The Internet caf� in the harbour of Chania from which we cleaned up the last blog post! Location, location, location!

The Venetian lighthouse in Rethymnon, Crete�s second largest city about 100 km west of where we are staying; we managed to breeze into the harbour area just as a local TV station was filming traditional music and dance, but it was hard to get decent photos with other camera crews everywhere and cranky directors stopping the action every few minutes.

An alleged seat for Minoan royal butts - 1900 to 1400 BC, we re now into Canada Day, which we spent by going early to the archeological site at Knossos which is reached by catching two local buses, having lunch in the central market in Iraklion - quite the experience, followed by a rare afternoon of veging out by the pool. The local Canadian based tour company put on cocktails for Canada day in the evening. We are easily the smallest group here but we had a nice time.

One of the reconstructions at Knossos - very controversial as they are thought to be largely based on Sir Arthur Evans� imagination than much hard archeological science.

The view from a caf� where we had breakfast in Agios Nicholaos (St Nicholas) during a bus tour of Eastern Crete on Sunday. The body of water in the foreground is actually Voulismeni lake, a fresh water lake that drains into the harbour and is alleged by the locals to be bottomless and connected by tunnels the volcano in Santorini to the North (it actually an artesian spring about 80m deep, but the other story sounds better).

Malcolm comtemplating future boat purchases overlooking the marina in Agios Nicholaos

The famous clear waters of the Cretan Sea!

From Agios Nicholaos, we took a boat ride to Kolikithia, where there is a small beach, unbelievably clear water and good snorkeling - we finally used the gear we had carted all the way from Canada

After a beachside bbq, we moved up to the coast to Spinalonga Island, a Byzantine, then Venetian, then Ottoman fort that finished its career as Europe�s last leper colony. The boat then took us back on the western side of the Kolothikia peninsula to Elounda, a picturesque town surrounded by very up market hotels, and a very long bus ride home as we were the only ones on the tour staying in hotels west of the Iraklion, whereas the bus had to meander around endless small roads in Eastern Crete playing chicken with other buses and drivers dropping off every body else on the bus at their hotels, before an uninterrupted 40 minute last drive to our hotel - total road time 2.5 hours!

We are now waiting in the hotel lobby at 8 a.m. for the bus to take us to the ferry to our next stop, Santorini (refer opening scenes of "Lara Croft - The Cradle of Life") a 2 hour trip!

copyright 2006 Malcolm Ogborn