What a beautiful morning! We ate breakfast on the 12 floor of the Garden Deck. The temperature was perfect with the sun high in the sky. We had arrived on the Island of Crete around 7:00 with passengers leaving the ship at 8:00. The town, Iraklion, has magnificent old castle walls that have been left from Venetian times around 1204 AD. The Turks conquered the area in the late 1500s. Crete formally became a part of Greece in 1913.
During breakfast we spotted the Venetian Fort, Koules sitting right beside the harbor. We also saw a tall mountain behind the city with snow capped peaks. We were told that the highest peaks will
After breakfast we disembarked the ship and got onto a shuttle bus that took us to the passport center. We ran into our Jade ship friends, Bjorg and Karin, from Sweden by accident on the bus. They asked what we were doing for the day. We had planned on finding another city bus for a tour of the city. They wanted to go to Knossos, the Minoan palace and Europe's oldest civilizatio; so we decided to join them. We purchased two bus tickets for a round trip ride for 4 Euros. Knossos was a 12 mile ride to the outside of the city so we still got to enjoy a trip through the city.
Upon arriving at Konosso we bought two tickets (12 Euros) to enter. We found that it was one of the oldest known civilizations on earth, known to be settled by humans as far back as 6500BC (Neolithic and Bronze Age). Early Minoans settled the area around 2500BC. Basically we were looking at two palaces used for a combination of ceremonial center and royal administrative head quarters. We saw lots of stones stacked on top of each other with numerous rooms formed, sometimes layered with several floors.
Stairs and hollowed out stones, huge vases and some art work that were copies from that time were seen (originals were in the museum). It appeared to be in disrepair due to age, volcanic eruptions, and an earthquake. How interesting to be in such an ancient area!
After riding the bus back to Iraklion, Larry and I departed from our Swedish friends who returned to the ship for a late lunch. We found WIFI at a local store and started to send emails and update our blog. While doing this Larry made friends with a taxi cab driver and the store owner. What a lively conversation we had about traveling the world. He even offered Larry and I a sample of his friend's homemade wine. We ended having pictures taken together and the store owner put it on his computer as his screen saver. Amazing how Larry makes friends wherever he goes.
We found our way back to the Passport Building and returned back to the ship on the shuttle. What another great day! Good friends, good conversations, good times and a new experience in a new part of the world for us! We enjoyed being with our new aquaintances from Sweden and those who we just met in Greece.
The evening ended with dinner in the Alizar Restaurant and seeing an acrabatic/juggling act from Moscow. After this terrific day we slept soundly to the gentle rocking of the ship.
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