Beach Day at Xerocampos

Wednesday was beach day! We headed south to Xerocampos. Stella drew us a map to find a quiet bay down a dirt road beyond another white-washed church trimmed in sky blue. We crashed one other couple that left not long after out arrival…so sorry. We took a walk around the point. The boys raced ahead but then came racing back and announced that around the corner was the beach for people who don’t want to wear clothes. I peaked around the corner and a couple about my parents’ age, oh I hope it wasn’t my parents, was collecting sea shells in the nude. We decided not to disturb them and return to our shade under the cliffs. The boys built their most spectacular sand creation to date. We swam in our perfect little cove of sand and absolutely clear water until we were so hungry that we had to go find food. Then we returned to play until the sun sunset.

Sitia Archaeological Museum

Tuesday we headed back into Sitia to visit the Archeological Museum. We had actually headed to Sitia in search of a capable internet café without any success. We piggybacked the museum on our internet search. While we hadn’t planned the progression of our fieldtrips or the museum visit, the museum did answer lots of our questions from our visits to the ruins. We also had the entire museum to ourselves for almost two hours. The boys were in classic Logan student mode with their journals. They took off in different directions to draw pictures and record information they deemed relevant. Liam was particularly fascinated with the clay tablets of Linear A script written by the Minoans. Colin focused on the coins of the Hellenites and Romans. I was impressed with the ancient wine press and the huge clay vessels as tall as me.

P.S. Well we are certain at this point that there is not a connectable high-speed, broadband internet connection in eastern Crete. We tried to connect through a computer at the biggest internet café in Sitia, Z-net, yesterday and failed. We will wait for Athens in hopes of an opportunity to upload pictures and blog entries.

Itanos

Monday we visited the Hellenistic-Roman city of Itanos. There were no ticket booths, or caretakers or information placards in any language. Remnants of a chain link fence still stood in a few places. A chain link gate was propped open with a rock cairn and we started our tour of the site from there. The remains of the basilica were the most interesting. Enough clues remained to help our imaginations fill in more of the gaps. We could see the layout of the church in the foundation stones from the double entrances into a common entry hall. The main sanctuary of the church had two alcoves on each side, perfect mirrors of each other. The far wall had a deeper, bigger alcove. Marble columns lay strewn about and within the church wall boundaries. The most interesting detail was the double entrance to the basilica. Both of the entrances were large rectangle flat rocks. In each of the two front, outside corners were single deep holes and in the middle of the front edge there was one more hole. We conjectured that double doors to the basilica mounted in these outside holes with one of the doors locking into the middle hole with a vertical locking pin. The set-up matches the double, Asian doors in our cabin, which had holes in the floor in the same configuration. Interestingly, the apartment in Lindos we locked ourselves out of had the same style of doors too. Scratches and grooves were worn in the rock from generations opening and closing the heavy doors and the dragging of the locking pins. The front of the steps were worn and hollowed from many passing feet. Colin traced the arched path of the locking pin with his finger. We all remembered the feeling of the heaviness of opening the wooden doors to Liam’s old room. We wondered who had opened and closed these doors? Somehow the understanding of the feeling of this simple motion brought us closer to another people long ago.

