THE Adventure - Crete

THE Adventure began at Vilseck train station. If you've visited me, you have most likely been to this very simple train station. At this point, it was hard to imagine the places that were ahead of us, and that in 16 days we would be back at the exact same spot having visited the countries that make up the cradle of life on this planet.

Since there are so many pictures, and I don't have uber amounts of time, this will ACTUALLY be mainly pictures. (yes I know you're breathing a sigh of relief)

Here is us, with no idea of what adventures await.

We took a train to Nuernberg --> Munich --> Munich airport, and then flew directly to Chania. We were the only ones on our flight that didn't get off and get onto a tour bus, other than another German family, so we shared a cab into town.

Our goal for Crete was to experience Greek culture and hike the Samaria Gorge, so our first day we got up bright and early, and made the incredibly sicky drive up to the top of the gorge.

View from the top

The fearless travelers!

The hike ended up being Matt's favorite hike, ever. It was all down-hill through beautiful landscape and quite a pleasant temperature somewhere just below room temperature. The bottom was also filled with these purple/pink desert flower.

The flowers that filled the gorge's ravine

View of the bottom

We got to the bottom before everyone else and ate this interesting-looking hot-dog (it's INSIDE the roll, there is no slice in the roll).

This hot-dog is special

When we got to the town at the bottom of the gorge we were met by the most incredibly blue sea that we have ever seen. Matt said that he felt that if he dipped a white shirt into the water it would come out blue.

After admiring the view and asking casually for the bus stop (for which we had bought tickets), we found out there WAS no bus, only boats, and the next one was in 6 hours. In the midst of our despair, a girl came up to us (she looked like she could have been Ilse's--bridesmaid--sister) and suggested we and two other boys hire a boat taxi. As we waited for the overly-expensive-yet-perfectly-timed taxi we found out they were Dutch military, hence the semblance to Ilse, who is also Dutch! What a fun group of people they were.

Shot of me in front of the south coast of Crete

Matt being his always handsome self

The first couple minutes were fine, but then the waves hit. Though it was a beautiful day, the wind was strong and in a direction such that each crest would launch us high only to slam into the next crest. My new Dutch friend later claimed she was going to have back problems from it. I didn't mind that part, but for the second part, the wind had kicked up the ocean spray as well, so we all just got completely soaked and could hardly see the coast for the brine. But all in all, it was an incredible experience that we reminisced about the rest of the trip.

View right outside our hotel

Downtown Chania - watch out for the restaurant hosts, they're so aggressive they'll step right in front of you to get your attention whilst saying "Please look at the menu I am SURE I have what you want"

Other side of downtown Chania

From Chania we took a bus to Heraklion. I didn't feel good from the bus so when we got to the hotel I let Matt go check out the palace of Knossos on his own. He said he would definitely not recommend it, especially not after experiencing Petra, Jordan later in the trip.

Some cool pots from Knossos

Next issue, Santorini!