Today we wanted to cover a lot of ground and check out some of the more famous beaches in Western Crete. One was on the South shore of the island, one was near the Northwest end of the island and the last one was pretty close to us. We also planned a trip to a microbrewery as we figured we would need some sustenance after all of the beaches.
We did laundry last night, being American we usually try to pick a place with both a washer and a dryer. This campground didn’t have a dryer, and their washer was dicey looking. We talked to the son of the owner, and he said it worked, but we would be the first customers to use it this year. As we were speaking an Austrian woman came up and asked about the washer also, but decided to let us go first to see if our clothes survived the ordeal. The bottom line is they did, though the spin cycle was the loudest noise I have ever heard a washing machine make. But because we were the first customers of the year, they did not charge us the €5 they usually charge for washes. The Austrian came over and inspected our clothes before deciding to get a load done also. We left François surrounded by our clothes when we departed.
Because our plans included a lot of mountain driving on what was described as extremely twisty and narrow roads we decided to give François a break and rented a car. I was hoping for something small, but we ended up with a Peugeot 301 which is a midsize car about the size of a Camry.
Our first stop of the day was Elafonisi Beach which is famous for its pink sands and remoteness on the south coast of the island. When I programmed Greta with the coordinates for the beach she said it was 70 kilometers (about 45 miles), but it would take 1 hour and 50 minutes. She was right. Crete has a very mountainous spine, in fact the mountains right behind Chania are still snow covered. The North side of the island has a small coastal plane, and is where almost all of the population lives. The mountains go right to the sea in several places on the south coast. The south coast is so rugged that there is no road that goes all the way around the island.
For about the first half of the trip I thought François could handle this road, but as we got closer to the top I was very glad that we were in a car. The drive was almost fun in the much lighter and responsive Peugeot, though there were a couple of tight passes in some villages.
Elafonisi beach was beautiful. The beach surrounds a shallow lagoon. There are two sections of the beach the first is accessible from the shore. The other part requires a short wade through calf deep water to get to it. Most people take off their shoes, and role up their pants and head over.
We walked around the beach and watched the beginning kite boarders try to control their kites, and mostly fail in the high winds. We also looked for pink sand but except for a very small section at the waters edge failed to find any.
It was time to head to Balos Beach. The drive back over the mountains was just as fun as the drive in, it was the same road. Going back we saw a lot of goats and sheep. Ton is a sucker for critters so we had to stop and get some pictures.
Balos Beach is located on the Northwest end of the island and was about 65 km’s from Elafonisi Beach. The drive was about one and a half hours, the highlight was squeezing thru a passage in the village of Balos which was about 6 inches wider than the Peugeot. This passage was a two way street by the way. No pictures as Ton was holding her breath both ways.
We ended up missing Balos Beach. When I signed the rental agreement the only caution I got from the agent was that my insurance was not valid on dirt or gravel roads, so please do not drive on them. When we were 8km’s from Balos Beach the road turned into gravel. I pulled over and broke the news to Ton. Where the gravel road began was quite pretty in itself so Ton shrugged and got out and took a bunch of pictures. While she was doing that about 10 cars went by either going or coming on the gravel road and they were all obviously rentals. I was tempted to go on down the road, but in the end we didn’t.
By now we were ready for a meal as it was about 2:30 so we headed to Charma Brewery. We had sampled their lager in a couple of restaurants in Chania and really liked it. When we got there it was a modern brewery in a very small village in the foothills of the mountains.
We are finally learning about Greek food. This time instead of ordering a salad and individual meals, we only ordered one meal and split it. It was still a lot of food because in this care the salad was immense. We sampled five beers before ordering one each. They were all very good and representative of the style. The food also was delicious, and we fell in love with the cheese on our salad called Myzithra which is a white cheese that the Cretans use in place of feta. We will definitely be buying some before we leave Crete.
We both like the movie Zorba the Greek. There is a famous scene where Zorba played by Anthony Quinn tries to teach Alan Bates to dance like a Greek. The beach that the scene takes place on is near Chania so we ended our day by heading there. The beach is not that spectacular by Cretan standards, but it is important to tourism in Greece. Zorba the Greek is often credited with putting Greece on the map for American tourists, and it is still very much on the map today as most of the voices we heard at Zorbas Beach were American.
Today is good Friday for the Greek Orthodox Church. They are on a different calender than the western Christian churches so this year their Easter is one week later than ours. As I have been typing this I have been listening to the good Friday mass at a church near our campground.