Our boat from Santorini to Crete leaves in the late afternoon, so we had the whole morning to do some exploration. We took our little quad bike, and made our way in the opposite direction – North to the town of Oia. It was a scenic trip. After we got up to the town of Oia, we were able to look back on Santorini, and take in the beauty of the whole island.
We returned to our hotel after lunch in Fira, and decided to just hang by the pool, while waiting for our coach to the port of Santorini. When departing from Santorini by boat, do give it some time, as the transfer from your hotel to the port will often take some time. We arrived in the port of Santorini in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, our ferry did not do the same. It was late by over an hour, and H and I had several moments, whereby we started wondering if we actually missed our ferry somehow.
Thankfully, arrive it did, eventually. But by the time we got to Heraklion, it was dark. I really took free-and-easy approach to this trip – no plans, just hope for the best. So far, things have worked out for us, as there were always enthusiastic hotel/guesthouse owners, advertising their holdings to us. Things were, however, very different in Heraklion. There was NOBODY at the port when we arrived, so we were kinda screwed. Didn’t help that Crete is a pretty darn large island. Thankfully, we saw a lady moving towards the taxi stand, and she moved like a woman with a plan. We told her about our situation, and she said we could share a cab with her, and go to the hotel she plans to room at. Good decision that was. She picked Athinaikon Hotel, which was really not far from the Heraklion Harbor, and a short walking distance from the main town of Heraklion. With some luck, she is also an excellent bargainer, so she actually got us very good room rates, below the rack rate. (I think we paid about 40 EUR or something, which was about 10-20 EUR less than rack rate)
Heraklion is definitely a very different town from the towns in the islands we’ve been on the past couple of days. It is a good-sized town, and whereby tourism didn’t seem to be the main driving force. Ok, I just got distracted by the bowling alley and the McDonald’s, which always makes me jump to conclusions.
Oia, Santorini
Wanderlust 