Day 14: I don’t read Greek

We woke early hoping to find the city center, the main pedestrian area of town where the major archeological sites are located. Our host left us instructions of how to get there on foot, only a 25 minute walk. For us, it ended up being a 60 minute walk because we don’t read Greek street names.

We had a chance to explore the Heraklion neighborhoods and realized that this city was less focused on tourism. At cafes, they spoke to us only in Greek and restaurants were few to come by outside the city center.

We finally found our way to the city center and saw Koules Palace, the Venetian fortress that had been around since medieval times. The walls that lined the city were tall and free of the graffiti that we had seen all over Athens.


We saw the main church, which we stopped in briefly because we were both wearing shorts.


Lastly, we went to the Archeological Museum and learned a lot about the Minoan culture in preparation for our visit to the Palace of Knossos the next day.

One super interesting fact, they used to bury their dead in vases like the one below and they would be curled up in the fetal position and slowly become fossilized into the vase.

We walked home and decided to make spaghetti at our house for dinner. It was a nice change. I officially cannot look at greek salad any longer without flinching.