by John Freedman | May 27, 2019 | Blog
They aren’t much to look at, these rocks in the sea just outside the Old Town walls near the lighthouse and the entrance to the port at Chania. Rocks like any other rocks. But they do appear in a passage in one of the most famous and fascinating tales ever told...
by John Freedman | May 25, 2019 | Blog
Edward Lear, the famed British artist and children’s poet (A Book of Nonsense; The Owl and the Pussycat), visited Crete in 1864. He was a cantankerous, if not to say downright grumpy, observer of the isle. That only makes his The Cretan Journal (first published...
by John Freedman | May 19, 2019 | Blog
Crete is a land of plenty and a land of contrasts. There are deserts, there are woods, there are mountains, there are beaches… There are cities, there is wilderness… One of Greek literature’s finest romance poems (in 10,010 lines and approximately...
by John Freedman | May 17, 2019 | Blog
I have spent time in and around some beautiful waters – Hawaii, the Maldives, Costa Brava, the Balearic Sea, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the Americas and Europe, for example. But I have never seen water like the water on Crete. The colors are stunning....
by John Freedman | May 14, 2019 | Blog
Although the Venetians were driven out of Crete in the mid-1600s, their presence is still very much felt. The city of Rethymno, located one-hour’s drive to the east of Chania, has, like Chania, a beautiful Old Town area on a harbor built by the Venetians. Among...