We had our usual breakfast in the beach bar in front of our room and then set off for Frangokastello, fairly early for us. Leaving was a little traumatic because after breakfast I had paid the girl who had let us the room, promising to drop the key in later but when later came she was gone, and her mother was there who refused to believe Vivi that we had paid. In Greece everything is cash and a receipt is a dirty word!!
Goat block - think she was still anxious about whether we'd paid!
To arrive at Frangokastello which is about 40ks east along the coast involves driving north almost back to Chania before going 40ks east along the north coast and then back south again. This was made acceptable by the interesting sites to see on the way and the fact that we had no choice! The ferry to Chora Sfakion was still not much in evidence. The Samaria Gorge was closed too because of the storms. Firstly there was Agia lake, that we wanted to look at in case there were any interesting migratory birds, which there probably would be in Spring but not necessarily now: however we did hear a Cetti's warbler and saw a couple of terrapins and a kingfisher!
Heading south again over the Lefka Ori mountains, the 'must see' is a small private museum of WWII memorabilia collected by an old Greek long since passed on, and now run by his daughter and grandchildren. The man who set up the museum had been a small boy in wartime and had witnessed
the fighting first hand in this small mountain village of Askifou.
The atrocities were horrendous across all this region, including in one case an entire village being wiped out as a reprisal for a German soldier being killed. After the war Germany provided that whole village with it's own water supply as an act of reconciliation. I do not like looking at The Swastika at the best of times but knowing a little about what went on here this made seeing the flag hanging in the museum very sinister. Vivi is currently reading Anthony Beevor's Battle for Crete interspersed with other more rubbishy novels as it is too traumatic an history to take in all in one go.
In the museum are the most extraordinary artefacts of war and survival in what must have been very harsh conditions, because the temperature and the weather in the Cretan mountains is less than comfortable! It is a sobering place to visit and clearly seen by a huge number of all nationalities. What really surprised us was at the end of our visit we were offered a 'wee nip' but instead of being raki which we were expecting, it was schnapps. Just goes to show where the majority of their visitors come from!
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