[2022]
[Thursday 19 May
2022]
Mediterraneo Hotel, Λιμένας Χερσόνησου, Crete
Lychnostatis Museum, a.m.
Heraklion, p.m.
“Surprisingly, I did sleep,” Janet wrote. “[I] managed a few hours. I eventually got up at ca.6.10am. Mr. Blackbird was late today: didn’t start singing until ca.5.30am! On the day we arrived, we were delighted to see (and hear) a Mr. Blackbird in the vicinity of our room. He sang for us like our Mr. Blackbird at home. It was wonderful.
“It was again very windy with a rough sea, and [with] sunny spells. We’ll soon know what the temperature
is.… We went for breakfast. Another cool day! Afterwards, we decided to visit ‘Lychnostatis’.” Back in the room, I looked at
OpenStreetMap (08:53–09:09) to see how we could get there. It was situated opposite the hotel, about 160 yards to the north, just by the sea, but there was no way to get to it directly; instead, from the end of the hotel drive we would have to walk 370 yards westwards to where a road forked to the left from the main road, then a further 230 yards eastwards along that to the museum entrance.… Then we set out to visit “Lychnostatis”. In fact, we crossed the main road at the bus stops, then found a path parallel to the road behind the oleander hedgerow. Just before the junction there were steps down to the road we sought. “The sea was different shades of blue,”
Janet recalled: “beautiful.”
Mediterraneo Hotel and Lychnostatis Museum, and the indirect route between the two
Friday 20 May 2022 09:40:22
Entrance to Lychnostatis Museum
Friday 20 May 2022 09:40:22 (detail 1)
Glimpse of Lychnostatis Museum from outside
Friday 20 May 2022 09:40:22 (detail 2)
Entrance to Lychnostatis Museum (left)
Friday 20 May 2022 09:42:04
Lychnostatis Museum: ticket office
“It cost us €24,” Janet wrote. “First we saw a film about Crete, and how the museum came about. I was moved and cried. Everything was done by one man along with friends and family, and was still a work in progress. Then we explored. I felt it was necessary to see the film before the tour to understand what it was all about.”
Friday 20 May 2022 09:45:30
Lychnostatis Museum: introductory videos
Lychnostatis leaflet (1)
Lychnostatis Museum: Plan of the Museum with north upward
Lychnostatis leaflet (2)
Lychnostatis Museum: Plan of the Museum with south upward
“Inscriptions in ‘Lychnostatis’ Museum
Friday 20 May 2022 10:09:34
Lychnostatis Museum
Friday 20 May 2022 10:11:26
Lychnostatis Museum: Fruit Garden
Friday 20 May 2022 10:11:26 (detail)
Lychnostatis Museum: Fruit Garden
Friday 20 May 2022 10:12:06
Lychnostatis Museum: Fruit Garden
Friday 20 May 2022 10:12:56
Lychnostatis Museum: Fruit Garden: pomegranate and orange
Friday 20 May 2022 10:14:58
Lychnostatis Museum: Fruit Garden
Friday 20 May 2022 10:15:38
Lychnostatis Museum: Carpentry & Shoe-making Workshops
Friday 20 May 2022 10:15:38 (detail 1)
Lychnostatis Museum: Carpentry & Shoe-making Workshops
Friday 20 May 2022 10:15:38 (detail 2)
Lychnostatis Museum: Carpentry & Shoe-making Workshops
Friday 20 May 2022 10:17:32
Lychnostatis Museum: Carob Mill
Friday 20 May 2022 10:20:56
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition
Friday 20 May 2022 10:21:26
Lychnostatis Museum: main exhibition building
Friday 20 May 2022 10:24:40
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition
Friday 20 May 2022 10:24:46
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition
Friday 20 May 2022 10:25:02
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition
Friday 20 May 2022 10:25:18
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition: “Freedom or death”
Friday 20 May 2022 10:25:58
Lychnostatis Museum: Room of Local History & Tradition
The gun of a Cretan
Should never be sold:
Its place is in church,
Never to be used again.
High up on the wall it should hang,
Surrounded by cobwebs.
