“Exploring Crete” is Peter Sommer Travels’ first scheduled tour in 2017. This year, to give an impression of the experience, we are providing a diary of sorts on our blog. Rather than describing every day in detail (you can check our itineraries on www.petersommer.com for that), every day we will pick one image we took that day, accompanied by some explanations and thoughts.
As I mentioned yesterday, today was our free day at Chania. The free day is an opportunity for the guests and the guides on "Exploring Crete" to take a deep breath and take stock of what they have seen so far, with six full days of touring behind them (it's been a week since we started) and another four ahead of them.
We have chosen Chania for this day because the city, renowned for its beautiful Venetian harbour, is the right place for it. It is of a moderate scale, but offers lots to see, including cultural options, beaches in the vicinity, as well as a host of excellent restaurants, cafés, beach-front bars and opportunities for shopping.
Maria and I spent the day moderately active, including a visit to the archaeological museum, which is not currently part of the tour programme. The highlight of our Chania day, however, was dinner. We decided, as we do every time we lead this tour, to scout out the place where we are taking our guests tomorrow, an excellent seafood taverna set directly by a rocky seashore in a former industrial quarter just below Chania's late 19th/early 20th century Chalepa district. Our picture shows the view from the restaurant's outdoor veranda, overlooking the eastern part of Chania Bay, the Old Town and harbour themselves, the Rodopou Peninsula in the distant background and the sunset behind it all. On a balmy string night, this is the perfect place to be, somewhere in between the sea that surrounds Crete, the rock that is Crete and the sky that overlooks Crete.
A moment of little thought and of sheer beauty in itself: that's all it is, and we hope our guests are having similar moments.
Tomorrow brings us to one of my favourite places in Crete...
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