Continuing the
Greece tour, our next and final stop was Chania, Crete. I have to confess that before scheduling this tour I had never heard of Chania. After experiencing the tour I moved Chania onto the list of great little places I'm really glad that I visited. And it would be on the relatively short list of places I'd gladly go back to for an extended stay. Nice-sized city (pop ~ 55,000) that balances being a real, lived-in city and being a tourist / vacation destination. I'd put Monopoli in a similar category for similar reasons. But I'll get to that eventually when I have time to post about my Puglia trip.
Getting to Chania from Santorini takes a bit of work. You can fly, connecting through Athens. Or you can ferry to Heraklion and then drive / be driven to Chania. Total travel time is probably the same either way. Flight schedules offer more flexibility with the departure and arrival times. The ferry goes 1x per day. So we were on the 345p ferry that gets into Heraklion at 530p. Then it's a ~2-hour drive to Chania, so you're getting in around 730-8p. Which leaves enough time to check into your hotel and then head out for a nice dinner.
I took a quick video of the ferry experience, but there are many better ones out there on YouTube. The boats are big and comfortable. Nice seats, decent food / concession options. Room to walk around and stretch your legs (which is a big difference versus heading over on a smaller plane). If you have questions about the ferries, check out this video from
Greece Explained (and fwiw, his channel is full of useful, well-done videos).
My base for the next few nights was
Fileas Art Hotel. It's on the edge of old town and tucked around the corner from the main drags heading toward the harbor. Solid 3* option.
We were pretty tired and ventured exactly 1 minute away to
Namaste for dinner. I have no photo evidence of our dinner, but recall it being good. Seems like the reviews generally agree. Nice place to eat, especially if you get yourself a table on the upper level with some views. Was just what we needed at the time.
Next day started in the morning with a walking & food tour with one of our partners. Gave us a good overview of the city's history and layout and kept us fueled with a few strategic pit stops. One of the first places we visited was
Patsouros Cheese & More, which is just outside the touristic center. The kind of nice shop you want in your town if you're looking to treat yourself with some nice snacks or show up at a friendly gathering with something tasty that will be well received.
Walking through the streets into the old town you have picturesque scenes in all directions.
Of course we made our way to the harbour. Super charming little focal point for the city. Lined with restaurants for scenic al fresco dining. And filled with boats ready to take you out for an afternoon on the water.
We also got up to a lookout point for a great view of the harbor.
Before we wrapped up at the panoramic vista I documented the documenting of the selfie.
Snagged a few slice of life shots as we worked our way back into the side streets of the old town.
Solid food stop at
To Steno, which was the kind of friendly place you could easily pass an afternoon into the evening snacking and drinking ... if you didn't have to keep on with the tour followed by an evening of catching up on work. My pic below does the spot zero justice. Check out more on their google maps listing,
like this one.
Finished the tour with something sweet from
Sketi Glyka.
Great finish to a nice day learning about a place that went from not at all being on my radar to being one of the favorite places I've been.
No comments:
Post a Comment