As we were driving, my eagle eye spotted a famous brown sign, for a minoan site to the right, and since this day was about adventure, we took it. There, nestled in an olive grove was the ancient site of Vasiliki. There was no literature, and few signs, so we wandered around, took some pictures, and left.
When we arrived in Ierapetra, it was immediately noticably warmer, like easily 10 degrees from the north coast. This is one of the reasons the area has a ton of greenhouses everywhere, and a lot of the food eaten on the island is grown here. We drove down to the beach, and took a walk along the promenade. The hotels were gorgeously old, like 50s and 60s style hotels, but the promenade itself was head-to-toe covered in gift shops. we walked, too far, and made it to the old Venetian castle that dominates the beachside, but alas, that bitch was closed. So we made the rather hot walk back to our car, and headed out.
From here, it was a short jaunt to Myrtos, site of the infamous 2k17 where the hell is Pyrtos??? debacle, where we tried to find it, drove down a road to find it, but could not. But this time, we had time to search, and we would not be denied. First off, this time, it was WORSE! like, stupid worse. we drove down the same road we'd gone down before, but continued on dirt roads, past greenhouses and scary people, and piles of rotting vegetables, only to come out on the road we'd driven in on. We actually did this twice. It was not looking good. We discovered there were painted dots on trees and walls that seemed to be markers for something, so we were following blue dots to Myrtos, we were going down dumb gravel roads that lead to dead ends, and it was a huge mess. Finally we stopped a little hotel on the highway, and a kind Greek lady told me, she saw us drive past, both times, and new instantly that we must be lost and looking for Myrtos. That was when the revelation hit us. We had been driving past it the entire time. The sign to Myrtos on the road was not point down the gravel road, but rather the hill next to it. Myrtos, was up the bloody hill. I thanked the lady profusely and we head back to the road for a third time, but this time, parked the car and went out on the road where the sign was and realized, there was a gate, and a rock staircase that lead up. So up we went, 800 feet or so, there at the top of the hill, was another sign stating, this was Myrtos, but of course you could never see that sign from the highway. JW was feeling a little peaked, so up I went and explored the top, gazing at walls that were built eons ago. The view of the Lybian Sea was also quite breathtaking.
After Myrtos, and all that adventure we'd had, it wasn't even noon, we headed up into the mountains looking for the super secret back entrance into the Lassithi Plateau. This was a place we'd been to back 2013, our first trip to Greece, but this day was about adventure, and well basically exploring our future home. The drive was very pretty, we had some amazing views of giant boulders, and huge mountains with olive trees covering them all over. We even found a soccer stadium built into the side of mountain, but regrettably did not take a picture. Eventually we found a sign for Lassithi that must be the way, and drove into a tiny city at the base of mountain, where the signs vanished, and we were thwarted. So we wound around the southern side, and made our way, some 40 miles out of the way to enter the plateau the normal way. it was quite beautiful and we stopped a little taverna for a wonderful lunch.
From there we still had some time to kill, so I suggested going to back to AgNik and seeing the Cretan Olive Oil Farm, which was something I really wanted to do. It was still open when we arrived and tour was amazing, to see how olive oil was made in the old days. We also bought some lovely gifts and tasty olives for ourselves.
From there we decided to go on to Heraklion, where we would be picking up Heather and Chris from the airport at Midnight. We had a few frantic texts from them regarding airport problems, so we really hopped that they would make it ok.
We got in the car and head to Heraklion and parked down by the waterfront. We then walked down to our home away from home, the restaurant Kastella, where we had spend some wonderful evenings with our new friend Kostas, when the ferries had been canceled in 2017. We had a wonderful meal, caught up with our old friend, and told him we were picking up our friends at Midnight, and would be back in town on Thursday evening for another dinner. He was delighted to see us and made a super funny joke when JW ordered chicken and he brought out a rubber chicken on a plate. I was not drinking, so he made me a super good coffee and as it grew later, we said goodbye for now and headed to the airport.
What happened instead, was that i got super lost, took the wrong road, and wounding up nowhere that i knew, it was a total nightmare, and our friends would be arriving soon, jetlagged and ready to get to their hotel, and here i was lost in the dark of a place, that i really knew very little about. Eventually with enough backtracking, we got to the airport, and their plane had not yet arrived, JW went inside to greet them and out they came! They had some pretty hair raising stories, which can read about on Heather's blog (http://strength-serenity-wisdom.blogspot.com/)
We all hopped in the Prius, and headed back to AgNik, we got there in good time, and it was close to 1 when everyone was sent off to bed. I had a late start the next day on purpose so everyone could get a little sleep.
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