Crete - The East Pt 1

Sunday had us hop in the car for a three hour drive from Kapsaliana to our final rural destination in Crete, the White River Cottages. Similar to Kapsaliana, the WRC is a restored village that now houses 15 units, each with its own kitchen and terrace. It is much less fancy than Kapsaliana (no restaurant or bar) and geared towards those who want to be relatively self sufficient while holidaying in Crete. WRC is located in the SE of Crete about 1km inland from the village of Makrigialis. The place is thick with the Dutch it seems.

We arrived in the mid afternoon and relaxed for a few hours as reception is only open in the morning and after 6pm. Lunch was self-made Greek Salad and the welcome white wine (in a 1.5 litre plastic bottle no less) from our fridge. We discovered that the local cats are friendly (well some anyway) and very intriguing in that one family of them all have blue eyes. Some beautiful felines here!

After meeting with the hostess at 6:30 we opted to visit the local taverna for dinner which offered Cretan music and dancing on Sunday nights. The taverna is in a village (Pefki) about 4km up the Pefki Gorge from where we are staying and our hostess offered us a ride up there at 8pm which we gladly accepted. Dinner got off to a bit of a rocky start, we ordered some food and it as cold and it seems we did not realize there was a prix fixe menu associated with the evening's festivities. Fortunately, a quick chat in Greek with the owner smoothed out all the problems and we were on the prix fixe menu with no charge for the cold food. The evening was a blast from then on. The terrace was full of tourists but also some Greeks and the music and dancing was a hoot. Lisa ended up dancing a couple times and enjoyed it while Christos chatted with a gentleman at another table whose parents were originally from the village but now live in South Africa.

The wine flowed freely .... In fact too freely as by the time we got back to our lodgings we somehow thought it was a good idea to get into the Lemon Raki! While it seemed a good idea at the time, the next morning's hangovers were not fun. The next morning we rose late, drank much water and headed out for a short walk to investigate an artist's studio nearby. On the walk we encountered a hedgehog! The artist's studio was a bit of a let down; although she had some interesting pieces all made from found wood, the price point was ridiculous! So we passed on local art and headed back to our cottage for more rest and hopefully an end to the hangovers.