Up early again for Herekilion Crete. Off to Palace of Kronnos which is not far from town. This is the large mionion population that date before Mycenae. The city was large and elaborate . They found original frescos here in beautiful colors. The stone throne is still in the throne room and the princesses chambers had blue dolphin frescos. My kind of lady. Saw the famous bull with olive tree. Not as hot today. Enjoyed the tour but felt a little lost as going around could never get it in perspective. Bus back to town . We parked across the street from the archeological museum. Our guide said an option was to go to the museum instead of her city tour. Not very interested in-city tour . It had been badly nombed in WWII nothing old was left. Kind of like what Berlin felt like . Rebuilt in 40-50s . We made the best choice going to museum. All of the original frescos from Knossos were on display. Beautiful to see the original colors and how the archeologist could determine the picture by just fragments. Saw many other interesting artifacts and treasurers from Crete. Including the bull that is on all the literature. The bull is pretty small. They also had a diorama of the Palace. It became more clear what we saw. Crete is a huge diverse island . 3 hours only scratches the surface. Grant knows his roommate at CMC. They released the pairings this morning. Christian Simon. He is a swimmer and from Salt Lake City. Boys are so weird. By end of day they still have not communicated. Girls would have had their rooms planned by now. Another couple started talking to Grant about CMC ( he had on his T-shirt). They were raised in Oklahoma and the girl was a Pi Phi a year behind me. We ended up having lunch with them and great conversations about their life in Southern California and Oklahoma . Chris Cooper ( year behind me) was in their wedding. Small world. Mark Pledger. Have to quickly pack and get bags out of cabin then leisurely 3 hours sail to Santorini. As we started to approach we went to the horizons bar (circular disk on top of ship that is a bar. We hung out in it on our day trip) arrival was as spectacular as expected. Grant thought the caldera had been snow on top but as we got closer could tell it was houses. We had to be the last to disembark. Waited an hour. A lot more people than we expected . The tender was full and another boat had our bags. No one there as our transfer. Not again! I called the hotel and they were waiting at the wrong port. 15 min wait and we are on our way to Oia. The taxi driver talked about ears off giving us history on the way. We could hardly understand him. Beautiful drive as we can see the other side of the island . 40 mi later we arrive. Hotel is their waiting for us In the parking lot. The staff is so nice. Our room is as great as expected and cool with A/C! Yeah!! The do not disturb sign is worry beads on the door. Lol. We have two rooms and two baths with a living room and kitchenette. Feels so good to have some room to spread out. Feels like a cave house and that is fun. We spend the sunset on our patio drinking the complementary wine and taking
Lots of pictures. So beautiful!! A pirate ship sails by with live Greek music. The acoustics are loud up the caldera. Walk into town for dinner. Our hotel is farther out than expected. 5-10 min to Kaities and start of town walking street. We just want gyro. I get is lost and we walk way past the restaurant. It was ok cause We got to experience the people ( a lot of people) and all the shops and restaurants. Rick pulls up the map on his phone and we have to back track quite always. We arrive at Pitogyro and there is a crowd with no tables. I was able to put our name on a list and we were seated fairly quickly. Bad news that are out of gyro meat and only have pork and chicken souvlaki remaining. Grant orders a chicken wrap and Rick and I order the pork dinner. Yummo!!! It was delicious . 3 skewers of meat on a pita with sliced tomato and onion and larger bowl of taziki on the side. A ton of French fries with oregano sprinkles. Our walk back is exhausting . 14,527 steps today but arrive to a nice cool suite. I catch up on text and email since I have not had internet in 4 days. Just amazing to be able to communicate half way around the world.