Greece: Crete

 

Departing from Crete and heading to Mykonos

Friday came all too soon and we were up early and heading back to the port to catch our ferry to Mykonos.

With little traffic and excellent navigation we arrived within 30minutes and obtained our tickets and headed to the fast ferry.

We stowed our luggage in the lower deck once again and found our way to our VIP seats on the top deck.

To Sandy C.'s surprise we pulled out of port at 9am......she had thought we had a 9:30am departure.......it was actually 9am so luckily we were early and all settled on  board!

 

As with many things we have found Greek time is slightly different from advertised schedules........we were due to arrive in Mykonos at 1:30pm (yes that is the correct time as Sandy C checked). We actually docked around 2:30pm.

We made 2 stops along the way.

Ios

Pheorus

 

 

We eventually arrived in Mykonos at the port...a challenge getting transport and collecting our hire car....waited over an hour in the line and a local man (we named him Antonio) and his partner in crime (we named her Maria) came along and indicated to us to meet him on the other side of the road....we took risk and went with him, that was another adventure as he did not speak much English (we think he was Italian) and did not know where we were staying despite Cathy (who ha slope dup our villa on Google Earth) pointing it out several times. The back door flew open and luckily Trish & Cathy prevented our bags falling out as we drove the steep roads around the port.

Eventually we located the villas and Sandy C located the villa representative who helped us with our bags. Much to the confusion of Antionio and Maria Sandy C and Sandy S then got back in the van and asked to be taken  to the airport to collect the hire car...he could wirk out why we were going to the airport without our bags......

We got to to airport and then stood in the queue at AVIS for over an hour......people before us and after us were all advised that there was NO car available - despite them booking one and in many cases pre paying. Sandy S was a tad anxious about the reaction from Sandy C if they were told the same thing....BUT luckily NOT! In fact we were given an upgrade from a medium SUV to a Mercedes........lots of power Sandy C was assured tiger us up the hill to our villa. Then another delay as the computer system collapsed and the poor sales clerk had to do all our paperwork again manually....

Finally we got the keys and found the car......Took us about 20 minutes in the car park sorting out the seats, the gadgets and the workings of the car BUT we eventually headed back to find Trish & Cathy at the villa....what a saga!

 

Once we were safely back to the villa Trish & Cathy greeted us with a beverage and nibbles...they had settled us in to our villa which we were quite impressed with.

 

We went for a drive to explore the town centre and soon realised driving and parking in the actual centre (Chora) was not ideal....we squeezed our way down the narrow congested 'streets' and turned into a large, after parking realised the grumpy lady wanted 10 Euros and our keys...not keen on that with our Mercedes hire car. We left that car park and struggled to get out of town....

Decided to take the car home to our villa after doing some grocery shopping and stocking  up on the basics....another unique experience.

We had planned to catch the sea bus from the port back to the town centre BUT as we get to the end of the road Matthews Taverna was calling us......a much simpler option after a challenging day. SUCH a great decision, the service, the food and the beverages were DIVINE!