Chaniatown Crete 5 Oct 2024

We arrived in Crete about 130 am local time. So 1130 Irish time. Fairly straightforward four hour flight, got luggage no problem look to the right when you step outside you cross a bit of road and walk right to get to the taxi queue. Not cheap. 35 Euros to get to the old town _ about the same as a flight here with only underseat luggage. Ryanair has slightly more leg room than West Jet. Your underseat bag can be deeper. A small bottle of water is 3.5 E but I was dying of thirst!! Come prepared. It takes the cabin crew forever to go down the aisle, take the credit card blah blah.
I liked Lynx system. Only water, free and offered twice on a six hour flight. Also on Ryanair they don't use a garbage bag to retrieve garbage, just their bare hands which seems unsanitary and inefficient.
So there is no traffic in the old town. But lots of people out on the street at 2 am and many businesses still open. Like cafes, bars, ice cream shops.
We walk about 2.5 blocks and Eureka, find the guest house, access the key to the front door, go up 22 stairs and here is our room, quiet, large, traditional, fine. It is now 330 Jeff has a cold now, eventually we sleep and really sleep in.

Outside our room is a terrace with coffee and cookies

Our landlady shows up very warm and welcoming, shows us how to make the coffee recommends restaurants, very nice.

We treck out - it is 32 C so hot for us, a big change.

We eventually find a place (don't know if it was the right one) and each order a different salad. I had a beer as 3.5 E seemed a good deal for half a litre.

The salads were substantial and very good. One was Cretan Salad similar to Greek salad but also had green peppers, a huge bowl and the other was tomatoes and avocado and tomato on rusks with lots of very tasty black olives:

Creten Salad - onion green pepper tomato olives cheese cucumber

Salad with rusk, avocado, tomato black olives and cheese

A young man at the next table had a pack of cigarettes and a round metal container, some kind of chewing tobacco. So I asked him what it was - snuss - you can only buy it in Sweden - he gave Jeff a packet to try - he was Greek and Swedish but had grown up in Sweden and learned English there so he had that familiar slightly Swedish accent and we all chatted for a long time. Nice. He told Jeff about his favourite bar - doesn't really liven up til after midnight so not much danger Jeff will go.
Our whole meal including tip came to 20 E - and if you just came from Ireland or Iceland - that was a deal!! And seemed so healthy and fresh.
We stopped by a pharmacy to get throat lozenges and a convenience store to get bottled water and called it a day. My cough is better, not so frequent, and I haven't been sneezing. Jeff is kind of at the peak of the cold now, he's out chatting with the receptionist. There are cafes everywhere the streets are full of people, it's summertime!!

Tomorrow we are going on a walking tour and there is a beach nearby, walking distance. Our room is 50 E per night and has Air Conditioning - thank goodness! But it does also cool off a bit at night.