Kalimera!
Just got back from 28 days Plakias, stayed at Skinos this time, what a lovely and warm family!
Wind (*^#@^^%^^#Y$$^^), lots of wind (*&&%#^^^&%&U^&) first week 4 days gale force ten and the whole last seven days of our stay again, stretchers flying through the air on the beach, parasols breaking of like matchsticks, a bit much sometimes cause the beach is out of the question (the sand peels your lovely brown tan of) and in the evening on the balcony gazing at the stars one feels a bit chilly cause of the never resting wind while it's 28 degrees, still...as the misses always says: this wind will keep the sort of tourists out of Plakias you don't want there and there is probably a lot of truth in that.
Restaurants: ate at Christo's one night cause I heard good things about it, what a disaster!! customers shouting at the boss: 'I'll report you to the restaurant guide' ( I suppose Christos is mentioned in some restaurant guide), boss shouting back: get out of my restaurant!!! Other customers loudly complaining cause they have to wait so long for their food, unfriendly staff, mediocre food, had to wait long time for service, at least 45 minutes between starters and maincourse and worst of all in my opinion I got my main dish 10 minutes later than the misses, yuk! never again. Ate a lot at Harakas, very friendly, good cook (always big flames!), very talkative, intelligent waiter. Excellent freshly made pizzas at Kri-Kri (the best in the world according to Manolis, better than in Italy he always says) Gio ma always good, ate at Medousa one night because a lot of you people hang out there a lot I understand, what a pleasant guy! very good food, only thing was, we where the only customers there that evening and the misses really likes a restaurant to be almost full. Very nice place also is the Greek next to 'On the rocks' I still don't know the name, big, big Greek guy, superb free garlic bread for starters.
New harbour: at the end of our stay they even worked on sundays, Manolis says they have to be finished before the end of the year otherwise they will be fined heavily. Asked if the new harbour will atract a lot of pleasure boats to Plakias he said he did not expect that, main reason for building it was because the fishing boats are in danger at their present place when the wind blows to hard (and it did, it did!)
Very noticable this year: the presence of police cars in Plakias, many! every day, last year I saw 2 in 3 weeks, this time I saw 50 in 4 weeks, dunno why....
Leaving Plakias; Agia Galini, a pleasant little place tucked away in the rocks, Ghania: really nice, of course it's a big tourist tit but we both really liked it, much better than Rethymno last year, beatiful old harbour, had a meze for two (23.50 euros!!) in a restaurant in one of the back streets, best meal we had this year, worth every penny of it! Chora Sfakion, uhhh no thank you, you can tell the staff in restaurants is used to having customers that only come there for 1 day, unfriendly, lousy chicken souvlaki, unedible, my shoes where more tender, that chicken must have been over a 100 years old.
Only positive thing was that one of the waiters provided us with a running gag for the rest of our holidays, when asked for two Mythos he kept repeating completely puzzled: Tomatoes? you want tomatoes? so every time after that when we sat down for a beer some where we asked each other: you want big tomato or small tomato.....
Kurna lake: beautiful but only when you think away the few 1000 tourists that hang out there, like flies, small beach absolutely packed with people, hundreds of boats on the water, excellent oregano chicken in taverna overlooking the lake, a lot of the famous Cretan smile from the serving ladies, packs of geese shouting for food all the time.
By the way, we spotted the last goose in Plakias outside Gio ma one evening begging for food, he (she) looked lonely.
One day a giant container ship went by real close to Plakias, one could tell by the reaction of the people on the beach they thought there might be something wrong being so close but apparantly it comes by every 20 days and the captain is from Crete and lives nearby so when he is close to his home he beeps his giant horn to say hello to his family!!! Cretans!!
We want to go back!!!
Yassas!
Chris H.
