Crete Nov 12

 We arrived this morning in Souda Bay on the northwest coast of island of Crete (a Greek island, 5th largest in the Mediterranean) this morning.  We took a 20 min bus ride to the town of Chania (haa·nee·uh), the 2nd largest city on Crete.  There wasn't a lot to see...the main attraction seemed to be The Market, and it's been closed for 4 years for repairs.   We saw the influence of both Islam and Christianity...one church had both a bell tower and a minaret

 Our tour guide said 99 percent of the island is now Greek Orthodox and 1 percent Catholic.  We visited a Greek Orthodox church, very impressive with lots of icons toward the front which church members will touch and kiss

 

Greek Orthodox priests can marry and have children.

There were many quaint and narrow alleys we walked thru

 

 The Venetians bought Crete in 1204, and called Chania "Little Venice" with Roman archways on many buildings, and the Ottoman Muslim influence could be seen on the same buildings...Muslims didn't allow balconies (so their females couldn't be seen), so on buildings like this, the Muslims has removed the balconies.  

Our tour guide expressed a strong dislike for the Ottoman Muslims and reminded us several times that they had been pushed out of Crete in 1898. We then just walked around the bay and visited the sea wall

It was a pretty day, our first over here without rain.  About the most informative info our tour guide gave us was that there are about 1.5 million sheep and goats on the island (good for gyros!) and that about 1000 people came to her wedding.  The Cretans (as opposed to me being a cretin) seem very proud of their culture (here is a statue of a war hero in traditional garb:

 

 Just as at Ephesus, we saw lots of cats. Some of the vendors put pillows in their stores for the visiting cats to rest on.

 The US Navy has a base at Souda Bay, though we saw no signs of it other than hearing fighter jets flying over occasionally.  

Late this afternoon we left Crete and sailed for Sicily!