And as the dead hero shall turn to dust
So shall his gun turn to rust.
The above exhibit illustrated what Vangelis had told us yesterday about the strong gun-culture in Crete.
Friday 20 May 2022 10:26:54
Lychnostatis Museum: Open-air Theatre; Sculpture “Tree of Cretan Woman” (right)
Friday 20 May 2022 10:27:48
Lychnostatis Museum: main exhibition building (left); Room of Local History & Tradition (right); Sculpture “Tree of Cretan Woman” (right)
Friday 20 May 2022 10:28:26
Lychnostatis Museum: main exhibition building (left); Room of Local History & Tradition (right); Sculpture “Tree of Cretan Woman” (right)
I had a hand-held audio guide, and wanted to follow the route given in the first leaflet, listening at the places shown by the numbers within headphones. I felt annoyingly encumbered by the guide, the leaflet and my camera. But
Janet wanted to be free to explore, so there was a bit of a disagreement and a temporary parting of ways.
Friday 20 May 2022 10:33:10
Lychnostatis Museum: Cretan Farm-house
There was a class of schoolchildren occupying the living room of the “Cretan farm-house”.
Friday 20 May 2022 10:33:28
Lychnostatis Museum: Cretan Farm-house
Friday 20 May 2022 10:33:46
Lychnostatis Museum: Cretan Farm-house — a school class learns about Cretan life in former times.
At a suitable pause in the teacher’s talk, I excused myself and picked my way through the seated company, making for the stairs at the far right corner. “Παρακαλώ!” I said, then corrected myself, just as the teacher did the same: “Ευχαριστώ!”
Friday 20 May 2022 10:34:58
Lychnostatis Museum: Cretan Farm-house — a school class learns about Cretan life in former times.
Friday 20 May 2022 10:35:06
Lychnostatis Museum: upstairs to the Middle-class House
Friday 20 May 2022 10:35:34
Lychnostatis Museum: Middle-class House
Friday 20 May 2022 10:36:08
Lychnostatis Museum: Middle-class House
Friday 20 May 2022 10:36:18
Lychnostatis Museum: Middle-class House
Friday 20 May 2022 10:41:34
Lychnostatis Museum: Middle-class House
Friday 20 May 2022 10:41:54
Lychnostatis Museum: Library
Friday 20 May 2022 10:44:00
Lychnostatis Museum: Library
Friday 20 May 2022 10:44:34
Lychnostatis Museum: view from outside the Library
Friday 20 May 2022 10:44:48
Lychnostatis Museum: descending from the Library
Friday 20 May 2022 10:51:04
Lychnostatis Museum: Shepherd’s Hut (Greek: Μιτάτο)[i]
- [i] Μιτάτο: This is the word given in the leaflet in the Greek version of the legend, where the English has “Shepherd’s Hut”. It’s the same word as that used by the
Safari Experts Crete website in its description of the “Shepherd’s Paddock” (see
Thursday 19 May
2022): “There we will make our first stop, in a traditional mitato where we will meet a local shepherd with his family.”
Friday 20 May 2022 10:52:24
Lychnostatis Museum: Shepherd’s Hut (Greek: Μιτάτο)
Friday 20 May 2022 10:54:12
Lychnostatis Museum: Cheese Cellar
Friday 20 May 2022 11:00:52
Lychnostatis Museum: Old School
Friday 20 May 2022 11:01:34
Lychnostatis Museum
Friday 20 May 2022 11:02:36
Lychnostatis Museum: Olive-oil Press
Friday 20 May 2022 11:03:38
Lychnostatis Museum: Bees & Wax House
Friday 20 May 2022 11:03:54
Lychnostatis Museum: Bees & Wax House
Friday 20 May 2022 11:06:06
Lychnostatis Museum: Herb Garden
Friday 20 May 2022 11:06:06 (detail)
Lychnostatis Museum: Herb Garden: “Snail storage”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:10:06
Lychnostatis Museum: Chapel “Virgin Mother of the Sea”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:10:48
Lychnostatis Museum: Chapel “Virgin Mother of the Sea”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:11:16
Lychnostatis Museum: Chapel “Virgin Mother of the Sea”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:11:28
Lychnostatis Museum: Chapel “Virgin Mother of the Sea”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:14:28
Lychnostatis Museum: Fisherman’s Hut
Friday 20 May 2022 11:14:40
Lychnostatis Museum
Friday 20 May 2022 11:14:56
Lychnostatis Museum: Fisherman’s Hut
Friday 20 May 2022 11:21:46
Lychnostatis Museum: Handmill
Friday 20 May 2022 11:22:00
Lychnostatis Museum: Windmill
Friday 20 May 2022 11:23:00
Lychnostatis Museum: Water Motorcycle
There was an exit on the north side to the beach, through which we went briefly. It was windy today, and the sea was rough.
