It's good to be the king

This morning, we took a ferry to a place where we got in a van and drove for a few hours to Irakleon.  When we got there, we had a little time to eat lunch before we went via city bus to Knossos Palace.

In a nutshell, this was the center of leadership for the Minoan civilization, which existed all the way back to 1900 BC.  The palace covered 20,000 square meters, or for people who think like Americans, that's 215,000 square feet.  

It was essentially a city before there were cities, and they had figured out running water, flushing toilets and buildings with multiple floors.  As it turns out, the plumbing in Knossos Palace centuries before the birth of Christ was better by far than the plumbing in the rest stops along the Samaria gorge trail.  Go figure.  

It was incredibly interesting, though Cas was disappointed that he did not see one Minotaur.  Can't win 'em all, I guess.  When we left the palace grounds, we went through the adjacent museum.  After we left there, we stopped back by the hotel room to relax for a moment before dinner.  It was another one of our group meals at a restaurant our tour director recommended for us.  

Greeks always bring things to a table that you may not have asked for.  When we ordered Ouzo in Meteora, we got a plate with olives, tomatoes and cucumbers.  When we ordered Mojiots just last night, we got carrot sticks and a bowl of peanuts.  At meals, Greek restaurants seem to bring chunks of watermelon out afterward along with glasses of Raki or Cipro.  Raki is head and shoulders better than Cipro, by the way, bearing a much closer resemblance to Ouzo than anything else.  I have now learned that Ouzo is a drink for before the meal, while Raki and Cipro are for afterward.  

Anyhow, the restaurant brought out melon and Raki, along with some fresh cherries and a desert that can best be described as a Greek doughnut with cinnamon. It would have been rude to say no, so we were just trying to have good manners.  

There are only two other couples on this trip with us, and one of them is from Australia. They are like the super-fun devils on our shoulders when it comes to turning in early.  They are a blast to be around, and they are not particularly shy about ordering another drink.  We sat with them after the meal and made sure we weren't insulting our hosts by leaving the Raki unused.  The Australians wanted to go out for more drinks on the way back to the hotel.  We were seriously thinking about it, too.  In the end, we decided to turn in.  We have a rather early morning tomorrow.  We head for Santorini in the morning.  I am so excited about Santorini and Mykonos that I am almost without words.  

Time to turn in, though, and get ready for the next leg of the journey.  In the meantime, Here is a snapshot form the sun setting as we were walking to the restaurant this evening.