a long day

so we woke up and went to the history museum, which we missed the first time in Heraklion.  It was amazing.  all the ancient sites that we'd been to on the island sent their treasures here, so the Phaestos Disc and the Knossos Bull, are all on display.  they have the mseum layed iu chronologically, so you can actaul see things from 4300 years ago and the evolution on a civilitaion.  at one point the pottery and beads turned to axes and swords, and it was no suprise that shortly after that, the civilzation known as the minoans was no more.  we spend two hours reading evry little thing we could about the history of civilization on the island, but then we had to go, checked out of our new favorite hotel who got our laudry done yesterday in two hours yipeee, and headed out to Malia, where the last Palace that we hadn't seen the first time.  it was fairly large site, but some of it was closed.  still, immpressive.  in a building next ti the site, it was filled with pictures of the first digs back in 1911 and a map of what the aite looked like, airial photos and a recreation of what it might have looked like.  as we walked across stone paths that have stoos there for over 3000 years, it gave us a real feeling of history that one simply cannot find in America.

after leaving Malia, we had 4 hours to kill, and since we were so close, we tries to visit Gournia again, which we just barely missed the last time in Crete.  but alas when we arrived, the aite was closed.  boo for 3 o'clock closing times.  we should have gone there first!  coming back from Gournia, we stopped iff in Agios Nicholas, where we had stayed the first time we came to Greece.  ah, memories.

now we had an hour to kill, so we stopped off at the Creteaquarium, which was on the way to the airport.  for 9 euro each we wandered through the exibits thinking, wow, these guys need help.  it was aweful and in fact some of it was great, but there wasn't a lot of variety, some of the really big fish were in tiny cages, and some of the exhibits were empty.  hey, Greece is having financial problems, i get ut, but the aquarium was a sad place, and i hope they can fix that.

after that we waved goodbye to Crete and flew to the island of Rhodes.  it was dark as we drove down to the main city to look for our hotel.  the whole town is a series of one way streets, with no street signs and needless to say i got lost and turned around and we were driving in painful circles for a while.  eventually we asked directions and found it, though our room was tiny and the guy at the front desk was kinda not helpful at all.  oh well, we're in rhodes so who cares.  tommorrow a new adventure!