Friday 20 May 2022 11:24:46
Lychnostatis Museum: just outside the Seaside Exit
Friday 20 May 2022 11:26:26
Lychnostatis Museum: Rakí Distillery
Friday 20 May 2022 11:28:02
Lychnostatis Museum: Sculpture “The Tree of Cretan History”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:29:12
Lychnostatis Museum: Sculpture “The Tree of Cretan History”
Friday 20 May 2022 11:31:56
Lychnostatis Museum: Wine-vat
Friday 20 May 2022 11:32:42
Lychnostatis Museum: barrels adjacent to the Wine-vat
Friday 20 May 2022 11:36:42
Lychnostatis Museum
On another view of the sea, to the left we spotted a small church, seemingly on a narrow spit of land, ready to be overwhelmed by the waves.
Friday 20 May 2022 11:42:32
Agios Nikolaos Church, seemingly almost being swallowed by waves
Showing the position of the church (“Agios Nikolaos”) in relation to “Lychnostatis” and Λιμένας Χερσόνησου (Port of Hersonissos). At the time I had no clear notion of its precise location, and didn’t know its name till after we got home.
“We explored,” Janet wrote. “It is a truly individual and remarkable place. Afterwards, as we handed in the audio ‘thing’, I told the man that it was one of the most incredible places I’d ever been to but [that] it was really necessary to see the film first. He said he’d tell the director — and that it was he! It was almost noon by the time we left so we returned to the hotel and had a drink in the bar before dinner.” At 1.25pm I intended to check the bus times to Heraklion from the photo I took on
Tuesday 17 May 2022
of the timetable posted at the bus stop, but these were only for bus journeys eastwards.
Tuesday 17 May 2022 14:30:34
Departures (eastbound) from “Hersonissos” bus stop
So after we crossed the road to the bus stop westbound buses, I took a photo of the timetable posted there.
Friday 20 May 2022 13:41:44
Departures (westbound) from “Hersonissos” bus stop
We gathered from that, that there should be a bus at any time: for it was 13:41; there was a bus scheduled for “13:40”; and on our approach from the hotel drive to the bus stops and our crossing the road no bus had passed. It did arrive, in fact, some 16 minutes late. “Very posh,”
Janet commented. We were expecting an ordinary bus. “It was a modern and smart coach. Heck! [The journey] took an hour. The sea was beautiful.”
Photo of one of the KTEL buses, like the ones on which we travelled, from the front page of a timetable
There was a conductor aboard, who came to the seat, and he issued one ticket for the two of us.
Ticket for the outward journey, issued “13:56:09”
Friday 20 May 2022 13:58:08
Views from the bus: Λιμένας Χερσόνησου (Port of Hersonissos)
Friday 20 May 2022 13:58:08 (detail)
One of many shops selling cannabis
Friday 20 May 2022 14:11:12
Views from the bus: Βουνό Έδερη (Edheri Mountain)
Friday 20 May 2022 14:17:20
Views from the bus
Friday 20 May 2022 14:30:22
Views from the bus: “golf ball”
Friday 20 May 2022 14:48:48
KTEL Heraklio-Lasithi bus station
This map shows where we went today, and also where, in central Heraklion, we would go
tomorrow.
Janet’s account of the visit to Heraklion is as follows: “We went for a wander. I didn’t like it. It made me feel uneasy. Last time I felt like that was in Rotterdam years ago. Disturbing.”
