Crete is Greece’s largest island, and is said to be a 12 hour drive from one end to the other. That’s about where I am in New York to the tip of South Carolina. Equivalent to a road trip down a good chunk of the east coast.
When I arrived by boat I just didn’t know what to expect at all. I pictured tiny villages in mountains filled with goats and donkeys. I was excited to see how wrong I was! It’s a very developed island which has areas just as hopping’ as Athens.
The island is so big that there’s too much to see, so we stuck with only two locations. The first was Chania which is north of the island. My father has family here that he hasn’t seen in 20+ years, so it was an obvious place to visit. Unfortunately because of timing, we only stuck around for a week.
Chania is one of the big cities in Crete, so of course there was so much to see. Since this is a growing city, a lot of Chania has been renovated and fixed, but there’s so much of the ‘Old Town’ that is still up for seeing, so we took a day trip to see all we can see.
The streets are cobblestones which I love. The buildings are all packed next to each other with as much greenery as they can fill the outsides. I’ve seen homes with plants hanging, trees growing out of old abandoned buildings, pots of flowers all out front, etc. Obviously Greece in general has a climate made for growing greens, so it’s not a shock to walk down the street to see homes smothered in flowers and trees.
I also found it cool to see contrasts in buildings. Old next to new. Old run down buildings just crumbling next to buildings just renovated and painted looking crisp and new. And just like I’ve documented from Athens, Crete has been filled with graffiti too (future posts coming on that too).
The Old Town takes up just a small chunk of Chania. It’s filled with restaurants, shops, cafes, and some are just abandoned. It’s a normal city as you would imagine, but a nice change of scenery from something you’d see in America. The lifestyle here is even a whole lot different (in a good way) than Athens living which is refreshing.
-More pictures are to come from other parts of the city as the Old Town doesn’t exactly show what this city offers.
But for sure I’d recommend Chania as a place to visit, so put it on your “Places To Travel” list!
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