Greece 2025, Day 1 & 2

As the first day was mostly traveling to our first lodging in Greece, I am combining the first two days of the trip together.

The first day was mostly traveling. We flew from JFK to Athens then Athens to Crete. I did catch my first glimpse of Greece as we were descending towards Athens.

Once we arrived in Crete we still had an hour long drive to our first lodging, Casa Miastra Residence. Located across the street from part of the old Venetian port, this place is surrounded by restaurants and shops. I’m not sure that I would ever like to stay here in peak season but I doubt I would survive the heat anyways.

We had enough time to rest for a bit then drag ourselves up for some dinner.

There were some slight misunderstandings on our part as to what some items were and how much we were getting. We ended up with too much food.

It said Arabian pie. It looks like a gyro.

After dinner we went back to the apartment and passed out.

When we recovered the next day, we headed out to the Palace at Knossos. One of our main reasons for coming to Crete, this is the palace that, supposedly, figures into the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. Even though the initial excavations were done in the late 1800’s, many of the early interpretations have either been proven wrong or to have insufficient evidence to validate their naming. The main British archaeologist made his best guesses as to the functions of certain areas, then worked to “restore” some areas using concrete. While this did, somewhat, help to preserve areas it did, also, permanently alter the site. Many of the most recognizable images of the site are parts of the restoration work. If it looks colorful it’s modern.

Many parts of the site do not weather well. This was the reason for much of the recreation.

For lunch we head a short distance away to Elia and Diosmos – Olive Mint where we had another great meal.

Complimentary dessert heavy on pistachio items. Still not sure what it is.

After lunch, we hit up one of my big wishes on the trip. We went to an olive oil producer for a tasting!

We probably should have asked before we started but they brought enough food for a lunch so that we could try all of the different things you can use olive oil with. This was almost a second lunch that none of us had the space for.

Olive oil with portions of honey, grape syrup, and salt with oregano flowers.

Multiple cheeses, fruit, veggies, figs in honey, grapes.

The olive oil had a wonderful buttery flavor! I liked the oregano flowers and salt mix the best but the grape syrup and olive oil went fantastic with the goat cheese.

The name of the farm is Kleanthi Olive Farm, http://www.kleanthievoo.com. Needless to say we all got some olive oil here.

After our tasting we headed back to our lodging in the town of Rethimno (I’ve seen 3 spellings of the town so this is my best guess) to take a walk around the old town.