From the bus station, we initially turned left; but when that didn’t appear to be taking us anywhere interesting, we about-faced and went in the opposite direction. That took us down by the “ditch” beside Venetian-period bastions and a curtain wall. To the left through the trees I glimpsed a derelict factory (Kastrinakis Flour Mill, I would later
ascertain),[ii] but I couldn’t get a view that was not in some way compromised by the trees. Then we zigzagged up and found ourselves in perhaps the main square of the city: Πλατεία Ελευθερίας (“Liberty Square”).
-
[ii] Almost without exception, I found out the names of today’s locations after we got back home.
Friday 20 May 2022 15:20:22
Views from Eleftherias Square, Heraklion, of the way we’d come
Friday 20 May 2022 15:20:36
Views from Eleftherias Square, Heraklion, of the way we’d come
Friday 20 May 2022 15:20:36 (detail)
Vitturi Bastion and statue of Eleftherios Venizelos, Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:23:24
Eleftherias Square, Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:24:24
Statue of Eleftherios Venizelos on Vitturi Bastion, Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:24:24 (detail)
Statue of Eleftherios Venizelos on Vitturi Bastion, Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:27:10
View from Eleftherias Square next to Vitturi Bastion, Heraklion, of the way we’d come along Λεωφόρος Ικάρου (Icarus Avenue)
“Then we went down some stone steps into the moat at the city wall. A peaceful, wild, untamed place. Trees, flowers, plants. We saw a ‘grey’ crow like the ones in Egypt. I felt
much better. I was at peace.”
Instead of going along the same road Λεωφόρος Ικάρου (Icarus Avenue) back, we went parallel to it by descending some steps into the “ditch”, named Πάρκο Ικάρου (Icarus Park). It was a bit neglected and overgrown in parts, but perhaps more enjoyable for that.
Friday 20 May 2022 15:33:34
Πάρκο Ικάρου (Icarus Park), Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:34:16
Πάρκο Ικάρου (Icarus Park), Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:35:38
Πάρκο Ικάρου (Icarus Park), Heraklion: hooded crow
Friday 20 May 2022 15:35:50
Πάρκο Ικάρου (Icarus Park), Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:39:48
Sampionara Bastion, Heraklion
Friday 20 May 2022 15:40:06
Sampionara Bastion, Heraklion
“It was about 3.45pm so we found the bus station, bought tickets, and it was a real hoo-ha trying to find the correct bus. We were misdirected and there were loads of people milling around. Anyway, we found our bus (another posh coach) and were on our way at ca.4.30pm.”
There were two buses in the bus station that would stop at Hersonissos, with people milling around waiting to board. The gate with fewer people was “Gate 7”, but a member of staff there directed us to “Gate 11”. After we got there and tried to board, a staff member redirected us to “Gate 7”. Anyway, we did get aboard.
Friday 20 May 2022 15:48:54
KTEL Heraklio-Lasithi bus station
Friday 20 May 2022 15:51:12
Ticket office, KTEL Heraklio-Lasithi bus station
Friday 20 May 2022 15:51:34
“Time 16:15 To …CHERSONISOS… Bus 63 Gate 11”
Tickets for the return journey, issued “15:51”
Friday 20 May 2022 16:15:44
Aboard the bus after a bit of hassle
The bus departed at 4.21pm.…
Friday 20 May 2022 16:31:50
“Golf ball”
“It only took just over ½-hour to the bus stop near the hotel,” Janet wrote. “We dumped our stuff [in the room], had a drink in the bar, then had dinner. We returned to our room. I showered, ‘sorted my bits’, and we were both in bed at
ca.9.30pm. I was so tired.”
…According to the browser history I looked up “John in Greek” (20:47–20:50). In the New Testament, the Greek for “John” is “Ίωάννης”, but in modern Greek, it’s shortened to “Γιάννης” (transliterated “Giannis”, sometimes “Yiannis”). This may have been when I suggested that our new teddy bear, at first named “George”, actually be named “Γιάννης”.
[Saturday 21 May
2022]
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