{"id":2776,"date":"2011-10-18T10:44:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T10:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2776"},"modified":"2012-04-26T11:21:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T11:21:52","slug":"brief-stay-in-hania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2776","title":{"rendered":"Brief Stay In Hania"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Helen and Antonia at entrance to Diktaion Andron cave<\/p><\/div>\n

Suffering unbelievable fatigue, how wonderful it was to finally lay down in my bed, however,\u00a0my sleep was erratic … of course, it can take many days for the body clock to adjust after such a lengthy journey.\u00a0 Never mind the beds in Greece –\u00a0nearly always as hard as nails, they have always been like this … I do miss the comfort of my own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Saturday around 1430 hours I ventured out to make the short walk to\u00a0a Supermarket nearby.\u00a0 To my surprise, the temperature was 32 degrees C – exactly what I ordered!\u00a0 Alas, it was not to last … by 1630 hours when Antonia and I left the house to go and watch her grandson Constantinos playing soccer, the temperature had dropped to 19 degrees C and\u00a0heavy rain had arrived.\u00a0 Rain – oh my God, you cannot imagine what a deluge it was but surprisingly, the boys played on, only to lose 2-0.\u00a0 We stayed and watched in amazement from the relative comfort of a covered stand,\u00a0as they tried to move the ball around on a field completely covered with water.\u00a0 With Antonia’s daughter Mary, other son Billy and a vocal crowd of supporters drinking Raki\u00a0and eating chestnuts – only in Greece can one experience such an atmosphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My plans had been to leave for Kastelli on Sunday, however, Antonia asked me to join her on an ekthromi (trip) to the Lassithi Plateau in eastern Crete.\u00a0 At 0720 hours on Sunday, undeterred by the rain,\u00a0Antonia’s husband Vasilies\u00a0took us to await our bus – a few people\u00a0had opted out, however, those remaining were to experience a great day.\u00a0\u00a0Listening\u00a0to and singing along to music as we made our way east past Rethymno and Iraklion.\u00a0 Joke telling and mantinades … the Cretan mantinada is a rhyming couplet in Cretan dialect.\u00a0 Each mantinada is complete in itself in spite of its short length, like a limerick.\u00a0 The mantinada is the unique way in which young and old in Crete can express their many and varied emotions:\u00a0 sorrow, joy, hope, desire, love, anger, revenge, nostalgia.<\/p>\n

After a morning coffee stop along the way, we reached the\u00a0Lassithi Plateau in sunshine.\u00a0 A large scenic plain located 70 kilometres from Iraklion and at an average altitude of 840 metres.\u00a0 Famous for some 10,000 white sailed windmills used for decades to irrigate the land, most abandoned nowadays in favour of modern diesel and electrical pumps.\u00a0 Also famous for the Diktaion Andron cave which according to Greek Mythology was the birthplace of Zeus.\u00a0 Alas, the cave was closed due to another strike.\u00a0 Nevertheless,\u00a0some of us\u00a0made the 20 minute walk up to the cave entrance\u00a0and back\u00a0down.\u00a0 Following a round trip of the Plateau, our bus stopped at a Taverna for lunch.\u00a0 Sharing an outside\u00a0table with others and ordering\u00a0our plates of food and wine\u00a0the Greek way – verbally, not from reading a menu … surrounded by\u00a0serious tourists,\u00a0partaking of\u00a0for example, a Greek\u00a0Salad with a cappuccino – very strange!\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the clouds fast\u00a0rolling in, we boarded our bus for the descent and return journey, stopping once to visit a Monastery and later for our afternoon caffeine fix … back to Hania in darkness and rain.\u00a0 Our itinerary was to have included a side trip to the small hillside village of Fodele, reputedly the birthplace of the\u00a0Renaissance artist El Greco, however, weather conditions being such, we did not go there.<\/p>\n

In spite of Greece’s dire economic situation, Greek spirit prevails … very evident at the soccer game and again on our bus trip.<\/p>\n

Telephoned Costas that evening who was to inform me of the All Blacks win 20-6 against the Wallabies – fantastico!\u00a0 I\u00a0have every confidence in our boys winning the Cup next weekend in the final against France.\u00a0 GO THE BLACKS!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suffering unbelievable fatigue, how wonderful it was to finally lay down in my bed, however,\u00a0my sleep was erratic … of course, it can take many days for the body clock to adjust after such a lengthy journey.\u00a0 Never mind the beds in Greece –\u00a0nearly always as hard as nails, they have always been like this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2776"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3189,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions\/3189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}