Thursday 9th April and Kerrie’s dad, Darcy’s birthday – he would have been 97 today. It is also our first day on the bike for this trip. The speedo shows 2392km – I wonder what it will be when we are finished travelling on October. We will spend most of the day on the ferry to Crete for a few days. We woke to rain – not what bikers like to see. We waited around the hotel for a break in the rain before heading back to Piraeus to catch the ferry at noon. The trip took 8 hours most of which was spent snoozing and eating. It was almost dark when we arrived and just starting to drizzle with rain again. Our hotel is in the old part of Chania in a quaint ally surrounded by restaurants and small shops.

Today was to be a Chania sightseeing day off the bike – just as well as it was blowing a gale and only 14 degrees C. Chania is divided in to 2 very different areas – the old and new towns. The new town is what you would expect with all the usual retail outlets for a town. The old town is narrow alleys in every direction with many restaurants, cafes and small shops. The boundary of the old town is the harbour, Today the waves were crashing over the harbour walls because the wind was so strong. We spent the day wandering through the alley ways and market places. We were amazed at the variety of meat, seafood and cheeses on display with the stall holders smoking as they served customers – no health and safety regulations here. We also had to try and find a solution to get our GPS mounted on the bike. Somehow we had left the mount at home in the box! We now have a makeshift attachment from a bicycle mount – we will find out if it works tomorrow.

Today is the beginning of the Greek Easter celebrations. At 9pm we watched as an image of Christ was carried from one of the churches and paraded through the streets as the beginning of the Easter ceremonies. There was even a guard of honour provided by the army, navy and airforce. Greg was very impressed by the drill of the soldiers. There was a large crowd in attendance even though the temperature had dropped to about 9 degrees.

We left Chania on Saturday morning and headed towards Heraklion, about 139 km away. Our hotel is right in the center of the city about 100m from the Lion's Fountain and about 300m from the Fortress of Koule. Heraklion is surrounded by imposing Venetian walls which integrate the Koule in the old port. The area is full of restaurants and bars and seafood seems to be the order of the day. We are not sure if we will find somewhere to eat tonight as most businesses started to close up about 4pm to head home for their family Easter celebrations. Our plan is to spend our time here exploring Heraklion by following a few of the suggested walking tours. Most businesses will be closed for Easter so its walk or rest!

After wandering around town for most of the day we went to find somewhere open for dinner. As luck would have it we found a lovely restaurant with a good selection of food and drink BUT most important of all - it had several large TV screens all tuned in to HD 5 Sports which was showing all three Grand Prix races from the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. We settled in with a beer each, fine food and a friendly waitress who said we could stay as long as we liked to watch the races. So, after Moto 3, Moto 2, a couple of glasses of Raki, a conversation with the Australian/Greek cook and then MotoGP we returned to our hotel thoroughly satisfied that we had enjoyed a great day in Heraklion.

On Monday we decided to go for a ride while waiting for the ferry. We headed out of town with no particular destination in mind - just a ride along the coast. Greg found a car wash so the bike got its first clean for the trip. We headed back in to Heraklion, found a little café for a couple of cold beers(it was about 2pm) and toasted sandwich while we just sat in the shade and watched the world go by. What a life!

The ferry back to Athens leaves at 9pm so we went down to the port about 6:30 ready to board. We have a 2 berth cabin for the overnight trip back to Athens. We decided to spend one more night in Athens to get washing done and to soak up the city for one last time. Then it is off to Patras to catch the overnight ferry to Brindisi, Italy and then ride on to Sicily - a place we have always wanted to visit as we are fans of the Godfather movies.