Another 545am wake up, for another historical adventure!! This time we are venturing to the prehistoric city of , which was occupied 4000 years ago. 4000 YEARS! It pre dates the mythological Greek gods, and as such, many stores come from this island, the island of Crete. Only myself, Troy, Monica, and Liz are going on this excursion so we are all have a big (and vey early) breakfast together. We are picked up by a coach and our tour guid and get a quick drive around the capital before venturing into the country side. We immediately notice that there is no "old town" like the other places we have docked do. We are old that this is because it was entirely boomed in WWII. Very sad. The only thing that remains is massive fortification walls and ship houses from the Venetian occupation in the 15th century. As such, is not the prettiest place to visit as its the terrible 60-80s buildings. But, the county side is the most fertile we have seen so far, instead of rocks and shrubs, there are actually trees! Not the most tropical of sorts, but trees no the less. The palace we visit is from the Minoin people (only called this because of the famous king that became a legend in Greek mythology). They are the only other advanced people of the period, they traded with the Egyptians! The palace is enormous, completely marbled, it was 5 stories high, with over 1000 rooms!! Set in a valley surrounded by mountains, they are the only civilization ever to have no history of war or weaponry. Maybe because they were the only populous currently existing in Europe, they're entire existence was pretty such peaceful. They also had an amazingly developed pip system that supplied fresh water to the palace and town, and carried away dirty water and wast. To put this into context, 50 years ago in the same area, you had to walk to the spring to get fresh water. They didn't have adequate pipes. Think about that. They paintings in the palace are breathtaking, Egyptian looking at first glance (naturally) they women are always white and the men are painted red. The queens room is painted with dolphins and flowers:) and torus bulls are a common theme thought the corridors, being their religious mascot. I now need to talk about the labyrinth and the minator. 2000 years ago in Greece, the ancient gods existed for worship and stories, but obviously have some truth buried away in them somewhere. This palace is where the labyrinth myth was born. The true history is that king mintos had an amazing athlete for a son. The most predigest game that they competed in at the palace was literally jumping over a charging bull, horns to tails. Very dangerous. The prince would go all over Greece to compete with all athlete that he found. Unfortunately he came to where modern Athens is now, and started to compete with the natives their. He was so good that they became jealous and killed him for it. Upon hearing this news, the king marched to Athens and decorated that until the end of time, 7 boys and 7 girls, shall compete in the palace bull games. Obviously killing most of them because it was a sport only known and played on Crete. Besides being the only slight conflict the people experience it also became this legend within mythology: Zeus stole a princes of Venice and took her to the island of Crete, together that had a son and he became king. He then went onto have three sons, one of them being king Minos. Once the farther died, the three brothers waited for a sign from the gods about who should rule. Presidon sent out a white bull to minos, indicating he shall rule. Minos kept the bull instead of sacrificing it however, so was cursed by Persidon to have his wife birth a monster of a bull headed beast. The king Minos kept the minator in a labyrinth and would send children captured from Athens in to fed him. Isn't to so amazing to understand the truth behind the myth! They came up with the name minator through king Minos, and their sacred sign, the torus. Leaving the palace, we stand upon the oldest road in Europe. It's a solid stone path that runs from the palace store rooms all the way to the port. Lined by trees it's surreal to stand upon and look down to the sea. I still just can't grasp the age of the place, makes me crave to visit Egypt! If the earthquake had not destroyed all they had developed, all historians agree that we would be thousands of years more developed. Women nearly equal in the society, competing alongside men in the bull games even, their tools were more developed that those of the Romans 2000 years later, and they had better pluming than some counties have today. It's so sad that it was all lost but just amazing to visit. We leave to get back on the cruise before it leaves for the next port, and have a little lay down and chill out before heading to santorinni that afternoon. We get a little tugboat off the ship to the island and get in a coach and start winding up the volcanic cliff face. The island is just a giant volcanic rock type crater, rocks a few shrubs and no trees and all. The little white villages stick out of insane angles from the cliff front and are crazy to walk through. The tiny island is desolate though besides these villages, no real beaches as its all on cliff faces, I can't imagine living here. It's an experience to visit though and Troy caught a crazy donkey down the cliff to the port. I caught the more sensible cable cart which actually turned out to be quite terrifying. We scoff down more gyros before heading back for Sams birthday! We have a blast getting involved in the trivia put on by the cruise and chill out with everyone until about 1. I order room service while Troy snores away and start organizing my things for our departure tomorrow! The Greek cruise was defiantly a holiday within the holiday, so relaxing after the stress and rush of contiki. It's also good to move thought the day on your own accord and choice the activities you want to do:)