The night was not too bad but it seems a long time ago now. I took H down to Elafonissi to investigate where I could give her a better morning run than she gets amongst the olive groves.
It was only as our time was up that I found the coastal walk route sandwiched between two fences. That will do nicely for tomorrow. In the meantime, I tiptoed my way across the northern part of the beach.
There was no one about at that early time of day, the sand was not pink where I was, the lagoon was flat calm as there was no wind.
I returned to our room to prepare brekkie. T faffed around for ever, looking for his plate on which I had presented him with tea and a biscuit.
We enjoyed brekkie on the balcony, drinking in the cloudless blue skies and the gentle warmth.
Then I fell asleep again.
We eventually got ourselves up and out to Aspro Limni (again). By now the skies were cloudy and it was not so warm. That did not stop me from having a pleasant swim. The water felt chilly so I did not stay in long. H paddled and had a run and that was it.
We headed for Stomio a recommended restaurant up the valley that leads to Chania. What a lovely place, surrounded by mountains, set in delightful gardens of shady trees beside a dry river bed. This latter bore signs of deep rushing waters at other times of year. Huge boulders lined the river banks. Massive pebbles / boulders formed the riverbed.
Amongst other things, we enjoyed the best aubergine chips, crisp, light and not remotely greasy. And as for their bread… drizzled with garlic oil and accompanied by a light tomato salsa. Yum!
Great meal Stomio. Great garden with wandering animals and families of cats, chickens and peacocks.
Following this, we took ourselves on a seriously scary adventure to Livadia, and accidentally, beyond. Or more accurately, above. Livadia is a sort of non-place, by a scruffy beach.
We made the mistake of following a certain road. We had a choice of two (roads) and we chose the wrong one. This road went up. And up. And up. I wanted to turn round and go back down and down and down. But there was nowhere with space to turn. And the road continued up and up and up.
It became narrower and the edges became undefined. It then threw in a few hairpin bends. These became steeper. And steeper. And the sea became a minuscule blob of blue somewhere a few thousand feet below. I felt sick. My knees wobbled. My feet felt horrid and sweaty. My eyes were glued on the road and not the insanity of what was below or above or even the lack of edge definition. T was occasionally saying something sensible if not bleedingly obvious. Eg Go slowly; keep away from the edge , pull hard round, I hope we don’t meet another car, etc etc .
We headed towards a village above us which clung precipitously to the mountain. I could see it was not well populated because many houses looked as though the windows were empty or damaged. Luckily, we found the only turning place and timidly re orientated the car, and oh so slowly descended. This was every bit as bad as the climb up had been, possibly worse. My speed was around 9mph.
The views would have been stunning, had I dared look at them.
Once I felt able to breathe again, we returned together to Elafonissi where H had a bit of a run. The lagoon colour was vivid against the grey of the sky.
We spent the evening listening to the radio, glad to be cosy.
It looks like rain tomorrow.
It thundered and lightninged on and off during the night. The morning is spectacularly wild.
Thought for the day
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