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Crete 1980 Let us briefly go back in time to the beginning of the 80's a time I remember very little about being not quite 4. One of the few memories I have are of travelling to Crete. I have recollections of looking for sharks from the plane and pointing at frothy waves on the sea far below and exclaiming each one to be a shark, I also remember giant watermelons, a mountain shaped vaguely like a person lying down (I recall being dubious about this one at that age), getting a plastic bumble bee with removable stripy dungarees,losing my red Snoopy hat down a ravine and making my Dad go and get it, thinking another lady was my Mum as they were wearing the same skirt and most memorable was getting chicken pox on day two of the holiday. 2005 And time moves forward and I am here again. Bloke and myself arrive at the convivial time of 1am in Herculanum airport to meet with our purveyour of hire cars who is ging to escort us from the East side of the Island to the West. Very kind. Alas, not so. Our lead driver, who did not speak any English got his friend to translate the fact that he had no petrol and was abandoning us before our journey had even begun. General gesticulation suggested just driving West and the B&B would be easy to find. Ok, no problem um, actually BIG problem! Once we got driving we noticed that not only had our guide not got petrol but he had , infact, not given us much either. On quarter of a tank of fuel we were expected to drive across the Island. This lack of fuel shouldn't really be a problem but Crete doesn't work the same way as here and all petrol stations close at night. Every single one we passed was c.l.o.s.e.d. (however, to cut a boring story short there was one open where the petrol pump attendant was just hanging about outside a closed petrol station filling tanks and pocketing the money). Also, as we were about to turn off to head to the B&B our man arrives screaming through the night in his tiny 4x4 and we get to follow him round the Death Drop corners of single track windy roads, through tiny narrow laned hamlets (with no road signs pointing anywhere) and eventually turned off down a track with an Octopus sign at the top. We eventually arrive outside a lovely terraced house in the midle of nowhere and Stavros starts honking his car horn as loudly as possible at approximately 4am. Nice one. As it turned out the folks at the Green Terrace were quite ok with being woken at that time and first impressions of the place were that it was rather lovely but at that time of the morning I wasn't really interested in anything other than bed. However, here are the detail and facts about the Green Terrace. It is owned by David and Cathy who used to run Cavanaghs vegetarian catering company. They have two rooms available but at the time that we went they had been so inundated with requests and were both working full time that they were only taking in one lot of people at a time and had to take down their website. Rooms are en-suite with a bath and a shower, there is a terrace going all the way around the house to sit out on and eat breakfasts and dinner on and ,importantly, there is a kettle and free reign of the soya milk for necessary cups of tea. Day one was a strange day as really it started when we landed, then we drove, then slept and the day started all over again. If memory serves me correctly it was mainly spent scouting out the local area and the conclusion was that all coastal roads lead to Naval bases. We did our usual checking out supermarkets and restaurants to get an idea of what to expect. The choices were as expected which were Greek food or All Day English Breakfasts. Dinner Menu Beetroot risotto with apple, cucumber and lime salsa While we were there breakfast consisted of melon, choice of cereal, freshly squeezed orange juice, tea or coffee and a vegan fry up. So big plates of luciously ripe fried tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans and toast were plated up most mornings as really how can you resist a fry up when its on offer? |
