We returned to Chania today to explore more of this beautiful city. Ton mentioned that it was pretty, but the Mediterranean Sea is blessed with many pretty port cities. But for me Chania has a special place in my heart.
We began by visiting the Synagogue in the old Venetian part of town. We were very lucky because we happened to stumble in to a talk by a visiting Greek Jewish graduate student who was speaking on the Greek Jewish experience. We learned a lot and he was an interesting speaker and quite a character too. At one point there were 12,000 Jews on Crete under the Ottoman Empire, but after the Greeks took over the number had dwindled down to about 250, almost all of whom lived in the Jewish quarter in Chania. Unfortunately for them the Germans occupied Crete during WWII and in 1944 they rounded them all up one night and put them on a ship to the mainland. As the ship was transiting to the mainland it was sunk by a British submarine that did not know what the ship was transporting. The interior of the synagogue was gutted by the Germans and for many years it lay more or less abandoned. At one time it was used as a chicken coop. In 1999 it was restored as a synagogue, though the local Jewish population is quite small and mostly made up of expats from other countries who came to Crete for various reasons. At the end of the talk the young man told us he really needed a cigarette and a coffee now as he had a raging hangover, which was quite amusing and honest.
Ton wanted to get some photos of places she shot yesterday but was not happy with. We ambled around the waterfront for an hour and a half or so people watching and taking photos here and there.
Ton was really fascinated with how clear and green the water was. She kept stoping and taking another picture of the water because she loved the turquoise color of it.
We had picked out a restaurant we wanted to try today, but were tempted by a couple of other restaurants. But after some discussion we decided to go to the one we had selected last night. This one featured food cooked in clay pots. Once again Greek food was delicious. The only problem with Greek food is it is generally quite hardy, and the portions are enormous. The problem for us is that as we look at the menu we see several things we want to try and order too much. Our breakfast this morning consisted of nothing but leftovers from our various meals over the last few days.
We tried to make up for the overeating by walking to the town and back the last two days. Hopefully the 7 miles we walked on the roundtrip off set some of the calories from our big lunches.