Travel Florence to Crete

It’s difficult to leave Florence and I think Florence also felt that way. On my way to the station, it poured with rain. My cagoule and jacket were neatly packed at the bottom of my pack in a compression bag. I got wet.

The marvel of the age Eurostar was twenty minutes late. This meant that it had lost its “slot” as they say in the airline business. We all stood around wondering at which platform it would arrive. Half an hour later we found out and scrambled aboard. The train eventually left forty minutes late.

I was seated amongst a group of fashion people headed for a Rome show. They kept cooing over pages from Vogue and the female fashion guru insisted on seating in each of the men’s laps in turn. The man in front of me had a permanent grin on his face as a result, I guessed, of some radical changes to his aging face. Each lens of his sunglasses was similar to the rear window of the ‘scenic’ car. When one of them started giving out sweets, they all yelled, “I want a sweetie too!!”.

The train hesitated outside Rome, presumeably so that it could grab a slot and reach a platform. It was a relief to reach Rome.

Now an hour late, I no longer had a whole afternoon to play with. So I thought one of those bus tours around the place would just fit the situation. When I walked out of the station, I saw traffic hardly moving at all. So that idea evaporated immediately. However, I did enquire how much the “Get on, Get off” trip cost and was told twelve euros. It seemed a bit steep but these tourist things always are. Then I went up to the red bus tour and they said, “Thirty euros but for youuuu … twenty euros!!” I wasn’t tempted as it looked, by the amount of traffic, as though it would never return assuming it managed to get out of the square in the first place.

Italian railway stations usually have decent food but Rome station even has a large department store on the ground floor besides the usual book shops and restaurants. I soon lost interest in all of that so I jumped on the “Leonardo Express” to the airport, hoping that life would be more interesting nearer the sea.

The “Leonardo Express” is a clapped out train which has seen better days and is certainly not an indication of how good most Italian trains are these days. For example, the ‘second class’ on a Eurostar train is identical to ‘first class’ except for the fact that it does not have the leather seats. This airport train reminded me of my train travel of over thirty years ago. But we arrived safely at Rome airport where I found that my pack is six kilos overweight.

Acting on advice, I had chosen to use Aegean airlines to get to Crete. After using all those websites which are supposed to give you the cheapest fare, I tried Aegean’s own site and had found a quoted fare much lower than any of those websites. I also noticed that, if I travelled overnight I would be able to travel at half that quoted fare. So I had booked a fare and saved a good deal of money.

I noticed that they were not weighing hand luggage so I took some stuff out of the large pack and put it into a shopping bag. The resulting weight was a little over 20 kilos but it attracting no extra charge.

The plane was late. Initially it was an hour late but, as time went on, it didn’t show and we were given the usual meal tickets to a nearby pizza and coke joint. Eventually the plane took off over two hours late. A nice smooth flight and we were in Athens at two o’clock in the morning.

Aegean has free Wi-Fi so I was able to book an apartment from Sunday but not Saturday as I had requested. I therefore booked the most expensive hotel in Paleohora for Saturday night at 33 eiros. Thank goodness for Wi-Fi!!

The Chania flght took off on time at 0530 and, within half an hour, we had arrived. I had checked my pack through to Chania, which surprised me as Athens was my port of entry into Greece.

I had been assured that there was no bus into Chania but my unbelieving nature forced me to look around and, sure enough, there was a bus marked “Chania” in the car park. Two euros ten cents later and I was in Chania bus station eating a marvellous vegetarian spinach pie and filter coffee with a Norwegian teacher, who had come all the way from the Arctic circle (as far as the train line goes in Norway) to spend two weeks practising Yoga somewhere in a remote part of South Crete.

I found the bus marked “Paleohora”, grabbed a seat and was soon surrounded by groups of ladies who had been doing early morning shopping. They told me that they were getting off just before Paleohora.

Now came some changes since I was last here. The trip from the airport had been along the old type of road. Despite its association with warfare, Souda Bay looked beautiful in the dawn light. Going out of Chania alongside the seashore, the roads also looked familiar but things changed as soon as the bus started to climb into the mountains.

This trip used to be a very hairy ride with a precipitous slope on one side. But recent radical work had blasted into the mountain sides so that a proper safe modern road could be constructed.

But just in front of us appeared a huge angry dust cloud as a motor bike apparently went over the side of the road into the valley way below us. The bus stopped and we all got out to help. By a miraculous choice of corner, the accident had taken place just where somebody had piled firewood by the side of the road so the motor cyclist had ended up in the wood pile and the bike was half over the edge about to fall down the slope. We rescued the bike and assumed the rider had nothing more than bruises. He was able to stand so the bus resumed its journey.

Apparently the road works had been paid for by the European Union and were still being completed. How easy the journey now is! There are a lot of villages on the way to Paleohora so these residents are very happy about the improvements. The journey consists of slowly ascending into the mountains then winding down through the steep-sided valleys. It is in the descending part of the journey that the new roads are so welcome. As we approached Paleohora, most of the ladies got off the bus in the tiny villages on the way. They are all smiles to me and I even have the idea that they are sizing me up for the olive harvest.

The bus arrived at the “KTel bus staion”, as the locals call it. Strangely it backs up the high street. I have the idea that it is a one way street and that, if the bus goes the wrong way backwards, it’s OK. And once more, after a wait of thirty five years, I am in this narrow high street with small trees on either side.

Thanks to the internet and Google Earth, I know exactly where my hotel is. I walk down to the quay and turn right then continue until the houses peter out and there it is. It is still morning but I am shown to my room immediately even though the owner has not seen my computer bookng yet.

The owner’s wife is Swedish. “I came to Paleohora, got pregnant then I got married!”, she tells me. “I make a good buffet breakfast!” But she would dearly like the hotel to have a swimming pool as the seashore by the hotel is rather rocky.

For some reason, I have difficulty connecting to the hotel Wi-Fi but eventually I sort out the problem with the local repeater. I’m online and everything in the world is OK!!!