The Final Episode, The Arrival on Crete

We have got as far as Bologna, on the night of the biggest football match in Italy!



The drive from Bologna to Ancona really is not that exciting and you soon leave the heavy traffic for a 'country drive'.



After the ordiliness of Dover and Calais, the port at Ancona is an experience! After checking in for the ferry with our Internet printed vouchers, you get a proper ticket and a banner to hang off the rear view mirror and get directed to an unorderly 'group' of vehicles all clustered around the back of a ferry which is still unloading. And trucks still being searched, and illegal immigrants being arrested......As the time for departure looms closer and we are still waiting to be loaded, we begin to worry, and I set off across the tarmac to the loaders and point at the car, it looks distinctly lonely surrounded by 40 tonne trucks, there are few cars at this time of year.



'Yes, yes, we know you are there', but somehow I don't feel convinced, but finally we are loaded.



I can recommend this ferry trip, it takes 24 hours, which means you can party until the early hours and still have a lie in! A disco on board with Greek Techno music, fascinating!



The sea was so calm our wake stretched for miles behind us, without so much as a ripple to disturb it, and the following dawn we saw the coast of Greece, with mountains and snow, appear on the horizon as we made the brief stop at Igoumentsou.



It is now February 6th 2004, and later that day we dock at Patras, which is much the same as any port town, they always seem to be slightly jaded and disorganised places, just like Newhaven and Dieppe!



Disembarkation takes no time at all, and we try to get Customs to register our presence mainly because we want to re-register the car....They don't even want to look at our passports!

Petrol is 60 cents a litre......



The drive from Patras to Piraeus is easy, well fairly, the road is good, but what is missing is a sign actually directing you to the ferry port! We follow the signs for Piraeus and end up in the town (seedy again!). Finally we find the customs house and are directed along a 'track' that follows the water. Of course we have come off the main road at the wrong exit, but how are we to know that!



Chaos rains as I cue to get our boarding passes.....We get loaded on to the ferry quite early on, short on cash because we couldn't find a cash machine, once on the ferry and up high we can see the main road and at least four banks, but too late now of course!

Another pleasant voyage...these ferries are fun! The ferry from Ancona was nearly new, this one is older. but still the sheets are clean and crisp and the cabin staff are pleasant. The bar was good fun too!

We arrive at our destination, a chilly February morning soon after sunrise and as we arrive at Heraklion the sun catches Mount Ida, and the sun glints from the cap of snow it wears from November to June....Kazantzakis country at last!

Straight away my favourite quotation comes to mind.......


‘‘To my mind, this Cretan countryside resembled good prose, carefully ordered,
sober, free from superfluous ornament, powerful and restrained. It expressed all
that was necessary with the greatest economy. It had no flippancy, nor artifice
about it. It said what it had to say with a manly authority. But between the severe
lines one could discern an unexpected sensitiveness and tenderness; in the
sheltered hollows the lemon and orange trees perfumed the air, and from the
vastness of the sea emanated an inexhaustible poetry.

‘Crete.‘ I murmured. ’Crete...‘ and my heart beat fast.’‘ ’

Yes of course it comes from Zorba The Greek by the man himself.

And now nearly four years later, my heart does still beat fast, for like many who come to live here, Crete is in my heart.

On the way from Heraklion to Koutouloufari it poured with rain as only it can on Crete in February.

Having nowhere else to go we had arranged to stay with friends, for a little while, well about six seeks actually!

Now I had been to Crete before in February, but this was no preparation for what was to come, it was cold, it was wet, and then one morning I woke early and the first thing that struck me was the quality of the light coming through the gaps in the curtains.

Half awake I though to myself, that is just the sort of light you get in England when it has snowed......well of course it had! For the first time in many years Koutouloufari was wearing a comforter of snow, you couldn't call it a blanket, you certainly couldn't cal it a sprinkling either!

Snow balls in the street on Crete, snowmen in front yards? Yes we had them all, the amazing thing was the speed with which the snow was cleared so the roads were driveable. In Brighton our car used to get snowed in every year without fail, and there snow is expected!

As soon as possible we drove to Mochos, where people were digging their cars out of snowdrifts where the plough had thrown it over them, and finding a nearby olive grove we stopped to take a picture of the car and us surrounded by snow nearly a metre deep.....

But we were here and this is where we wanted to be......at last....home!

And what is the next thing we start to do??

Yes, start house hunting again!