Our Greek Odyssey - The Grand Finale

After Sunday's Greek epic, Monday was a lazy day with breakfast at the harbour and a wander around the shops. 

I managed to find a replica of the Malia pendant in 925 silver, in the same size as the original.

Meanwhile, Tony bought a couple more tee shirts. The gorgeous shop owner insisted we joined her for a 10.30am glass of ginger and lemongrass raki and pleaded for Tony to retire to Crete so they could be best friends. Originally from Ukraine, she'd travelled to Crete when she was 19 and upon reaching Chania ripped up her passport and never left. Tony's in love.

We spent the day on Nea Chora beach. On Thursday it had been overcast and quite chilly out of the sun but on Monday the weather was perfect, baking hot with a cloudless cerulean blue sky. I went for a dip in the Med, swam out to a rock which I climbed and stood waving at the boys who were too busy chatting to notice. When I returned half an hour later they were surprised to see me soaking wet, they assumed I'd just gone to the loo. It was probably the furthest out to sea that I'd ever swum and they didn't even notice!

After a leisurely lunch, we put in a few more hours before wandering back.

Back at Eleonora Sophia was waiting for us. There'd been yet another mix-up with the bookings and she'd moved Tony's stuff to her friend's apartments in the next street, it might have been our penultimate day but for Tony, his Greek Odyssey was set to continue. We followed her to where he would be spending his final night and discovered it would be in an 800 year old heritage home which normally cost €150 a night. Sophia's friend had even baked him an apple pie and a bag of biscuits to welcome him. Tony then realised that Sophia had failed to pack his phone charger which led to a series of very strange mimes, her English was good but "phone charger" was a step too far - luckily we got there in the end.

We decided our sundown beer should be taken on Tony's posh new terrace rather than our roof.

Wandering the alleyways, we chatted to man enjoying a raki outside his house and, me being me, asked if we could look inside. I was fascinated by that photo of his handsome grandfather, taken in the 1930s and of his father, looking every inch the Northern Soul boy with his Oxford Bags and fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

We continued to the Albanian man's restaurant for pre-dinner drinks where the cat recognised me immediately and climbed onto my lap for some fuss. The Albanian man joined us and insisted on another session on the raki but after two carafes we said our goodbyes before things got messy.

Tony had been eulogising over the patatas bravas since we'd eaten them two nights ago so we went back to The Well of The Turk for more.

Tuesday was our last day and, as we didn't need to leave for the airport until 7pm, Sophia kindly let us keep our room on for no extra charge . She brought us a tray of feta and leek pies, custard pastries and cheese toasties which we took round to Tony's place and ate in his courtyard. His landlady then delivered us a platter of freshly baked cheese pastries drizzled in honey, a Chania delicacy, which we also demolished. Tony had realised that Sophia had failed to pack his best trainers and that they were still under the bed in the room which was now occupied by a Polish couple. We promised we'd ask her about them later but, in the meantime, to keep his eyes peeled for a man walking around Chania wearing his trainers - don't laugh, it's happened before. In 2000 we were in Brazil and my brother and Tony sent some of their tee shirts to the hotel laundry. The following day some of the staff invited Tony & Marcus to join them for a five-aside football match, only for them to discover several members of the team wearing their tops. 

Stuffed to the gills with pastries, we wandered around Chania for the last time.

Tony's beautiful Ukrainian friend spotted him and came running out of her shop to hug him, demanding he come back & see her in September. The foolish man never asked for her number and has since mislaid her business card. Talk about a Greek Tragedy! If you're heading to Chania in the next few months and spot this lady do let me know. Incidentally, did you know that the word "idiot" is derived from Ancient Greek?

We visited an exhibition charting the history of a local football team held inside the old Ottoman mosque on the harbour and had an iced coffee at the Chania Sailing Club, never tiring for those spectacular views.

Anarchy is derived from the Ancient Greek words for "without rulers".

We visited a fascinating (but sobering) photography exhibition of The Siege of Crete then walked up to the Chania sports stadium before settling down outside the beautiful Amphora Hotel for an ice cold beer.

Then it was time to return to Platina 1821 for a late lunch. 

The Cretan salads and complimentary watermelon raki and chocolate brownies were as good as ever and Tony was very impressed with his handmade burger and skin-on chips.

Yammas!

We returned to Eleonora where Sophia had managed to retrieve Tony's trainers thus averting another Greek tragedy. After showers we walked across to the new town and hailed a taxi to the airport. 

Although is was a "goodbye" (antio sas) to Crete it was only a "see you soon" (ta léme sýntoma) to Greece as within three days of getting home we'd booked another trip!