day 7 trying to beat the rain

so we were told that it was going to rain our last 2 days in Crete, and I really wanted to go up into the mountains and see the Ideon Andron cave on the Nada Plateau.  I had no desire to do this while it was pouring down rain, so we moved everything from our Wednesday plans to Tuesday, said goodbye the Chania and the lovely Porto Veneziano, and headed out on the national road, past our eventually stopping point, Rethymnon, and south, up into the highlands of central Crete.  We got to Anogia, and found the road up to the plateau, and found that there was a group of old men biking up the road.  we were shocked at their ages, this was a serious road, very high in the mountains of Crete, and they were chugging along.  when we reached the top, there were actually 2 bikers already heading down.  when we reached the plateau, we were in awe!  it was a tiny thing, but gorgeous from up high, and the mountains had snow on them, it was quite beautiful.  we wound our way around the edge, and finally got to the trail that lead up to the cave, get passed by a douche in a jeep.  as we headed up the tiny dirt road, another group of douches in jeeps were coming down.  we got to the top and jeep douches were already there, when i thought we might have the place to ourselves.  but alas, the site was closed, and everybody was jumping the fence to get in, so we did as well and found out that the entrance to the cave was closed because of a giant snow drift covering the entrance.  if you saw the size of the entrance, you would understand, this was an enormous snow drift.  i was afraid to even touch it, but did get a few few good pictures.

we said goodbye, and headed down the hill, eventually passing the bikers who had a bus and truck waiting for them to take them down the hill.  from there we stopped off in Anogia, at a very cute taverna on the cities edge, where the owner treated us like family and i had some amazing grilled lamb chops, fresh from a dead lamb.

we headed down the hill and eventually made our way over to Eleftherna, which was a dorian site in the valley between two hills.  the entire site was enormous, and we had to get up and go to walk around the whole thing, but did manage to see the giant tower perched on the hilltop, the cisterns dug into the cliffs, a tunnel that was dug into the cliff, and at the bottom of the hill, a cemetery where they wouldn't let us take pictures, but was very interesting none-the-less.  we were in awe of the entire site, it really was a site to see, and we'll probably come back again on our next trip to see all the things we missed.

from Eleftherna we made our way back to Rethymnon, and our hotel Faros Beach.  we had been here before on our last trip, but arrived at Midnight and left at 8 am the next day, barely time to explore the city.  so we checked in and headed into town.  what we found was actually quite amazing, it was set up like old town Chania, but with much more residence.  and all of the residence had these amazing doors.  you'll have to wait for pictures to see, but there were very cool.  we stopped a few places and eventually wound up at our evening supper, Raki Ba Raki, suggested by the owner of Faros, where i tried some local snails, and amazing wine and then some porkbelly and amazing bread.  we wandered around the town for a while after that and finally called it a night.  we were very impressed with the town, and can't wait to come back.