Monday, July 15, 2013:
Another perfect day in paradise....Oh! I said that already yesterday, didn't I? *grin*
I awoke with the sun and the view, but enjoyed the solitude for a while before setting up the coffee pot. Carol and I savored our Turkish coffee on the balcony before the Vaughn family appeared from their upstairs room.
I hoped this would be a slow, relaxing day following yesterday's trek through ruins and museum. Aron wanted to search for the perfect beach, perhaps one more secluded than the public beach. We all agreed to that and piled into the Ford Focus with maps on a quest.
We found one in the cove just east of the Plakias beach where we were Saturday. It was a fine beach, but I was a bit put off by the name of it: Damnoni. My late mother, after all, was Nonnie to her grand and great grandkids! This beach was broader and the sand was comfortable under foot, though not the refined sugar like the beaches of the US Gulf coast.
There were fewer people here and more spaced out (geographically, that is). Most were couples and families from EU nations, no doubt. European men are easy to spot in their Speedo swim attire, although it's not a good look for the beer-bellied (German?) ones. I had to avert my gaze to avoid burning my eyes with the images of those unsuitable guys! Carol and I had observed at every beach we visited that virtually no woman of our age or younger wears a one-piece suit. Two piece and mostly bikini style is the standard, and these women are unabashed and unselfconscious about their appearance. Believe me, America is not the only corpulent nation. I admired their self confidence, which was probably bolstered by their healthy tan skin. Both Carol and I are pasties by nature, so we hold to the view that the less skin exposed, the better. For the first time this trip I put on my one piece suit. (No, I will not be posting those images...) This beach like others we saw had rental umbrellas and chairs neatly aligned parallel to the shore. We didn't know they were rental until a man came around to collect 10 Euros for two umbrellas and four folding lounge chairs. We didn't pay for this on the public beach. The sun and dry heat can be brutal and there are no palm trees or anything to offer free shade within 75 yards of the sea, so umbrellas are a must. The water was refreshing, slightly cool at first, and we enjoyed it and the umbrellas for a couple of hours.
Aron wanted to look for an even more secluded beach, one he read about in Lonely Planet, which led us on a drive on roads mostly in view of the coastline, including some steep and winding ones on gravel surface. We drove high up on a mountain overlooking the sea where we encountered a Greek Orthodox monastery at Piso Moni Preveli.
Legend has it that it was named either for a murder suspect who fled to the area in the 18th century, or a benefactor of the monastery (perhaps a murderous benefactor....). During the Cretan Revolution of 1866 (against the Turkish occupiers), it served as refuge for the rebels. These events are memorialized in a small park with a monument and two statues. Most striking is the statue of a priest or monk in the traditional dark robes and cap holding a long-barreled rifle.
We abandoned the search for the beach at Preveli when we discovered it could only be accessed by boat or footpath of some undetermined length down a steep path. There are boats out of Plakias that daily ferry beach-goers to and from the Preveli beach and the beach we next visited at Ammoundi.
It was very pleasant, even less populated than the beach at Damnoni (pains me to write that....). Again, we found umbrellas and chairs and spent the rest of the afternoon there. We thought we had lucked out when no one came by to collect payment for them. Alas, as the sun waned in the late afternoon, we had to pay the piper after all (aka the umbrella rental guy) with our dwindling Euros.
The drive to the beach at Ammoundi showed us many photographic delights:
the ruins of an earlier monastery, a beautiful and architecturally interesting old stone bridge,
and a gaggle of geese next to a stream, to mention a few.
We returned to our hillside apartment to shower and dress for dinner on this our final evening on Crete. We drove down the mountain to Plakias and enjoyed a wonderful meal of sea bass and barbecued lamb under palms a few steps from the sea. It was a most excellent day and evening under a starry sky. Good night and good-bye, Milky Way!
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