Time of year: May
Weather Mid to low 20s (Celsius baby!)
Getting to Chania from the airport
There are a couple of options for getting from the airport to the city centre, either a 23 euro taxi or a 2.30 euro local bus run by ktel. The cheap bastard I am, I opted for the bus. Tickets can be bought online, but I got it from the little kiosk by the bus stop which took card payments.
Night 0 - Chania
Accommodation: Cocoon Hostel, 4 Nights
Hostels may not have the best connotations with everyone, and if you’ve stayed in one in the UK they tend to have an old school building vibe to them and generally not pleasant places to be, let alone stay the night in.
However if a country has a varied tourist base then you’re more likely to get some hostels with all the modcons, Cocoon Hostel is one of those. Contemporary communal areas are great for chatting, working (lots of people remote working) or eating. The dorm room had some sturdy bunk beds that didn’t shake when the other person was occupying the other bunk, overall it's a hostel done well, even a wall of suggestions for things to do in the local area which are always useful especially if you haven't done your research before turning up.
My dorm was opposite the pool and quite close to the communal areas but I can't say that was a problem, there was a chill vibe and people were respecting the noise levels after hours.
Shamefully, I went for dinner at a local asian fusion restaurant on my first night in Crete called BaoTao, having a chicken salad and chicken bao, and damn was that a good bao. It was crisped up on the outside with some hint of mango sauce in the middle, top 10 bao for sure.
Day 1 - Chania
Over the last few months I’ve become a fan of greek yoghurt, and being in Greece they’re literally selling it by the bucket load and this has become an easy go to breakfast for hostel life, throwing in some cereal for some crunchy texture. I did still manage to get a second breakfast at Bougatsa Iordanis, trying out a traditional Cretan dish called bougatsa for 3 euros, which was flaky pastry with goat's cheese. Optionally topped with sugar to cut through some of the sour tanginess. It's a good job I'm not lactose intolerant with all the dairy I'm getting through.
After that it was a matter of getting my bearings and taking advice from the suggestion wall. I started off by heading to the old town and soaking up the general vibe of the place. Turns out pretty viby, I love a maze of alleyways only wide enough for two people side by side and loads of small shops and restaurants.
Later on in the day I took a long walk to the Venizelos Graves via the Tampakariá area and watched the sunset in a local cafe called Koukouvaya with chocolate cake and beer, shit, after spending the last two years in joggers lounging about the house, it's good to be back at it. The view was excellent and the array of desserts they had on offer were amazing, slight order regret when it came, it was great, but chocolate cake can only be so good. They had a ton on their menu, and looking around at the other tables I saw maybe I should have been more adventurous.
Day 2 - Samaria Gorge
An early start to meet the coach to the start of the Samaria Gorge at 6:20 am. I ended up signing up for this hike through the hostel costing 45 euros, 30 for coach pickup and return to hostel, 10 for ferry at the end of the gorge, 5 for national park entrance. The hike is 17km long and the advantage of this hike was that it's basically all downhill, so as long as your knees are in fine working order you'll be ok. The guide said it'll take between 6 and 8 hours, but I can be a speedy bastard and did it in 4.
I was wearing some trail running shoes which worked well but there were some sketchy moments nearly rolling my ankle. It was pretty rocky, some gravel areas and brief moments of climbing over rocks. You end up switching across the river a lot, sometimes there's a bridge or ladder type thing, but mostly rock hopping adding a Takeshi's Castle jeopardy when you get a wobbly one.
Scenery wise, right at the beginning you get an up close and personal view of the nearby peaks. Judging from the trail maps it's possible to go up there and then come down into the gorge.
The first part of the hike is going down switch backs descending down into the gorge. This is mostly between the tall trees and pretty peaceful once you've overtaken all the slow pokes.
It's not until the halfway point that things start getting impressive, the gorge sides grow tall and narrow. You can't help but look up and see the patterns etched into the surface by time. Until the moment you have to look at the ground again so you don't faceplant.
I thoroughly enjoyed all the river crossings, none were difficult but I like that if you mess up and trip you're taking a dunk into the shallow river.
By the end the gorge opens up into wide ridges and the sea emerges with the quaint town of Agia Roumeli. Potentially you could choose to stay here, it's a pretty small town with a small beach area but has a ton of restaurants and a couple super markets. But the majority of people grab a bite to eat and then jump on the ferry at 5:30 to head back to more populated areas.
Day 3 - Chania
More meandering around the wider area of Chania, and through the old town again.
Went in search of a bakery to try Cretan Cheese Pies (Kaltsounia), this should have been an easy task but somehow, despite a bakery on most corners I got lost in the old town and every bakery I came across wasn’t selling what I was looking for. Eventually I went to the bakery right by my hostel and had initially walked past but discounted. It had what I thought I was looking for and the lady behind the counter gave it to me for free, and simply asked for me to come again. Such gestures have been frequent in my stay in Crete, simply things that would be highly unlikely to happen back home.
I've set myself a rough goal of running once a week or ideally in every town I stay in. Strada has a great feature of heatmaps to see where all the trails and routes are. When the cooler temperatures of the evening rolled around, I decided to go on a run to Agii Apostoli beach west of Chania to see the sunset, this was mostly along the coast and diverted onto a proper trail. Trail running turned out to be hard, I had to slow down, my brain couldn't keep up with where to put my feet so I could dance between the jagged rocks. Over the last six months running came bounding back into my life and that's become part of my routine. Its great to be running in new places and a long beaches and coasts, allowing me to briefly imagine myself as one of those hot home and away characters (* insert more up to date reference :/ *) living their outwardly perceived perfect life on the coast.
