Random Tuesdays 02/23/2016

Near the village of Kares in Crete, Greece in 2011

Random Tuesdays 03/03/2015

Near Topolia, Greece in 2014

Random Tuesdays 08/12/2014

Road to Hora Sfakion, Southern Crete, Greece in 2014

Random Tuesdays 08/05/2014

Greek theme continues on Random Tuesdays! :)

Bali, Northern Crete, Greece in 2014

Crete 2014: Elafonisi

If you ever travel to the island of Crete, there's one destination you should not miss - Elafonisi beach. It's simply one of the most breathtaking beaches on Crete. 

I've been to most of the other Cretan beaches (like Vai and Falassarna), but nothing compares to Elafonisi.

Elafonisi is located on the southwest corner of Crete. It's a very popular beach, especially for families with kids since it has very shallow water. 

The water is shallow enough for even our 4 year old to walk to the Elafonisi island that is next to the beach and there is a sand path there as well. The island itself is a protected nature reserve.

Here is the said gentleman playing in between the beach and the island, which is in the background.

The water is clear and you can see little fishies swimming around, which was also a fun thing for our lil  man to watch. The water is also a bit cooler than elsewhere, kind of like a mix of river and sea water, which makes it really refreshing.

The sand sometimes has a pink tint due to broken seashells

Since the area is really large, it doesn't matter that the beach is crowded.

The island of Elafonisi

Northern part of the beach

If you go deeper, it's an excellent place to do some snorkeling.

View towards the beach

I swear I took like a hundred photos again of the clear water and amazing views, just like I do every time I visit Elafonisi :)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Random Tuesdays 07/29/2014

Lighthouse at the Venetian Harbor in Hania, Greece in 2011.

Κρήτη, Ελλάδα

We just got back from an amazing vacation in one of my favorite countries, Greece! I've been there almost a dozen times and did a summer study abroad in Northern Greece, in Thessaloniki. This time we traveled to the island of Crete, where we spent our honeymoon. This was little man's first time in Greece, so we planned our trip mainly with him in mind. I'll do some photo flooding later from different places, but here are some general photos from our trip.

While Greece never fails me, our hotel this time did. It was near the village of Tavronitis and had nice pool areas (three of them actually), but the room was horrible. We complained and the travel agency promised us a gift card as a compensation.

Husband and lil man walking to the nearby beach. The beach was a five minute walk away.

The beach was a pebble beach and there weren't that many people around. The few people that were there, well, they appeared to be nudists and really didn't want any tan lines, anywhere. To each his own, I guess.

But if we kept our eyes towards the sea, the view was amazing :)

Since the hotel was so poor, we were lucky to have reserved a rental car in advance, so we got some extra days and went roadtripping for most of our vacation. Here's our trusty rented Peugeot.

Typical scenery while driving in Crete

Gorgeous mountains of Lefka Ori

One of the places we visited was the cave of Agia Sofia near Topolia. You had to walk a few hundred steps to get there. Poor husband had the carry lil man all the way to the top :)

The cave is pretty impressive though, and the entrance is free. You can leave a few coins to support the church that offers services there. You could roam around the cave freely, which was awesome.

Inside the Agia Sofia cave

If you plan a visit there, I suggest wearing real shoes and maybe carrying a flashlight. It was really dark in some parts of the cave and extremely slippery. I almost fell several times with my flip flops and got my hands dirty with pigeon and bat poop since I had to hold on to the rocks in order to not to fall :) It was really wet in the back parts of the cave and you couldn't see anything. But lil man absolutely loved visiting the cave, exciting stuff!

We also visited the mountain village of Spili

Where we had dinner with a view :)

We were the only customers at that taverna with the exception of this little gal. 

I'm not really a cat person, but for whatever reason cats always like to be close to me. I think cats are beautiful though, so I don't mind.

Sunset near Tavronitis. 

As promised, I'll post some more photos of the sites we visited later. There are also some photos on Instagram: sugarantelope

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Random Tuesdays 07/15/2014

Elafonisi beach on the island of Crete, Greece in 2011.

We are heading to Greece again this summer, can't wait!

Back in Φινλανδία :)

We had the most amazing honeymoon in Greece! I'm sure everyone thinks that of their own honeymoon, but I think it just means that it was a success :) With our teenyweeny budget we managed to do all sorts of fun stuff, although we had to skip mountain climbing due to the extremely hot weather. We did a lot of roadtripping instead and went to see the gorge we'd plan on climbing. The scenery was breathtaking! I'm an archaeologist by training, so I couldn't resist on visiting some ancient sites as well. Here's some photos:

Enjoying the hotel garden

Some refreshments

Paddle boating on Lake Kourna

Imbros gorge

Yummy baklava :)

Hora Sfakion

Faistos Minoan palace

Sfentoni cave in Zoniana

Elafonisi

Hania Venetian harbor

We took closer to a thousand photos, so I had trouble picking which ones to upload here :)

It was an awesome trip, but I'm glad to be home too, I missed our lil man quite a bit! Also, I appreciate the fact that it's raining a lot more ;) Can't wait for our next trip to Greece though, loved the scenery, the food and the people!