Chania, part 2

After we left the Allied War Cemetary in Souda, we climbed the hill in our car to the top of the frying pan-shaped Akrotiri peninsula on our way to Chania. This is just a small part of the panorama that we saw on the way up, and also happens to be part of the view I had from my house when I lived there. Pretty sweet, huh?

After we got settled in the nice (and inexpensive!) Monte Vardia hotel, we headed out to one of my favorite beaches, Kalathas. The water was beautiful and warm, and a swim was just the thing we needed after our car trip. We swam all the way out to the island in the distance. It's not nearly as far as it looks, and there's a sand bar that leads almost all the way out to it, so you can virtually walk instead of swimming the entire way there, if you want to. We had such a fun time there that we spent hours playing in the water.

By the time we got back to the hotel and got cleaned up for dinner, we walked outside to enjoy this view overlooking Chania. The Monte Vardia is a little outside Chania, but has a terriffic hilltop location from which we enjoyed beautiful sunsets like this every night we were there. There's a bit of dust in the air that gives the waning evening light such beautiful pink and purple tones on a consistent basis.

Kristin poses with a sunset on the 2nd floor patio outside our room before we go out for a fancy Greek dinner.

Downtown we visited a traditional ship building museum. I got excited to see a very large knot board.

I also thought the fresnel lens from an old lighthouse was really cool. I love the architectural shape the lenses take, purely for function, but resulting in a beautiful shape. If you look at the ceiling behind me, you'll see that this museum was inside an old Venetian arsenal down by the Chania waterfront. So even if you don't like the museum itself, you can still wander around and wonder about Venetian construction methods and materials.