Tips when you visit Crete
Hey there,
I happen to have visited Crete 3 times over - it's a very nice island indeed!
Apart from the famous touristical sites (Knossos, Lasithi, the long Samaria crevasse tour) ... there are some less known sites that are worth well visiting.
Try and visit the nice and restaurant-filled laguna in Hagios Nicolaos... I recommend a meal at a tucked-away taverna "Lato's", run by 2 friendly brothers ( don't know if their restaurant still exists though) - they make the best "Steak Diana" I ate (it's with a rich, creamy mushroom & brandy sauce and fries or fried potato rolls).
A bit away from Hagios Nicolaos is also the mountain village Kritsà, where we just happened to be at the right time some 10-11 years (has it been that long already?) ago - we witnessed a traditional wedding of a couple , the groom in leatherboots and ceremonial horticult-type vest, riding his donkey, carabine shouldererd, to pick up his bride. Their friends shooting their hunting rifles in the air simultaneously to salute the couple and scare away the tourists.. nah just kidding
All 4 patriarchs of the island's regions joined together just to consacrate this one wedding ! But all the village people are so generous to the marrying couple that day - chunks of honeybread are handed out for everyone and in the church some large plates are hung from the ceiling where a lot of cash is being deposited to help the couple during their first steps in life as husband and wife.
The eastern outskirts of the Chania part are also nice to discover.
The location might be too far to venture on your own by car, but equally worthwile to visit is the source of the mineral water bottlery of "Zaro", where I think we happened to come across a trout and salmon breeding point, with about 8 basin tanks with the most glorious trout and salmon you've ever seen. Personnaly select your fish, see them being catched and jump desperately for their lives, have the fish half an hour later grilled on your plate adorned with parsley and lemon-juiced, accompanied with fries topped with fresh molten shrinkels of artisanally made mountain cheese (a bit like emmental, but really yummy).
There's also this place all the way back in the Northwestern tip of the island where a massacre occured - the women and children who fled from the invading Turks happened to be betrayed by a man in the village, and they were actually 'smoked out' as they lit fire to the only cave entrance, the blackened grotto's ceiling and a glass relic shrine with bones remembers this tragic occurence in the historical greek-turkish struggle over the island.
Gotta go now - Bologna's Erasmus student network throws a party tonight and I'll shake the floor