Day 12

Fair play to some of these restaurant/cafe/bars in Crete, they open at 8.30am for breakfast and stay open right until the early hours of the morning. To help them out, Anna and I thought we should go downstairs to one of the cafes and get breakfast to fuel us for a big day ahead. I had arranged a tour at a local winery and also planned a trip to Lake Kournas today, but I had no idea what to expect, and Anna didn’t have high expectations.

After a short drive through the mountains, blaring the radio and Anna singing along to the Greek radio, we arrived at Mavros Winery. Greeted with clear raki, honey raki and water, we were actually more obsessed with the 6 dogs that were running about the place. The winery saves stray dogs and looks after them and one was cuter than the other. At one stage, the biggest dog was doing shuttle runs with her 5 puppies – who weren’t even a week old – and moving them into shade. At first I thought the dog had caught a squealing piglet for breakfast. Thank god that wasn’t the case!

Having sipped our raki, petted the dogs and had my shorts covered in shit, we were escorted out the back to the vineyard. The vineyard was so big and we got a pretty formative tour about the different types of grapes and how they operate the place. Employing 30 people for a month in August, 8 hours a day to pick all the grapes to make wine, and then coming back in winter to start making olive oil.

We tasted the different grapes from the vine and even had a plum from one of their other trees. For our first wine tour, it was actually brilliant so far, and very interesting. It probably helped that there was nobody else here so it was only Anna and I, and our tour guide.

A brief stop for more raki and to dry off from the heat (even the locals told us it was far too hot today), we delved into the next building to see the processes of making the wine – looking at their tanks and barrels and most importantly, their wine cellar full of hundreds of bottles of wine. They also make raki (pretty much the left over skin of the grape) and balsamic and normal vinegar with the old wine. They have it sussed.

Finally, the most important bit. Wine tasting. 6 wines of our choosing and a massive plate of food, we sipped and ate for the next wee bit, finding out about our tour guide who is studying agriculture and wine making in university, as well as the history of Crete. Did you know, when the Turks had occupied Crete, they added -laki to the end of all the surnames of the locals. -Laki means small and they did this to show how small in standing the Cretans were to the Turks. Before we knew it, we had spent almost 3hrs here and thought it best to leave. It was only €15 euro each…for everything!! Sadly, we only had €45 in cash money or we would have given her more – we did come away with a bottle of our favourite wine though!

Taking the back roads through the mountains, we were off to Lake Kournas. Fair play to Anna who had done her research and found out that there was parking right at the bottom but most tourists park at the top and pay the souvenir shop €2. They aren’t catching us out as we flew past. We had arrived at 4pm and it was probably an ideal time, it wasn’t too busy at all! Apparently, the must do thing is to get a pedalo, sure why not?

Surrounded by mountains on either side, we ‘pedalo-ed’ into the lake and towards the edges. Most of the others were doing the same as they were all trying to find the turtles. The freshwater lake is a goldmine of creatures but the most famous here are the turtles, some of them swimming right up to our boat, gasping for air and breaststroking away. So damn cute.

Turtle watching done and enough swimming to reach the quota for the day, we headed off on our last adventure – back to Syntopia Hotel! They just can’t rid of us. We had to leave our trusty Yaris back again before 8pm. At first I was disappointed we settled for a Yaris and not a convertible Audi, but the experiences we had over these 4 days, and especially on that bloody rocky road to Balos Bay, it was sad to say Goodbye.

Before we did say goodbye, we stopped for fuel, took a wrong turn and ended up literally driving through a field, on just dirt. A little last off-road adventure wouldn’t hurt. Even though the same girl who checked us out last week was working, she didn’t recognise us (HELLO?? WE’RE GIN AND TRAVEL). But sometimes it’s ok not to be noticed and having to sign autographs and pose for pictures.

After a taxi to Rethymno we got the bus back to Chania (€6 ticket compared to a €90 taxi is definitely worth it). As Anna slept, I watched the Lions…enough said about that. There would be no fancy dinner for us tonight as we stopped to get gyros on the famous ‘gyros street of Chania’ before heading to the supermarket to plan for tomorrow and chill on the balcony with a drink or two after a good rewarding day.