We arrived exhausted.  We had left our apartment that morning at 7:30am and after two flights and an endless 3 1/2 hour drive, we were dragging ourselves into our hotel room at 10pm.  We had rented a car at the airport in Chania and thought it would be about an hour to the beach where we were staying and meeting our friends.   We got a little lost, it was dark, everything was in Greek and for one of our important turns, there was no sign.  The last half hour of the drive was the worst; I was drenched with fear and anxiety driving on the sides of open and unfamiliar one-lane cliffs, nothing but the sea glimmering in the moonlight ahead and the babies in the back.  I kept praying, and sweating, and we eventually made it.  The babies were amazing, they were excellent all day through so many changes.

Everything improved from then on.  We had a pretty solid routine of waking and playing in the sand in the morning light, breakfast then a  nap for three to four hours in heat of the day, then a long lunch with friends and when the sun was calmer, around 6, we played on the beach until dinner at some nearby seaside taverna.  Bedtime for all at around 9:30.  We got so much needed rest being on the babies schedule.  I finally finished an entire book: Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison.  It was a great book,  I couldn’t wait for the next day’s nap time to continue reading it.  We took a few trips to Spili, the nearest town for some milk and snacks but realized that with the roads twisting and turning up and down mountains Lucas’ stomach turned upside down.  It was no fun for him.  We spent most of the first ten days resting and exploring the nearby coast.  It took the babies a lot of time to get used to the beach.  At first they were fascinated, then the water rushed in and softly knocked them down.  That was it, they were done.  For days they kept close to us and after a few minutes on the beach, they started saying “go!”  They wanted to leave and not be near the water.  We let them take their time and slowly but surely they fell in love with it all and started saying “go beach!.”  The last day of the trip, they finally went all the way in and “swam” with daddy.  They learned so much on this trip, their vocabularies exploded and they are speaking new words everyday now.

When we left the beach, we drove to Heraklion, which is Iraklio on the map and looks nothing like either of those in Greek.  Almost always, the names on the map were different than those on the highway signs, both unpronounceable.  I got really good at navigating and even reading Greek to keep us on track.  I wanted to see Knossos and I figured we had come so far, what was one day in Iraklio?  It was worth it, Knossos was amazing, I have always been fascinated with Minoan civilization and it was inspiring to see some of its relics.  The next morning we packed up again and drove to Chania and stayed in the old Venetian harbour.  It was beautiful, the naval museum there was one of the most impressive museums I have ever been to.  There were around 100 of the most detailed, hand-crafted, large scale model ships.  The craftsmanship was marvelous, the ships were breathtaking.  Eliot was not amused and he basically screamed the entire time I dragged him through it.  I couldn’t really figure out why he was so opposed to looking at model ships, he very rarely acts out like he did there.  He had a generally hard time in Chania, he was difficult to please, until we found the beach.  ”Go beach!”  The beaches near Chania were nice but much more crowded and popular than where we had been in the South of the island.  The beaches we had come from were perfect, but I think Lucas and Eliot were just happy to play in the sand and water again.  Bertram is a great role model for them, he is an excellent swimmer and he had so much patience helping them adjust to the water and move through their fears.  They loved watching him swim out from the shore, it made Lucas laugh so hard.

It was a fantastic vacation for all of us and we got to spend so much quality time together.  There are plenty of pictures from trip and I hope you enjoy looking at them.

You can view them as a slide show by clicking in the upper right corner on the Flickr page.  Click here to see the pictures.