A Long Day, Filled with Life

This is a really long description of the day because we did so much. It's written more as my diary than as a Blip description so feel free to skip it! The short version is we drove across the island to Paleochora today. It was a great day and we did a lot! Finished there with a swim (extra) before driving home.
OK, that's the short version - here is the longer one...
The way we drove across Crete it's about 70 km on small winding roads but we looked at so many things on the way over we didn't get to Paleochora until 6 in the evening!
We stopped for supermarket shopping (olives to take back with us), then on to Topolia. Here we saw a bakery and stopped, outside we met an English couple living nearby and chatted for a while. They assured us it was the best bakers in this part of the island and judging by the bread and bits we bought there they could well have been correct.
Just outside the village was a viewpoint into Topalia Gorge. We may return there tomorrow for a walk! (We did!)
On through a tunnel and shortly after we parked and walked up to the Cave of the Wisdom of God. There are two ways up. The first involves an ascent of many steps, the second is just as you enter Katsomatado and is a much more pleasant walk along a shaded path back to the cave,  The cave itself is impressive as a chamber, is also a chapel, and contains a lot of pigeons continually cooing, flapping around, and pooing! I found it a lovely place, quiet and cool, and I can imagine a service here could be very moving.
On from there we took a detour to Millia, apparently an ecological village resurrected from earlier desertion with the help of EU money. It has won a prize for being the best project of its type. Unfortunately once we got there we found zero information on the place so I can’t tell you more about the village or the project! However, the drive there was a truly spectacular 4,5 kms, the last part on a narrow gravel road with fantastic views across the valleys to high mountains.
Once there it was extremely quiet apart from the always present humming of bees and the occasional bleating of a goat. We ate our picnic lunch nearby and then returned to the village for a coffee, which was delicious. The food others were eating looked equally delicious! As we sat there, totally relaxed and contemplative, we realised the afternoon was later than we thought. After a little discussion we decided to carry on with our plan and around 6 o’clock we arrived in Paleochora. The sea was cooling to swim in but warm enough to stay in as long as you wanted. We swam for a while, showered away the salt water on the beach and got dressed.  We took a walk across town, paused to eat a huge ice-cream and then set off back home, this time using the main road. Just after dark we got back to the hotel, tired but very satisfied with our day.