Day 8 - 12 July Crete

 Another day, another Greek island. This time Crete and we awoke as we were mooring in Heraklion, the largest city.

After breakfast ikt was a short bus ride up the hill to the heart of the town. Most of the morning was taken up with the museum. This was a really excellent museum and orientation to Crete's history. It's laid out chronologically, so as to lead you through most of ancient history. It starts with the neolithic period and then the bronze-age Minoan period, which is when Crete particularly flourished. So the items represent the development from carving to pottery to casting bronze. Then from about 1200 BC the iron age brought by the Greeks. Finally a bit of the Roman period, though this was not so emphasised. Lots of pottery, bits of buildings, caskets and the remains of frescoes.

After that we wandered around the town, mostly the area made up of cafes, clothes and jewellery shops. We avoided the tourist market. The only things we bought were a couple of items in Marks & Spencer.

It was pretty hot and we were still pretty full from breakfast, so we didn't stop anywhere else and took the bus to be back by midday.

We had a relaxing afternoon off, as we don't really have any scheduled days off. What you might expect. Eating, sleeping, reading.