Post run I went back to the old town during the night to see it all lit up, slight regret I didn't venture there on a previous evening to grab dinner. It might be the touristy area but with the vast winding alleys you can find an out of the way restaurant to soak up the atmosphere.
Day 4 - Heraklion
Accommodation: So Young Hostel, 3 Nights
Moving on from Chania I jumped on a midday bus from Chania to Heraklion, a fair old trek taking 2ish hours. Before setting off I kept my promise to the bakery and returned for snacks to take with me on the journey, trying another one of the sweet cheesy pie cake things and an equivalent of a Greggs chicken bake. Although I couldn't eat any of it on the coach, they were pretty hot on anyone thinking about putting anything in their mouth.
After pulling into Heraklion and finding the hostel without any problems, I parked my crap at the hostel, shrugged my shoulders and fell back onto moseying around the city trying to get lay of the land. Heraklion is a pretty built up place and on first impressions seemed to have less architectural character than Chania. After wandering around the main thing that caught my attention was the wall surrounding the inner centre which you could walk up and have a view across the sea and city. I tried to memorise how I got there so I could potentially include it in a running route the next day.
Day 5 - Heraklion
Culture! History! These are things that any self respecting traveller should immerse themselves in? One of the main things near to Heraklion is the Knossos Palace, which are the ruins of the ancient settlement of the Minoan civilization from 3500 BC. For some reason I decided to walk there from the hostel (about 5km) so that way I could see the surrounding areas and maybe it would be a nice walk. Great plans, but it was basically walking next to a main road and a very long street filled with cafes, like so many cafes. I don't understand how all of them can economically exist together, seemingly they all had a few punters at their tables.
On arriving at the palace I decided to go for the combo ticket for 20 euros which included access to the Archaeological Museum in the city centre.
The main takeaways upon going around the palace were
- Get the audio guide because reading those plaques are boring as fuck
- A lot of the interpretations of the areas are based on Arthur Evans who began the excavation, but the dude also decided to do some restoration by painting in some frescos, probs not the best idea anyones ever had
Honestly, maybe I'm thick, I wasn't particularly grasping the history of the place. I may have been lacking the required concentration to read through all the plaques and resorted to looking at some out of context assembled rocks.
Not sounding very enthusiastic so far, but I had a combo ticket for the archaeological museum that has a lot of the relics uncovered at the site, which I went to later that day.
The museum thankfully provided a much needed history lesson and context at exactly what I was looking at early in the day. Out of the two this was more up my street, but ultimately my lack of knowledge and potentially interest in the subject was a bit lost on me. Sort of got heavy feet halfway through the exhibit and decided to speed through the remaining areas. Lessons of the day; I need to do some homework before going to the next historical site and go in with some knowledge to appreciate what I'm seeing more. There's probably a podcast for that.
On getting back to the hostel I finally got social and spoke with a few people from the dorm, and then decided to fit in another sunset run around Heraklion, managed to remember my way back to the outer wall and ran along that, then coming to the port to run to the “lighthouse”. I got to the fort and turned a corner to discover how far the breakwall went, having just run 5km I'd inadvertently committed myself to run 5 more.
Beers and food were required after that, going out with Kai from the dorm and going off a recommendation to go to Bitirinis Fish Street Food, a stall selling seafood gyro. Chefs kiss, it was delicious and easy on the pocket. Spent the evening on the hostel rooftop bar, and most people had done the palace that day, and the lack of attention I’d paid showed, I’d missed the part where the genesis of the minotaur myth; where the palace represents the maze and something about someone fucked a bull.
Day 6 - Heraklion
On Sundays a lot of things are closed, and had a late start which I took as a sign that I shouldn't go for a hike up a random hill and do what Sundays are for chilling and eating. Got recommended to try bougatsa again at a local place called Kirkor, which had a pretty nice spot in the plaza facing an ornate water fountain, this place offered a sweet cream and cinnamon version which was tempting enough that I went back later for seconds.
The culinary tour continued as I took a lap of the old town and poked my head into a bakery to get some more cheese adjacent pastries, names allude me, but walk into any Cretan bakery and you're likely to find the same items, the cheese and spinach pie is a particular recommendation that is thrown around, tasting pretty good.
After consuming the amount of diary required to bring a calf to adult hood, I went back to the old town. I think on my first day I was a bit sniffy about Heraklion, it was unfair, it may lack a heritage quarter of Chania. But if you walk through the winding streets you stumble on a variety of street art and architecture, I was most drawn to colourful but slightly run down buildings.
With my camera in hand I went to the lighthouse again, at walking pace this time. Whether running or at walking pace it's quite the distance. The benefit this time was having my gear with me and being able to take in the scene more and find things that tickle that photography itch.
The culinary tour ended with gyros, after being introduced to them the previous evening, I was ready for some more. Gyros is a meat with salad, chips, sauce and wrapped in a pita, and damn is it tasty.
That's all he wrote, no massive nights out, that's my thing on the blue moon. Next stop Santorini…