Weekend Away in Crete



So in August Matt asked if I wanted to get away for the weekend to Crete and I said heck yea! So we booked tickets and headed out for Friday to Sunday.  It's a quick easy flight there and we were happy to go! We rented a car and drove around a bit but also hit the famous site of Knossoss, which is home to an ancient Minoan civilization.  All in all is was a good weekend!

 

We're ready to hit the road in our Jimny! Top is kinda down, let's hit the road!

 

As you know we got photoshop so I've been playing around with some of the pics.  I messed with the color hues a little. Here's green....

And purple. Whatdoya think?

 

I'm channeling my inner Mr. Bean preparing to eat the heads of the prawns. Yum yum.

 

It was so cool! We passed this church that was built into the cliff side. See?? It was teeny tiny-about 8 people could fit in there, maybe.

 

And it was crazy windy there-can't you tell?

 

We also visited a cave were some people hid during a raid to only then later be "smoked out" aka get smoke inhilation and die.  The lights in there made the rocks look all creepy and mystical.

 

We passed by this fence that had a bunch of goat/sheep heads on them. These had intertwined horns, like they were holding hands.

 

Here we are at Knossoss with the famous bull running mural behind us.  You couldn't get closer than that so it was hard to get a clear shot.

 

There were some great (and huge) cisterns haning around.  Look at that detailing!

 

This is a fresco from Knossoss that I'm going to try to replicate on some ceramics.  Hope it goes well! The design is just so cool!

 

So we kept trying to take a nice photo of Matt with the fortress in the background but that kid was just DYING to be in the shot too. Crazy little tourist boy.

 

Now I can't remember if I told you about the crazy Greek driving when I blogged about Greece last year. They kinda do their own thing over there, much like here I suppose. But worse. You know the white line on the right that marks the shoulder? Nope, that is a separating line for another lane, no shoulder.  And so you can get 2 cars going next to each other (or to pass) on what should be a 2 lane road.  You can always tell tourists because they don't get it. But we're in the know and Matt did a great job navigating it all. But it also wasn't that crazy; oh the island life.....

 

Because it's so quick, easy, and cheap to get to Crete we're planning to go back again sometime soon(ish).  It is a great spot for a weekend getaway.  

UK-Finale! Wrapping It All Up in Scotland.

So I realize I've been way too slow about getting all of our UK stuff up here so I'm hitting it hard and wrapping the trip up in 1 final post, Scotland.  I could do them all in a bunch of posts but it'll be whirlwind here just like it was in real life.  And the pictures are in reverse order so I'll start with the end....

 

Edinburgh.  We had a great time there! Sadly it rained almost the whole time we were there so we didn't get to hike Aurthur's Seat or wander around as much as we normally would. Happily we did get to see the castle without any rain-yippee! We took the guided tour to learn a few new facts about the place-it was short but had some good info.  It also had a nice view of parts of the city.

 



 

Backside of the castle.

 





Scenic overlook-it was a little chilly.

 

 

No, sadly he didn't really play. But he was the only "man" wearing a kilt with bagpipes that we saw the whole trip.

 



 While in Edinburgh we took a day trip out to St. Andrews (home of the famous golf course, and also, apparently, where Prince William met Kate for lunch at times...or so the cafes said.) and also to Rosslyn chapel. Sadly there are no pics allowed at Rosslyn chapel but let me tell you, if you ever get a chance to go there, DO IT!! It is such a lovely little chapel and has such a great history that has nothing to do with the Da Vinci code! It is a little pricey to get into but again, worth it.
St. Andrews was a nice little town but it is very famous for the golf course and the ruins.  The cathedral that used to be there was very important in medieval Christan Scotland. And it was HUGE. Even just walking around the ruins you could tell it was a beast.  And it had a giant grave yard that was basically built on top of.  Now that the cathedral is in ruins, you can see some of the ancient gravestones. My mom would've loved it. 

On top of a tower with the ruined castle behind. It was windy and cold as Matt is showing us.

 

Part of the ruined cathedral.

 

Another part of the ruined cathedral.

 

I've been playing with photoshop. This is a "poster affect"-what do you think?

 

 

On our way to Edinburgh from the Isle of Skye we stopped in Stirling to check out the castle. It was amazing.  So beautiful.  We took their free guided tour as well and learned some good stuff.  Sadly we were too late to make it to the William Wallace Memorial that is very close, you can see it, but we did get some photos (ish).  The castle was lovely and very photogenic ;)

 

Lovely flowers growing out of the rock at the castle. Not too shabby with the mountains in the background huh?

 

There is the William Wallace Monument! It's so tiny!

 

Even Matt played along this time!

 

Smoochy smoochy. Who doesn't want some lovin' every now and then?

 

So our first stop in Scotland was the Isle of Skye.  We rented a car in the lakes district of England and drove all the way up, via Glasgow.  We decided to take the bridge across and not the ferry for a few reasons. 1. I get crazy motion sick so we weren't sure how well I would handle the drive, let a lone a boat ride, which is turning out to be the worse of the 2 for me. 2. The ferry didn't run all the time and it was like a 30 min ride. 3. Most importantly, it was crazy expensive. So the bridge for us, which was fine. Because if we hadn't taken the bridge we wouldn't have gone by this little beauty (only on the outside, inside it's filled with creepy dolls we're told). This is the most photographed castle in Scotland. It is the Eilean Donan castle. 

 

 It was real pretty outside. Sadly we couldn't go in as there was fire right before we got there.

 

Old stone-gotta love it!

 

A beautiful (and somewhat late) sunset on the way back to our B&B. There was a cute little chapel right on a little pond which I felt was so quaint.

 

We also got to do a little hiking in the hills.  Of course, more sheep and craggy hills. It was amazing.

 

We later found out that the movie "Prometheus" was filmed here. No surprises right?

 

We had a great time in Scotland and would happily go back at some point! Especially since we didn't get to see much of Edinburgh due to the rain.  The people were so friendly and helpful as well! So we're cracking right along seeing a lot of the UK! We just need to hit Ireland and Whales and we've seen it all, right? Really next visit to the UK is to see some other friends who have left us here in Cyprus-and this time we will get to see some horses!