hania harbor

We took the bus to Hania on Wednesday. across the street from the bus stop, we noticed a kitten who'd been locked inside the taverna the taverna the night before. she looked quite pleased with her place on the table sitting in the warm sun!

THE BUS RIDE! this is an experience of a life-time.... and i always go with the devout hope that i will come back in the same condition in which i left. the public buses are actually quite substantial Mercedes Benz and look like tour buses.. but then there are the roads which are narrow, windy, many hairpin turns, and on-coming traffic includes huge cement trucks and construction trucks, cars which are no real threat to the bus as they move as far off the side of the road as they can. did i say that Vamos is high up in the rugged foothills of the White Mountains. where i was sitting on the bus i could see the driver in a mirror. after i saw him talking on his cell phone with one hand and navigating with the other, i tried really hard to not look in that direction again! we got there safely ( didn't need to reach for the Depends)! and enjoyed going thru the huge market which covers at least a 1 block area. there's lots of stuff to please tourists and Judy bought a few things for her grandkids. one aisle of the market is devoted to fresh fish and cases of meat (and carcasses of lamb, rabbits, chickens which you can buy whole or have the butcher custom cut for you). there are also fresh fruit and veggie stands and a few places to sit down and order food and drink. and even in Oct. there are still quite a few tourists milling about. outside of the market and down the street, are some narrow streets/alleys with many little shops selling lots and lots of leather goods (sandals, belts, purses etc), jewelry, table linens, more touristy crap. esp. at the jewelry shops there are very aggressive sales people. i've learned not to stop and browse there or i'll have someone trying really hard to sell me something!!

from there we went on to the harbor, a very interesting place... tavernas, g

lass bottom boats going out for an hour for 10euros (we didn't). we sat at a table on the sidewalk and had wine and eggplant salad and watched the world go by for awhile. there was an old man standing at the edge of water throwing out his fishing line over and over. finally something got the big piece of bait off his hook and he gave up and left.

during the Venetian times in Crete, they built a huge wall around the city to keep their enemies out. parts of the ruins of the wall remain out in the water and around the "old tow

n" parts of Hania.

it's a facsinating city, full of traffic and honking of horns, lots of people and busy-ness. i'm convinced that driving in Greece requires attitude and lots of it.... you gotta get out there with attitude all revved up... no place for the timid!

the bus ride home was quite nice... instead of going straight down the highway, the route went up into the hills and thru several small villages, winding around til we got back to

Vamos.

last night we went to the Greek Cooking class. i'll put up photos next time i have a connection.

you can check out the temperature here in western Crete in the right column above the links.