Did I ever tell you about our HONEYMOON?

We did go to Crete – Greece’s biggest island – and stayed at the very small village Almirida, between Hania and Rethimno, which at that time only had about 75 permanent inhabitants. Perfect for a honeymoon hide out, we thought. With a hotel just at the beach and a perfect room with a wonderful seaview, we planned to just move between our bed to the beach and back again – at least for the first week.

We should have known that it wasn’t that easy when we’re involved. To begin with the weather turned (yes, remember that weather curse I have?) very windy so there were that red flag at the beach all the time, so we didn’t dare to go swimming. One man were actually almost drowned there one morning, because he defied the red flag. However, it was still wonderful sunny weather and nice to just be outside dipping our toes in the water. We were on our honeymoon, so we were so happy!

We are explorers, both of us, so of course we couldn’t be still for long. We had planned to rent a car and drive around seightseeing, now we did that a little bit earlier than planned – and for a longer time. We choosed an open Jeep, to be just a little cool for once in our lifes…. *lol* Oh, boy was that a wonderful experience to drive around with the hair blowing in the wind and still not be cold at all… Ahhh… We drove around like scalded troll’s (a swedish expression) over the whole island. At least it felt like that and we loved it, to be able to see so much more than just the beaches. Meet the genuine people out in the countryside.

Crete is an island full of breathtaking high mountains with some fantastic gorges (Samaria 18 km), the highest mountain is 2.456 m above sea level. So it was like a roller coaster all the time, up up up and around and then down down down and around…. Everywhere we went it took a little bit longer time to drive there than we had counted on, because of the mountains slowing down the pace.

As I’ve wrote once before: The only problem was that both of us are afraid of heights, so I always arrived to the goal covered in sweat after the horrifying but beautiful drive and Mr Lifecruiser got nightmares about heights every night. He was shaking and kicking his legs and saying things like: “No, don’t go there, don’t go forward to the edge.. and then he started kicking obviously falling over the edge or at least close to doing it. (Or was it me that he was kicking over the edge? Hm…)

One time when we were on about 1400 m height and turned around a mountain – the very strong wind took a grip in our Jeep’s top – a tarpaulin of some sort – and we seriously thought that it would take us “Jeepdiving” down in the valley… He had to step on it real hard to get more speed to avoid it… Pheeeew! The Crete people themselves have a more aggressive driving style, they have no fear of the heights, full gas and just honk before every turn and I guess that will work as long as there isn’t a tourist on the other side that don’t know of this code!

Come to think of the Crete people’s driving… They were very calm and peaceful people when you met them, but as soon as they entered their cars the devil seemed to appear – full gas and quite reckless driving, scaring the shit out of us many times! No wonder they had put out small memory stands everywhere beside the roads to remember their lost ones that had accidents there. And there were full of them. No surprise, because on top of that there could suddenly step out or lay cri-cri goats in the middle of the roads…

After a while you kind of adjusted to their way of driving, because you had to follow the stream a little to not be in the way all the time. One way (which didn’t have any traffic) to another very nice village Georgioupoli that took us 35 minute to drive in the beginning on curve roads, took bearly 20 minutes in the end. That’s when I called Mr Lifecruiser for “Rally Harry”…

We really loved Georgioupoli, if we ever go back, we may end up staying there. They had a little more to offer when it come to pleasures. The beaches were slightly better too, we actually could go swimming there. More restaurants and bars, but not too crowded. We had one crazy dancing maniac evening there. No one was dancing before we came. We kind of set the grounds there and the staff were very happy to see the upbeat of the place, so they even gave us free drinks. Not that we had time to drink so much, we were high on Love and dancing…

One of the days we were on the south side of Crete, we found another beatiful beach with no tourists and the sun were about to set, so we couldn’t resist the temptation to stay until sunset. The sunset were so much larger than back home in Sweden so we had quite a romantic moment there…. The sunset went much faster than we expected and we had forgotten how dark it gets at once, in Sweden in the summer it never really gets dark. So we had to drive home in total darkness on unknown (not the same way we came) narrow high mountain roads… We didn’t go fast I tell you, because there were no lights at the roads and no houses either!!!! Quite an adventure, we thought that we would be stuck up in the mountains and never see some civilization again. I begun to think: what about if the Jeep broke down up there? I had only a mini skirt and top, with flip-flops – how practical and nice wouldn’t that be up in the mountain in the night…? No flashlight in the car either, but then I remembered the cellphone – we could have used it as light and phoned the traveller agent. When driving by the first house we spotted, we were attacked by very angry dogs…. One were almost up in the jeep. Pheeew.

The Cretan diet is something I’m holding very dearly to my heart, of course since I’m the hungry monster. I can be very picky sometimes, but I loved the Greek food and the olives – say no more! Souvlaki, Moussaka, Saganaki and Tzatziki especially – I’m really starting to drool here – and their way of giving us the bill. They did bring us their speciality greek youghurt with honey (tasted very good) and Raki (their local alcohol, more like gas on the house every time we should pay. And you had to taste the Raki and toast with the host, otherwise you were unpolite. It was quite a balance to keep there, because if you drank it all and looked too happy, they were quickly there with another one!

There was one day when Mr Lifecruiser did have to go without my kisses for very long because his lips were no honeymoon lips exactly! (Eating Kalamaria)

That was the day we drove to Crete’s most beautiful beach on the southeast side, Elafonisi beach, even called the Maldives of of Crete or the pink beach because of the pink color in the sand from the coral reef. Greece have wonderful clear water in the sea and at this beach it was amazingly cristal clear! There was the small islet creating a lagoon with turquoise water. I think it’s probably the most georgoius I’ve ever seen. Like a tropical island I imagine. Fine, white sand and perfectly shallow, not to much, not to little. Just perfect. No waves at all that day either. There are another beautiful beach, but on the northeast, Falassarna, with the same clear calm water and it was there a little lively (hungry!) fish took a tiny bit of my heel… I had a wound there from the shoes and I guess he liked the blood taste, because he kept attacking me. I must be very delicious… *lol*

Of course we also visited The famous Palace of Knossos – you can’t go to Crete and not visit Knossos – it would be like going to Paris without visiting The Eiffeltower! The numerous finds from the palace are all of exceptionally high quality art, pottery, vessels, figurines and wall-paintings which are all housed in Herakleion Museum. It’s connected with thrilling legends like the myth of the Labyrinth with the Minotaur and the story of Daidalos and Ikaros. But be prepared to have a lot of time to walk around, because it’s a lot to take in. (Virtual tour of Knossos)

Even the hotel staff were wonderful to us. The cleaning ladys were every day doing figures with the bed cover or the new towels, a flower, fish etc. They were so concerned over the fact that we only slept in one half of the bed – until they heard that we were on a honeymoon and wanted to lay that close to each other. As a matter of fact, we still does… We left them a nice message with some greek words we found in the dictionary and some good tip. They shouted and waved to us from the balcony the last day. They were so sweet.

To summarize all this: Crete is an amazing island with unbelievable scenery, amusements and interesting things to explore. I can totally understand why so many keep coming back. We will some day too – on a second honeymoon!

Click to see Lifecruisers photos from Crete. (And then click on the text “View as slideshow” up in the right corner of that window, to get the best viewing)

Lifecruiser ♥ Crete