Driving to the Eastern Tip of Crete

by timistravels on January 21, 2013

12/20/12

We had a great day on our first full day on Crete. Decided to explore the old town of Chania. It was a dizzily day and a bit wet, but we had fun exploring. After walking around the streets, we ended up the Municipal Market, which dates back to 1913. It is in the shape of a + sign with 4 rows, each row kind of had a theme, but not totally. There were a lot of different stores inside, but we ended up only buying some spices and tea from stores AND eating lunch at a great little family owned restaurant.

My salad was a traditional cabbage, carrot salad, with a vinegar /oil / sugar dressing. Harry had 2 different dishes, both chicken with many different seasonings on them. Both stew like!

We then drove to the NW tip of the island. It was amazing how few people or cars we saw. It was almost scary that there was NO ONE else out there. We went through Kissamos and returned by driving back through a mountain pass toward Chania.

Crete is about 160 miles long and 37 miles wide at it’s widest. However, the roads are not just straight and easy to drive on, to going 160 miles would take a LONG time. It is about 100 miles S or mainland Greece and is the biggest island in Greece. What surprised us most were the mountains. I don’t think either of us expected such high mountains on this island. The highest are the Idi Range at 8058 feet, the White Mountains at 8045 feet, then the Dikti Mountains over 7000 feet. The valleys these mountains create are amazing.