Day 8 - Chania, I love you

late start, no worries, got up and wandered around old town again, even discovered a few places I hadn't seen before.

JW was not feeling well, so I loaded C&H up into the Prius and took them to Balos.  The road was exactly as I'd remembered it, but instead of being the first ones there, we were in a line of cars already on the way.  C&H were in awe of my driving skills, and we stopped a few times to take pictures of the view.  Once we arrived at the parking lot, we marched down the trail to the viewing area and got in a ton of pictures.

We then hiked back to the car and drove past the line of cars on their way up, and got out on the highway to Chania.  We found JW waiting for us and we went to Kouzina EPE, our FAV!!!!, for lunch.

After lunch we crawled back into the car and headed to the Cretan War Cemetary, a monument to the foreign soldieres who died defending the island during WWI and WWII.  It was very awe inspiring for sure.

From there we headed north to go see the famous bear cave, which our friend George told us about the last time we were here.  It was beyond a few monestaries, the first of which was closed.  So we hiked down this long trail, stone steps, on the north coast of the Souda penisula.  we rounded the corner and there was the bear cave, complete with a tiny chapel inside.

We then hiked back up the trail to the car and drove a short distance to the Agia Triada Monestary, which is known for being a cat sanctuary, which it both is, and is not, because apparently the locals all drop off their unwanted kittens on the door steps, and the people in charge have no choice but to take car of them.  They do a pretty bad job of that, there were literally cats everywhere, and they were mostly sickly and gross, and fighting with each other.  We took a tour of the monestary itself and it was quite beautiful.

Then an amazing thing happened as we were leaving, somehow, chris told the guy taking tickets that he was from Kansas, and he stood up, his eyes lit up, and he said, his daughter lived in Colby, and as long as he had been at this church, a person from Kansas had never visited it before.  Well, it was on after, that, he left the front door unguarded, and gave us his own personal tour of the monestary, including swinging the giant chandaleer in the main church, singing song gregorian chants, and helping us to his personal stash of almond cookies and homemade Raki.  It really was one of those things.

We drove back to the hotel, and C & JW and I took a walk while H freshened up.  When we got back to the hotel, our old friend George had finally arrived to work, and we had a wonderful reunion.  It was at this point he recommended a place to eat nearby.  We walked down to the harbor to catch the most amazing sunset, before heading to Chrystophamos for dinner, and it was worth the wait!

After a wonderful dinner, C & I had discovered this amazing Belgian Beer hall close to the hotel, run by a wonderful man named Rudi from Sweden, and we had drinks until the cows came home.