Traveling with the Grobmyers : Chania Crete

 Let me start by saying we never learned to pronounce the name of the town we stopped at last.  You don't pronounce it like you think.  The CH has a hard sound.  We just kept saying Crete. No disrespect to Chania.  

We decided to not do our tour today.  We did not have a lot of time in town, in fact it was our shortest day.  We had to be back on the ship by 2:00.  We got off the ship and we docked in what is known as New Port.  We needed to go to Old Port in order to see the sights.  When you get off the ship you have to get on a bus that Disney arranged for us.  It is about a 20 minute drive into town.  We passed a lot of things a regular big city might have: car dealerships, banks, fancy stores and even an IKEA.  So the bus comes to a stop on the curb in the middle of the street, opened the doors and said time to get off.  We had no idea where we were going or how to get back.  Joe talked to the bus driver and he pointed in a direction and said last bus here at 1:15.  We are second guessing not taking that tour.

More purple trees.

We were dropped off at the entrance of what looked like a botanical garden or park.  We walked up because there were a lot of people there and music playing.  This was their Earth Day like day.  They were having Free Plant day.  They tried to give us a free plant and I would have loved one but we knew we couldn't take it back on the boat.  They did tell us the direction to go to get to the Old Port. They were very nice people. We saw lots of people walking around with free plants.

I found my first fabric shop of the trip.  It was tiny but most businesses are tiny on the islands.

The nicest man ran the shop and he showed me lots of pretty things.  One row was Greek made cotton that would be good for quilting.  He also gave us a map and showed us some things to see.

Made it to Old Port complete with a Starbucks.  They are everywhere.

It was a pretty old port.  It was probably the least crowded of all the towns we visited.

They embrace the donkey in Greece.

Joe enjoyed finding little cafes to get an Americano coffee and enjoy the views on this trip.

Items made of olive tree wood.

Walking back to the bus stop we walked through the park with the free plants.  This is a huge magnolia tree in the middle.

Our ship was waiting for us.

The fabric I bought.

Look how blue that water is.

I did some laundry and even at Disney there are lots of lost socks.

Our cruise is winding down.  We have a sea day tomorrow and then we dock in Rome.

Traveling with the Grobmyers : Mykonos Greece

 We docked in Mykonos early this morning.  There was a little cloud cover but we were told that it doesn't rain much during the summer.  We did have some wind today though.  Some first looks as we pull in. 

We grabbed breakfast at the Royal Garden before we got the ship.  I was able to get some pictures of the surroundings this morning.

 

I don't know if you can see the glass slippers hanging down from the center light.

Our tour guide met us at the ship and walked us through the port to town.  This is a walking tour of Mykonos.

Remember when I told you cats were special in Greece?  Here on Mykonos they really take care of the cats that roam the island.  They have these cat houses set up around town and there are food bowls set out as well.  

Fish comes in fresh every morning.

Lots of churches.

This is a red roof church.  On Mykonos they have both red and blue roof churches.  The red represents the blood of Christ.  All homes on Mykonos have to be white, it's the law.  The corners of buildings are rounded because the wind blows really bad in the winter.  The rounded edges cut down on wind noise.

A lot of these churches are smaller.  They are built by specific families for their families.

A man working on his fishing lines.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved her time on the Greek Islands and bought some land here on Mykonos.  This place is named in her honor.

There are several archeology digs throughout the island. This is one of the sites.  Our tour guide from yesterday was leading a tour today on Mykonos through one of the sites.

We did a lot of weaving through the streets on the first part of the tour.

Very narrow streets.

More windmills. 

Lots of these little trucks through out those tiny streets.

Our tour guide yesterday told us to look for pelicans today.  We saw one!  She had a pink tone to her.

The bougainvillea was beautiful all over the island.  Several colors too.

 

The three blue things in the center are the original wells that residents would come to every day to draw water for the day.

About this point in the tour we were to walk back and get on a bus and go to another winery and lunch someplace.  We decided we were done.  We left the tour, we weren't the only ones, someone left first or we probably would have stuck it out.  We walked all through those streets but didn't have time to shop.  So we wondered back around and did some shopping.

But first we had what was probably our best meal while we were gone.  This little place happened to be open and was on the water so we stopped, and boy were we glad we did.

Our view

Joe wanted fish and they had some choices.  He got to go pick his fish.  He picked the one that was in the empty space in front.  It was sea bream.

I ordered a chicken pasta.  It was so good.  It wasn't heavy at all.

This is Joe's fish.

Our server cleaned it tableside for him. Removed the head, fins and all the bones.

He really enjoyed his fish.

Look how clear that water is. 

The other thing I had on my list I wanted to try in Greece was loukoumades.  These are Greek donuts drizzled with honey and pistachios.  I finally found some today.

Joe had the tiramisu.  He always gets tiramisu.

I like the sentiment on the side of the container.

This bakery had lots of good looking things to choose from too.

Our ship was waiting on us.

The not only have tiny trucks but also tiny boats.

Another beautiful sunset.

We had a treat tonight.  Because of where we were in the world we were able to see Venus and Jupiter. They were really bright.