Sunsets & beach walks in Frangokastello

As I knew this place as a perfect stop to enjoy from peace and beach walks, I spent in Frangokastello many days again. Last year I learned to know an extremely friendly (so Greek!) family in there and I was happy to meet them again. Frangokastello is about 70 km from Chania in the south coast.

Preveli and the old Venetian Bridge

Preveli and the Old Venetian Bridge is a fascinating place for me. You can do many beautiful walks around like the one I did last year to the palm beach or few weeks ago in Kourtaliotiko Gorge.

When I was trying to find more information about the bridge I found this beautiful photo from the bridge and since Ursa Major is the most important star group personally for me, I really loved it!

Fasolaki - simple ingredients, but so tasty!

I gotta share this recipe with you since it is one of my favorite Greek dishes, why not try to make this at your place? Usually this is made without potatoes, but I think its a perfect match, especially for a winter food..

Tea, Red Beach and touring around the rocks

Spent some nice days again in Matala and this time Harald and Renate came too so of course we were little touring around. They havent been before at the Red Beach so was time to go there with them.

Surroundings in Matala are great too, it´s not just a little hippie-village :)

Paradise in the Gorge of Kourtaliotiko

Was time to put our happy hiking team together again, meeting up with my Austrian friends Harald and Renate :)! We stayed few days at the ancient Preveli Bridge and started to hike towards the Kourtaliotiko Gorge.

The name of the gorge comes from the Greek word "kourtala" which means claps and there is special point 20 meters from the north entrance where you can hear like hand claps and these are consequence of the wind being funnelled through the high caves of the gorge and breaking the sound barrier. I have been driving up the road through the gorge many many times and mostly there is always wind, but now we had just sun without a wind, so no hand clapping!

The Minoan Palace Phaistos

Got a beautiful sunny day to visit Phaistos or Festos/Faistos, the Minoan palace dated back in the 15th century B.C. The Palace of Phaistos with its superb architectural composition and its almost perfect construction, is considered to be the finest and most typical of all Minoan palaces.

Phaistos was one of the most important centres of Minoan civilization, and the most wealthy and powerful city in southern Crete. Materials used are trimmed blocks of limestone and alabaster, mud-brick, rubble and wood and there were also many ceramic old pottery work to see, interesting!

It is open all year around, in winter the opening time is 9-16 and it will not be crowded. Beside me, there were two other people walking around in the beginning of December. Like I said it was a nice sunny day, but it got so hot over there I guess due the stones getting warm. I can only imagine the heat in summer, mamma mia!
 

Rock on @ BabaYaga

Since it is winter and not to many actions around so it was a BIG MUST to get back to Matala when the wind was gone. You could not miss the rock n roll evening at BabaYaga

So end of November these boys from Athens came to play with their group called Beggar´s Blues Diary and they were rocking with full power indeed :)

You can meet the boys on their website www.beggarsbluesdiary.gr/

Escaping the wind to Kokkinos Pirgos

Enjoyed many good non-windy days in Matala, but sometimes when the wind starts to blow, it´s time to look for a new place. Found this village in the south of Crete called Kokkinos Pirgos (or you may write it also Kokinos Pyrgos). The name of the village stands for "Red Tower" which comes from the old times when there was a red tower built from red clay. The tower is not there anymore, but the name stayes. It is just a sleepy Cretan fishing village with a beautiful beach and I found a nice corner without the wind, perfect!
   

Matala - see the world in colors :)

Back in MATALA :) ! The place and village of hippies. Season is also over here, but few bars are still open and the beach is empty, this is what I prefere!

First 1000 km on Crete

Jassu everyone,

It´s been so nice to be back in Crete and weather has been more or less beautiful and December has started great! After the one week rest in Tsoutsouros we went to Ierapetra, the most southern city of Europe, spent few days in Koutsounari beach and up we went again to Elounda and Agios Nikolaos. I have a Finnish friend living there and we spent again nice evening together. I guess the only who was not so pleased was the cat in the house, totally not thrilled to get the doggy in the house! Well, they actually did well and I am happy that my dog is scared of cats, so there was a peace in the house of my friend.

Like the title said, first 1000 km done, tells already that I have made already some touring and now working on the photos. See you in Matala, peace!