Crete

'Even one of their own prophets has said "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons" This testimony is true.' Titus 1:12.

Always felt this was a bit harsh of the Apostle Paul, and having just spent a wonderful week a Crete I can definitely say that however true this may have been in the 1st Century it no longer applies. Cretans in my experience are a very warm, gentle, hard-working and honest people! (I wonder if this is why out of the many churches I saw in Crete, none were dedicated to St. Paul?).
We just got back from a very chilled out holiday in Elounda in Crete with Su's mum and Geoff. Elounda is a fairly small town on the North East coast of Crete beside a lagoon which is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the Mediterranean and is surrounded by mountains. Upon our arrival in Crete, we picked up our hire car and an hour later we were enjoying a cold beer and this view in a sea-front Taverna - the Cypriana before we'd even unpacked our cases. Just behind the Cypriana was our apartment. From our balcony we enjoyed this view :

It really was an incredibly chilled out holiday. We went on a few trips, such as visiting Knossos a Minoan palace which was kind of impressive, due to it's size and age. The effect was spoilt a little bit, however, due to the fact that it has been largely reconstructed (using lots of concrete) according to one guy's interpretation and it was hard to tell which bits were original.



We also went to a place called the Lasithi plateau, a fertile region in the middle of the island which is covered in orchards and vineyards and lots of windmills which were used to pump water to irrigate the region. Extremely beautiful and very quiet except for the bells of a few mountain goats.



Our last outing was a boat trip to an island called Spinalonga which was the last Leper colony in Europe. A fascinating and beautiful, if tragic, place.



Most of our days, however, were spent lazing on beaches :



strolling along harbours :




or in tavernas!








It's a hard life sometimes!