Crete

Our trip to Crete was wonderful, even before we got engaged.  While it was great to be home in August, it proved to be one of those "vacations" where you get home more tired than you left, and so the point of the trip to Crete was to sit on the beach, read a few books, and to generally just relax. Of course, an hour after we arrived on the island it started to rain (for the first time in six months), so we were a bit nervous that we'd waited too long to get in one more week of summer. However, the bad weather blew over as we napped the next day and we were able to get plenty of time on the beach.  

In the interest of keeping it a stress-free, relaxing trip, we spent most days by the beach and only took one day trip, to the island of Spinalónga, in East Crete. Spinalónga is a small, impenetrable island that served as a Venetian fort in the 16th century, but is more recently famous for having been home to the last leper colony in Europe. Fun!

Our trip included a tour of the island, swimming on a remote beach, and a greek barbecue and while the swimming, the barbecue, and the views were great, we wouldn't recommend the trip. There are other, better sights to see in Crete, but we weren't really interested in getting up at 5 to catch a 3 hour bus ride- at least not for this trip.  Still, Crete is home to the caves where Zeus was born and who could forget the Minotaur?!  Maybe next time.  

The sun and the ocean were amazing, but we were just as happy with the food. Greek food is so good! And, since they have a lot of German tourists in this town, everybody served German beer. (In fact the town seemed to cater strictly to Dutch, Germans, and Brits. Every one we met was surprised to find out that we were American.) So, we ate a ton of food, which is sort of the opposite of what you want to do when you're spending all day in a bathing suit. We ate at many different places in town, but we found that the consistently best food was at the restaurant run by the people who also ran our apartment. Here's a shot of a typical starter, stuffed vine leaves and some baked feta. Sooo good! 

And then, of course, we got engaged, which is all well and good, but was really just Rob's insecure way of keeping Erika from running away with our waiter and host, George, who constantly plied her with booze and Greek food in an effort to drive a wedge between us. 

All in all a fantastic vacation and a wonderful trip.  If you ever go to Crete, here are a couple things you should know: 1.  The water is heated by the sun, while sitting in tanks on the roof.  So, hot showers in the afternoon or evening, but not the first morning you wake up.  2. The beaches are topless (or, at least, top-optional) but the people who choose to go topless are never the people you'd choose to go topless.  And finally, while you can't smoke on the plane, you can smoke in the airport (everywhere), which was probably the most foreign thing about the whole trip.  It was like going back in time or being on Mad Men....