At 6 am when the boat pulled into the harbor, I walked out onto the port into the beautiful Creatan morning. The sun had not shown itself but the sky was light morning blue and the big white clouds were soft and full. I found my way to the bus station and bought a ticket to the Minoan Palace ruins. At Knossos I arrived at the visitors center to a flock of wild peacocks and a one hour wait. When they opened I was the only one there and had the amazing ruins to myself on one of the most beautiful days in all of gods creation. I walked around the ruins for nearly 3 hours, and I really loved the Throne room and the chamber above it. I had breakfast on the ruins while sketching and drawing the plans of what lay before me. At nearly 11:30 I got another bus back to town. At the town center i bought a little pita for lunch. I love greece, where else can you get a delicious pita stuffed with lean thick bacon, and the worlds best feta cheese and olives? I topped that off with a half liter of fresh orange juice and went to the archeology museum. The museum had all the finds from the Minoan Palace and much more. After seeing the museum i had abut 5 hours before i had to be at the boat. So i walked around town, eventually i found an internet cafe and went inside. After two hours, i walked out onto the street into a town completely different than i had left it. On this beautiful sunday evening every person from ages 15-30 was dressed in the best fashions and were sitting at tables that mobbed the narrow city streets. All the cafes and restuarants were now open and the entire fronts of the shops rolled away and the awnings now hung out in the streets. This created one giant room several hundred feet long in either direction from a T intersection. This room was neither indoors nor outdoors and it started in one building, poured out into the street and into the next. I guess nearly a thousand young people were in this one little area, walking about, and generally socialising. It really was an environment i had never seen before and i was a bit jealous that i had not a place like this for me and my friends. Though i badly wanted to sit at one of the tables and enjoy the atmosphere, or at least take a picture. But i did neither because for some reason i felt this would be wrong, that this is not a tourist attraction, nor a spectacle, but a private way of life to this unique group of people that most likely gets violated every tourist season. So i moved on to the town center and had dinner there while watching young boys skateboard and jump off a big ramp they had set up in the park. Iraklio, on a sunday evening, is an exciting and happening little town. Back at the port i boarded my ferry to Athens and went to the lounge for dinner and another milkshake. when the boat shoved off i went top deck and watched the lights of the island disappear.
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