Who would have thought we would end up in Crete this summer? 😍 It was definitely not on the top of my list; we would not have gone there if not for Kevin's friends. But then, surprise, surprise! Once we were in this beautiful island, we never wanted to leave.
Well, who would, when we were greeted by a beautiful sunset at the Old Venetian Harbor that we totally forgot our jetlag.
Knossos
I remember learning about the story of the minotaur in ancient Greek mythology in high school. It was a half human half bull creature held captive by King Minos in Knossos. To my surprise, Heraklion(Crete's capital), is where Knossos, the center of Minoan civilization is located.
The next day, we were awake at 4am (jetlag was real!), clock-watched until the first cafe opened, grabbed some coffee before we headed to see what remained of the one of Europe's oldest city.
There were obvious traces of restoration on some ancient artifacts like the jars and structural frames. This old civilization was traced back to 2000 BC, and was excavated just a century ago. It was impressive to see those remnants given that thousands of years have gone by.
We were lucky we went up there early. By the time we finished, the crowd at the entrance was too much, most likely a coronavirus hub, lol.
Heraklion city's neighborhood was impressive, even the graffiti blended well with the overall look and feel. You would see remnants of old structures claimed by time.
We hung out mostly around Morosini Fountain, day and night. For tourists like us, being there was extremely convenient. There was a huge variety of food and shops, my eyes were sparkling with joy, char!
And the food, oh my gosh, we were not expecting this level of deliciousness. The very same reason that after we spent a week on the other side of the island, we came back to Heraklion to eat more. We found this farm-to-table restaurant just and indulged in these luscious meal.
It is customary to be served with house dessert after meals. This was what we got - semolina cooked with honey and nuts.
This is rose-flavored ouzo, an anis aperitif famously served along with Greek meals.
Let me tell you about bougatsa, a custard-filled pie topped with cinnamon and honey that made me go crazy, lol. We had it twice at Kirkor, where it was originally made at (for this variation). The cafe, being located just in front of Morosini fountain was always full of both tourists and local diners.
This is bougatsa filled with mizithra (sheep or goat cheese).
This is the original custard cream-filled bougatsa.
We definitely got more than what we came for. Heraklion is about 2-hour jet ferry ride to Santorini, for those who would visit it even for a day trip is possible. It has also an international airport catering flights via multiple international destinations.
One thing to note about this city on the biggest Greek island is that the people are very calm and happy. Every one greeted us, the servers were accommodating, also not uptight unlike the people I deal with most of the time, 🤣. Is it the Mediterranean? the food? the sun? hmmm xoxo