavernas most of the time. The boat trip down to Crete takes about twelve hours . 

There are showers and a restaurant on board plus a bar that’s open all night. If you travel ‘Deck Class,’  you’ll  met lots of people. The advantage of this kind of holiday is that you can stay a lot longer for your money and you are free to move on or stay according to how much you are enjoying yourself.

It’s quite different to the package holiday in the rather grand hotel to which we had been ‘up graded.’  We found it all very plush but just a bit stiff and formal and  although we had fun in the pool in the evenings we slipped out to the two star hotel across the road where folk really were enjoying themselves. 

There the merriment continued long after the ‘Greek night’ with it’s traditional dances and  plate smashing had finished. 

We met Denise a Belgian girl who had just married a local man. The service was not at all the sober affair of our northern climes. Children screamed and ran around and people joked with each other. All the time they had laughed and made fun with the bride and groom.  

Most of the vows taken were the same as ours except the bride will have to obey her husband, unless she manages to stand on his feet of during a certain vow.

 If she does, she becomes the boss in the household.  Denise didn’t manage to do it, her knowledge of the Greek language wasn’t that good and her friends were too busy kissing her sister in law to warn her in time.

 “So know,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “my husband is the master in the home. He thinks!” “Every marriage you go to every one is waiting for that moment. it’s really nice”                                                                                                           
You very quickly realise that the Greeks are very outgoing people with a genuine welcome for strangers. 

The great thing about Crete is that it offers so much, and when it comes to exploring, it has more sight seeing to offer than any other Greek Island  I know. It’s 173 mile long and snow  lies for much of the year on the peaks of massive mountains, in Spring they provide  an impressive  back drop for meadows full of flowers.                                                                                                                               
The ruins a Knossos are a top attraction and tourists come by the coach load to visit what is reputed in Greek Mythology to be the Palace of King Minos. With a bit of imagination you can picture the Minotaur charging around in the Labyrinth. There is certainly much to see and it’s worth a visit. There are many organised tours but you can save money by hopping on a No2  local bus in Iráklion. It will have you at Knossos in twenty minutes.                                                                                            

If you have six hours to spare and your feeling energetic, you can tackle the walk through the Samaria Gorge. At eleven miles in length it’s the longest ravine in Europe. For the more laid back there must be approaching 100 beaches to choose from along the 636 mile coastline.                                                                                                                      

If you are keen on taking picture opportunities abound.  
Crete in addition to being lush and green, was also very warm.

 Across the valley I watched sheep and goats being rounding up and as the animals got closer  I found that they were being led home by a middle aged Greek couple riding donkeys.   

As to herding up the holidaymakers at the end of the allotted span, that of course is done on a bus that always seems to pick you up long before you are due to take off. When the doors opened I had no doubt that I was boarding the right one for Glasgow, we were almost bowled over by a chorus of
 ‘Ye canny shove yer granny aff a bus.’ 

The singing was going full blast. We were returning bronzed and happy.

FACT FILE