The Minoan Palace of Zakros, 14 October

On Sunday we explored the ruins of the Zakros Minoan Palace. The palace was about a five-minute walk back down the dirt road towards the beach. About 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, Zakros was a bustling port for the Minoans. Ships came and went here from distant civilizations on the Asian and African continents. Visualizing the ancient commerce and influence of this area takes a vivid imagination today. The paved road ended in from of the taverns on the beach. The road to our place and the palace turns to barely one lane and is described as “dirty,” not dirt, by locals for its unpaved and rutted condition. One to two story cottages are scattered along the lane between olive groves and vegetable gardens. The olive trees lean permanently inland on twisted trunks suggesting strong winds can blow, but today only a light breeze blows in from the sea. A tiny, whitewashed church trimmed in sky blue sits on the hill above the palace. We were given a one page brochure with a paragraph on the palace’s history and another on its discovery in the 1960s. We had to work to imagine the once vibrant life within the palace. There was also a diagram outlining the layout of the former rooms and courtyards. We spent the afternoon wandering among the remnants of stone walls and peering into crevices. We played a game where we would choose a crumbling artifact and all try to guess its function explaining our thought process to one another. A chain link fence appeared to have been placed indiscriminately around the palace because the ruins extended beyond the fence on all sides into the olive groves of the modern neighbors. The placement of the fence highlighted for me the futility of trying to separate ancient from current. One civilization always builds on the foundations of another. The four of us discussed why the Minoans chose Kato Zakros specifically for their palace. We looked at how the surrounding hills were brown, craggy and scrubby, but the valley was green and sloped gently to the sea. We had read the Minoan era was peaceful. The lack of fortification at the palace and the valley location, instead of cliff top as many castles we’ve seen this trip, seemed to support this claim. Doug and I discussed how viewing the ruins of successive powerful and flourishing civilizations reminds us of the temporal nature of even the greatest empires.

Hey Libby's Class!

The count down has really begun. We are nine days out from New Zealand. The reality of this move is hitting all four of us. We all woke up thinking about it two mornings ago. We try to imagine our new life. We wonder about where we will live and whom we will meet. We now have a welcoming committee to meet us at the airport. Our new car will be waiting with the dealer and a woman with a check from our new bank. That sums up all of our contacts except for our real estate agent that we have been emailing.

As New Zealand gets closer letting go of our Colorado life feels more permanent. I woke up this morning thinking about Libby’s & my Logan class from last year. I am wondering how some of you are adjusting to AS life and how the other half is doing as the new class leaders? I miss our time as a group together, especially heading out on the road in our yellow school bus. I wish that I could take you out to see the sights around Crete (but I wouldn’t want to drive the school bus on these crazy winding roads). Please know that all of you are in my thoughts and dreams. I can’t wait for you to head down under for a visit. Do you think NZ would make a good extended field trip destination?

P.S. If any of you read this blog, please drop me an email and update me on your year thus far!

Arriving in Crete, Saturday, 13 October

We arrived in Sitia on the island of Crete at 8am this morning. We had three flights and our plane literally puddle jumped across the Mediterranean. The second leg was about a five-minute flight and the last leg was ten minutes. We were the only passengers on the last leg. We stepped off the plane onto the tarmac. We could see nothing but the little runway, the water and a fuel truck on the edge of the tarmac. There were no buildings, just the four of us and the plane. Finally the pilot pointed around the plane. We hiked up the hill to the terminal.

As we loaded the car, the boys noted that Sitia didn’t look as busy or touristy as Lindos. No kidding Sherlock. We are the only ones here at the airport. The rental car was waiting in the driveway of the terminal as planned. Yeah! We have an orange Fiat Doblo in honor of upcoming Halloween, I guess. We drove out of Sitia through progressively smaller villages. We are in Kato Zakros, a little valley of olive trees in an otherwise barren, dry landscape. As we drove up to Stella’s Apartments, we passed Minoan ruins, herds of sheep and goats, big vegetable gardens, a beautiful beach and some taverns. Everything we need. There was even a rainstorm yesterday so the air is cool and clear and the world looks freshly washed and dusted. Stella says the taverns are great with fresh fish from the Med and vegetables from the gardens we passed. Sometimes I wonder what Doug is thinking when we head out on the road. Usually, he is the driver and I am itinerary planner. We rarely end up in the middle of a town, let alone a town if I have my choice. Lindos was the exception. He always seems up for the adventure. The one bummer is that the internet connection does not seem like it is as fast and convenient as we thought. We all want to video-conference with our family. Before the trip I had thought Turkey would be more internet-challenged. Ironically we had a much easier time finding fast, reliable internet connections in Turkey.

Good Bye Lindos

Off to Crete now, so here is a link to photos from our week in Lindos.