We docked at Souda Point at about 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday for our day in Chania Crete. Crete is Greece’s largest island. Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits (such as its own poetry and music). It was once the center of the Minoan civilization (c. 2700–1420 BC), which is the earliest known civilization in Europe. Chania is the second largest city in Crete. It has an old town, which borders the harbor, and a new city that is home to about 60,000 Cretans and looks like any typical city. The old town and harbor are the tourist areas and the most popular sight is what is called the Venetian lighthouse.
Before we left the ship, however, we had to deal with a problem related to our hotel in Athens. We are staying in Athens from October 13-18. Our daughter Eve will also be arriving from London on October 13 to join us. We had originally booked her a room but had to do it in two different blocks. During our travels, the hotel apparently tried to validate our credit card and so we were receiving emails and messages from booking.com and from Amex fraud unit. Christine talked with Amex and had emailed the hotel to try and clear things up, which we thought we had. But then a notification arrived saying that one of Eve’s bookings had been canceled due to credit card failure. Naturally, we went kind of berserk. I called the hotel and talked with the reservations department. Fortunately, the woman I talked with spoke good English and I think I got things sorted out. But we continue to be somewhat nervous about the whole thing hoping that Eve has a room reservation when we arrive.
After all that, we then left the ship to go into Chania. I had been looking forward to visiting Chania because I had seen some information on how quaint and beautiful it was around the Venetian Harbor. Our shuttle bus from the ship just dumped us all out a few blocks from the harbor and none of us had much idea how to get anywhere. We all had maps, but we had to ask the bus driver where we were on the map. And we certainly needed to know that in order to find our way back when we wanted to return to the ship.
Once oriented, off we went. Chania wasn’t really anything like what I thought it would be. I don’t really know why I thought it would be something other than a tourist shopping haven. The first place we stopped in was a very large market. It was booth a collection of souvenir stalls, but it also was a meat, produce, and all-purpose market where locals shopped. It was a pretty big market. We walked around the market for a bit and then headed out to find the harbor.
The harbor is surrounded by eateries and so as you stroll along, every taverna, café and restaurant tried to entice you in with their menu and a guy motioning you in. That kind of got tiresome. But the harbor is pretty and its claim to fame is the breakwater and lighthouse originally built by the Venetians in the late 16th century. The Venetians controlled Crete and so they fortified their holdings, like the harbor of Chania, to keep out invaders like the Turks. In the middle of the breakwater is the bastion of St. Nicholas that was once a barracks. Another noteworthy set of buildings along the harbor front is the remains of what the Venetians called “neoria.” Venice located their navy in Chania and had to construct dockyards. They build arsenal-type buildings in which they repaired and maintained their ships. There is one set of these neorias remaining. It seems as though Chania is late in the game of preserving their historical landmarks as there really isn’t too much still standing, or at least hasn’t been preserved and protected.
One building on the harbor front that still stands, but needs renovation is a mosque, which is an example of Islamic art of the Renaissance. The mosque was constructed during the second half of the 17th century.
Crete was also controlled by the Byzantines, and there remains some of the walls built by the Byzantines when they fortified the city during their reign in the 4th-9th century.
After we walked about halfway around the harbor, we were ready to find someplace to eat, but we didn’t really know what we wanted to eat. A full meal wasn’t appealing, so we decided to walk back to the market and get cheese pies that we had seen earlier. That’s what we did, and we sat in the market across from the butcher eating our cheese pies and drinking a coke.
After that, we made our way back to the shuttle bus and then back to the ship. We enjoyed the remainder of the day on the ship.