Greece: Day 1
To get to our destination of Chania, Greece, we first had to catch our flight early in the morning out of Istanbul. We had our hotel book a taxi in advance as we didn’t trust the local drivers to not rip us off given our luck over the prior few days. Our driver was a couple of minutes late, but he made up the time by being one of the most reckless drivers I’ve ever seen in getting us to the airport. He was constantly switching between fiddling with the radio and his phone with one hand and loosely gripping the steering wheel with the other. By the time we arrived at the airport we were both nauseous. The Istanbul airport is surprisingly massive so it took us a while to find our way around but we eventually found the gate. On our way we passed luxury stores alongside a mix of random American fast food restaurants, including a Carl’s Jr., which had me excited as I, an American, have never even seen one. We finally boarded our flight on Aegean Airlines to Chania, but first had to stop in Athens. That flight was easy enough but the connecting flight to Chania was delayed slightly which put a damper on the otherwise pleasant experience.
Upon arriving in Chania, we took a roughly half-hour taxi to our hotel to check-in. After putting our bags in the room we set off to explore the old part of Chania around the Venetian Harbor. The neighborhood was cute with old buildings and winding side streets. Similar to Istanbul, we instantly noticed an abundance of cute stray cats everywhere. One joined us under our table for a meal while others were napping alongside the sidewalks. We eventually found a very touristy section that was far more crowded but makes sense given the beauty of the harbor.
Once we arrived by the water we were instantly interested in walking around the walls of the Venetian harbor as they looked picturesque with the slightly setting sun. It would likely be prettier around sunset but we were too tired from traveling to wait by the water for a few hours to see it. So we walked around to the lighthouse, appreciating the beauty and taking plenty of pictures. We wished we had taken a tour of the harbor to learn some of its history. It would have been interesting to learn about how the Venetians built it and the purpose the walls served throughout history in defending Crete. Still even without a history lesson, the location is plenty pretty and easily worth the walk.
After leaving the harbor, we walked around the touristy section some more to kill some time before returning to the hotel to sleep. We tried a gelato/sorbet place that had some of the best strawberry sorbet I’ve ever had. It tasted exactly like a fresh strawberry and can only make me assume that it was made in house as I don’t see something that tastes as fresh as that being mass produced. After enjoying that, we returned to the hotel and called it an early first night in Chania.
