Sunday was the day I transferred from Heraklion to Chania. This was to be by bus, and I already know it would be a long journey – anything up to three hours. Check-in time at my hotel in Chania was two o’clock and I wanted to be there no later than that. There was also the fact that I couldn’t really get any lunch until after I’d checked in, which was another argument for getting to Chania as close to check-in time as possible. So I walked down to the bus station (getting rather hot in the process) and arrived there at just after ten o’clock.
The buses run every hour on the half-hour, and I was able to get a ticket for the next bus, at 10:30. I’m never sure if they check how many tickets they’ve sold, but probably they do – the buses are generally full, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen people refused boarding at the starting point. Anyway, this bus was certainly full on leaving Heraklion but it slowly lost passengers as we went westwards. The main exodus was at Rethymno, which is about two-thirds of the way to Chania. But progress was fairly leisurely, with frequent stops and some departures from the main road – for example, the bus went into the centre of both Rethymno and Souda, from each of which it then had to get back onto the main road. All in all it was almost three hours three hours after leaving Heraklion that the bus rolled into the familiar surroundings of Chania bus station. The ticket cost just €15.something, which was a bit more than I remembered.
From there I walked round to the hotel, and this took at least 10 minutes – in the hot sun, and pulling my case, so I was in a bit of state when I arrived. But no-one commented unfavourably about the perspiring Englishman who had just turned up, and I was soon checked in.
After changing into something cooler I went in search of lunch, and found it at a familiar haunt – the Galileo Cafe on Chania harbour front. There I weakened and ordered a club sandwich and chips, and polished them all off. Well, it was already 2:30 so lunch was late and I was very hungry. Then I went for a wander around Chania, to re-familiarise myself with the town. It’s still one of my favourite places, even on my fourth visit. I also walked out to the lighthouse along the breakwater and took some new photos of the harbour from there.
I came back to the hotel after a couple of hours and completed unpacking, and I got rather frustrated with the room (and myself) during the process. There seemed to be several small niggles that I kept coming up against – the shower cubicle screens wouldn’t shut properly, the toilet flush was stiff, the drawers into which I was putting my clothes were stiff, etc, etc. It’s also possible that I was also very tired. All in all, this was not a happy hour. But eventually I was ready to go and look for dinner, even though I wasn’t really hungry. In the end I went back to the Galileo and had another club sandwich, but this time with salad instead of chips. Then back to the hotel for a rest, followed by a final wander around the harbour before retiring.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the best night’s sleep. I found that the room was very light – it wasn’t possible to draw the curtains to fully exclude the light from the hotel opposite (the Case Delfina, where I stayed two years previously). It was also the case that I had been experiencing serious stomach ache during the day and evening – possibly due to over-indulgence during the days in Heraklion. I was hoping that the (comparatively) restrained eating this day, together with an avoidance of alcohol (!) might help. But it took a paracetamol before I was able to sleep.
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