Day 5 - with a little help from my friends

so today starts the first day of Heather and Chris's Greek vacation.  I have put a lot of time into making sure that we hit all the hotspots.  But not so much the touristy hotspots, the places that JW and I love the most.  I slept in a little while everyone ate breakfast at the Santa Marina, and packed up all of our stuff and said goodbye to Agios Nicholas, which Heather and Chris saw very little of.  We did drive through the center of town to see the little lake, and waterfront, as we headed out to the Plaka where we would catch a boat for Spinalonga.  As on our previous trip here, the old boat captains made us wait around before going over, even though they were supposed to leave by 9, I think it was much later than that, which of course when you're on my schedule, starts shaving time off of it.  The other problem was because we were no longer going to be the first boat across, other boats were arriving while we waited, dropping off hoards of stupid tourists, filling all the empty spaces with their stupidness.  We did finally make it across and headed straight to the top before winding our way down and around.  It's a magical place, but much less so when so full of people.

We had a snack, being very late now, and headed out on the next boat to Plaka, where we hopped in the car and said goodbye to Eastern Crete.  From here we headed West, where we discovered a new road from Heraklion to the southern side of the island, and it was a very fast one, cutting our travel time by a lot, and making up all the time we lost at Spinalonga.  We sped past Phaestos, so that we could get to Matala for a later lunch.  We picked a place in the shade that over looked the entire beach, with the Caves in the distance.  It was the first meal for C&H and disappointedly no free desert or Raki shots after the meal.  what a bummer dude.

We hopped back in the Prius to the short ride back to Phaestos, one of my favorite places.  The sun was shining down as we wove around the ancient site.  JW and i took a rest in the shade while C&H explored.  Apparently C dropped his glasses in a hole and had to ask permission from a site guide to go get them.  In the distance, we heard live Rembetika music, and a cool breeze started to blow making it a lovely late afternoon.

From here it was an hour or so northwest to our final destination of the day, Rethymnon, and the Faors Beach Hotel was waiting for us.  The nice young manager was not there but he left and envelope with my hame and our keys on the front desk.  Everyone chilled out before heading out for dinner at one of our new favorites Raki Ba Raki.  We finally got our free deserts and Raki shots and everyone rejoiced.  Day 5/1 in the books for the gang of four.