We got a taxi up into the hills to the top of Myli (or Mili/Milli) Gorge today. The walk down the leafy paths felt rather dangerous at times. There were broken bridges and ankle aching paths strewn with rocks to negotiate. But it was worth it to see blue dragonflies, yellow butterflies amid the greenery of olive and fig trees and discover tumbled down water mills.
Cicadas were loud in the trees and we spotted a hawk at one point. The gorge is littered with the remains of about thirty water mills. These mills were overseen by the Venetian tax collector who lived nearby who oversaw the grain milled and the flour produced. According to the typically flowery wording of the leaflet we were given by the hotel rep before we visited, the Venetian’s ovens produced large quantities of bread to meet the needs of the Venetian government.
After an interesting walk down the gorge, we temporarily ignored signage pointing the way to the Banana Bar, and walked up a steep road to look at the view. Unfortunately this proved to be a little disappointing given the effort and so we were sweaty and happy to be served a couple of coke zeroes (more prevalent in all sorts of flavours than Diet Coke in Crete) at the Banana Bar.
We asked for directions back to Rethymno, but lost track about halfway through the explanation as you do. We followed our noses down a road toward the coastline. We took a short cut down narrow lane which seemed a more direct route than the zig-zagging main road. We were chased a little way by a duo of cocky little dogs which I resisted the urge to punt over the fence of a strangely placed boatyard complete with a big rusty dock crane.
Luckily we followed someone else who appeared to know the way and came out on a beach to the east of where the main road petered out where the taxis park near our hotel. For lunch we tried the little road around the corner where we found Crete Taverna. We styled it out just having coffees at one taverna that did gyros platter but not pitta then went back to the beach road and found Summer Tropical Bar which definitely had gyros pitta for 2.70 Euros.
Then we deposited ourselves on the beach. It was still a bit blowy but perhaps not as bad as yesterday and I think we both got some sleep.
In the evening we walked into town and admired another fantastic sunset. We found another back street taverna, away from the hubbub of the really touristy parts of the town, next to the mosque called Rakodikio.
Siggy had a typically large pork steak and I decided I would have at least one moussaka on this holiday, so why not tonight? Why not indeed. Bill-freebies included sweet quince, chocolate cake and raki. We were learning to overcome our embarrassment over the free stuff. The taverna was very reasonably priced and while we were eating they kept bringing out more and more tables a bit like that Amstel ad where the bar owner keeps getting more and more chairs out when the canal freezes over.
We spotted Gerard Butler as our first official celebrity lookalike, but we were to find that we struggled with playing the game this year – perhaps too many strange facial types.
On the walk back to the hotel we tried out Living Room – a pretentious cocktail bar with Fashion TV showing and aloof waiters in uniforms. The music was bangy bangy cafe de la mar type stuff and the average price of cocktails was around 8 Euro. There were nibbles with the cocktails but we didn’t really like the atmosphere there.
Kevin’s House cocktail bar further along the way back to our hotel couldn’t have been more different – it was more like a friendly small bar in Kos with seats facing the promenade so we could people watch and celebrity spot. We had some fruity drinks called San Francisco and Tropical Delight.
couchmagpie 