Chania day 1

We arrived on Crete last night, flying in to Chania with Ryanair. After check-in at our gorgeous hotel it was time to head out for something to eat and begin to find our bearings in the town I have wonderful memories of from visits to Crete back in the 90s. We found a lovely restaurant close to base and really enjoyed our first taste of wonderful Greek food at really reasonable prices. The rest of the night was spent strolling around the harbour, finishing with drinks on the waterfront.

We weren't up in time for hotel breakfast, but found a lovely spot for omelettes close to home before exploring some more and stumbling on fantastic little streets and beautiful hidden corners around the old town. This was just one of many shots taken as we wandered. In the old Blip days I would have linked to some others as well, but I'm writing this after the event and it will become clear later on why more effort wasn't on the cards. Suffice to say that what we experienced today actually exceeded my memory of this place.

After a siesta and some time spent on our little balcony we went directly across the road to what seemed to be a very popular restaurant someone shoe-horned into an open space in the streetscape and beautifully laid out imaginatively lit at night time. The food wasn't as good as last night, even though it cost more. We decided not to go back there.

The wonderfully helpful guy on reception recommended that we try one of the streets that runs parallel to ours, so we took his advice and we're glad we did.  Gorgeous pastries set us up for  further exploration of the other end of the harbour from last night, the posh end this time, where posh yachts showed themselves off. It's a great spot, though, and we really enjoyed a few pit stops there.  We decided to re-visit our nearby street where we got the pastries. Little did we know that a friendly 'hello' to two guys at the table next to ours would result in great chat and far too many drinks with a couple of Norwegians. We'd begun to feel earlier that time was flying by, but that was nothing compared to this session which went on until 4:30 am or so.

Verdict on Chania so far? Amazing.  Wonderful, Terrific. Smashing.