Jun. 28, 11
Yesterday's breakfast: sour cherry juice (actually sweet), cherries, toast w/ honey, egg. The receptionist was v. helpful & gave us directions AND maps AND recommendations of places to go. And tickets! Because you need tickets prior to boarding the bus.
They are sold in mini-vending machines next to the bus stops. Needless to say, because we arrived via taxi, we have not braved public transport and so had not bought bus tickets, so it was def. a good thing that the hostel sold them at the front desk. Also, at this point I had no change (bank and ATM machines only give you bills) and the machines take coins.
So, after packing our lunch (wheat bread sandwich, with cheese and ham that claimed to be "toast", in English, on the packaging, along w/ these v. addictive cookie sticks) we set off for Knossos.
The bus station (route 7) was ~2min away by walking and the bus came within 30min. While waiting, Annie gave me some brief background on the Minoans (linear form A writing, pre-, old, new, & post-palatial periods, excavator by the name of Evans).
Ah yes, the benefit of traveling to ancient ruins with a friend who's an archeology grad students.
We successfully navigted our way to the Astoria Capsis station (transit center-ish place in downtown Iraklio), where due to a slight bit of misunderstanding we were confused about the types of tickets we should purchase (types divided into colors, and asking "τι χρομα εναι κνοσσοσ" -- "what color is Knossos" -- didn't seem to cut it) but luckily things worked out and we arrived @ the Minoan Palace (route 2) along with massive amounts of tourists.
We spent 10 euros on a duo ticket that gave us entrance to both the archaeological site and the archeology museum in Iraklio and spent the entire morning clambering over ruins from ~1700 BC (most of it from the New-Palatial period), which even the oceans of tour groups clogging every corner could not diminish the coolness of. (Have also been warned by Annie that Venice is apparently much worse -- the city gets "swarmed" by tourists descending from cruises during the day.) We had lunch onsite beneath an apricot tree, next to an Italian family who entertained us w/ their little boy's antics (and later parental assistance) to obtain fruit (I should also mention at this pt. that the mixture of nationalities was also v. cool, despite of my complaint about tourist groups -- though we did run into a bride -- white dress & everything -- rest of wedding party not seen -- who was either Russian or Polish or Ukrainian -- I can't tell the languages apart by sound -- and that was a bit weird.)
After lunch we ventured to the tourist kiosks lining the sides of the entrance, which contained some of the most sexually explicit souvenirs I've ever seen. (Annie was amused by them; I think she'll be getting something of that nature for her mother.) We then navigated our way back to Iraklio, where we figured out where to get off mostly by following our fellow tourists. A brief re-orientation with the map later, we arrived, one block away from our station, at the archeology museum, the contents of which, even though a bit sparse compared to the scale of the museums I'm used to, went perfectly with our morning ramble to Knossos. Because it was a fairly small museum, we were able to finish rather sooner than expected, and so had the time to follow the adjacent street down to the coast where we encountered the Venetian Arches (though we didn't know what they were while we walked under them) as well as the Venetian Fort Koulos (where we were lightly sprinkled with sea water), which was unfortunately closed. Following the advises of fellow tourists ("fellow" in the sense of them also being tourists -- they were from York, UK), we proceeded to the St. Pedros monastery. We then went to the Crete Historical Museum, which had more floors and interesting things than we expected for such a compact looking place (in terms of museum layout I would say it's better than the archeological museum) and as a result we had to rush our tours so we can go through the place before it closed at five.
Dinner was at Liontaria Square, which our receptionist recommended for "Greek watching" but was, in fact, an event better site for "tourist watching". We split a moussaka and a thing of mushroom grilled with honey-mint vinaigrette and cheese (which squeaked when you bit down on it and was strange -- I gave the rest of mine to Annie) and I was introduced to the "Mediterranean attitude", where when I signaled for the bill at the end of our meal & the waiter made motions for me to wait. We were kept for MUCH longer than I expected before we started back for the hostel, where we showered and I drew and Annie knitted while we listened to music until it was late enough to sleep.
I mentioned to Annie that I'll note this experiment. My conclusions so far are that, for me at least, adjusting my circadian rhythm to an earlier time is easier than adjusting it to a later time.
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