Our ship ported in Chania, Crete today. Chania is pronounced Han-YAH, emphasizing the Yah. Our guide, Demetrius, picked us up for our excursion.

I booked a Jeep and Beach day. I knew we had multiple stops, but didn’t pay much attention otherwise. The family is getting tour fatigue, so last night I sold this tour to them as a relaxing day.

The guide showed up in a Land Rover, which should have been our first clue of our ride.  For the first part of our trip, we headed to an overlook of Balos Beach. We were by textbook definition off-roading for half the trip. When we parked for the overlook, we still had a  rocky path to the overlook. Along this drive, there were domesticated goats.

Once we parked, we fed some of the goats bananas and  continued on to the overlook.

The views were amazing overlooking Balos Beach.

From there we headed to Falasarna Beach where our guide had rented shaded chairs for us. Kate declared this beach to be the best she has ever been to. I dont disagree. The water was clear, it was fairly quiet, and the views were stunning. These pictures do not accurately depict the blue of the water, but they will have to do.

After our beach time, our guide took us to a restaurant for lunch. We enjoyed traditional Greek salad, gyros, moussaka, and more. For dessert, we had fresh fruit. Crete has it’s own version of Feta cheese that was on the Greek Salad. I can’t remember what it is called, but it had less tang than Feta cheese and was light and fluffy. It was SO good. Also, traditional Greek salad does not have lettuce. It has tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, olives, Feta cheese, and olive oil.

In between all the history, archeology, and bickering, these moments are why travel is so important to us. We get to watch our kids remember that they are friends. They will even hang out with us a bit, too.

We absolutely loved our short time in Crete and it definitely is on the list of places to return someday. We decided that we would skip the overlook for more beach time.

Headed to Mykonos tomorrow!