Holiday comes to an end for some

TUESDAY 6^th JANUARY

Not a good weather forecast for today – rain.  We had a thunderstorm during our late breakfast that brought giant hailstones with it.  Today sees the end of the festive season and at noon the young men of the village will ‘swim for the Cross’.  This is a tradition carried out in towns and villages that usually have a port and in times gone past was a form of baptism. We left it until almost mid day to go down to the village and arrived just in time as people gathered around the jetty which had been festooned with Greek pennants.  A small stage had been erected and the local priests had gathered to perform the ceremony.  With the cold wet weather it was a very short affair and I noted that this year the priests remained in their black garments rather than wearing their beautifully embroidered robes.  The head priest threw the cross, attached to a long length of ribbon, into the water twice and on the third throw the young men dived into the water each one trying to be the first to retrieve the Cross. 

Congratulations went to the young man who found it in the somewhat murky water due to the muddy brown water running down the streams that lead into the sea. The young man swam back to the stage area to be blessed by the Priest and receive a special award.  I had read that for years a money prize was awarded to the lucky swimmer but it lead to fighting among the contestants and so a lesser value prize has since been given.  The whole event only lasted 10 minutes this year.

After lunch Stef and I returned to Plakias and took a walk along the beach. Keith had encouraged me to take the car into the village due to the weather and I’m glad I did as it began to rain again and we would have been wet through by the time we returned to ‘Creta Spirit’ if we had walked. 

Stef returns home today via Heraklion catching the evening ferry to Pireaus and then a flight around lunch time from Athens tomorrow. At 5pm we set off for Rethymno Bus Station as Stef said she would catch the bus to Heraklion rather than have us drive all the way there and back in the rain and at night.  The buses run every hour and we just missed the 17.45.  There was a nice warm waiting room, and I had cooked her a couple of fennel pies for the journey, so we said our goodbyes again and returned to Plakias.  We stopped at the café ‘Pyrgos’ (the Tower) on the main Rethymno/Ag. Galini road, a first as we have always been put off by the number of tour cars parked outside the place.  It is a large stone ‘fortification’ looking building and so we were pleasantly surprised to find it was not so large inside.  A lovely wood fire was burning but all the tables around it were occupied.  It was warm inside so it didn’t matter where we sat. The menu was extensive and the food was good, especially the oyster mushrooms fried in a light batter.  They served us a plate of Greek yoghurt with preserved fruit in syrup, and of course a small flask of raki just to finish off our meal.  By the door were plates of the Christmas biscuits but we were so full we didn’t collect one on leaving, but thought it was a nice gesture.

There had been a landslide close by with several large rocks in the road and from our table we had watched the bulldozer come and move the debris.  We also saw the police car come and go up and down this stretch of road and assumed they were looking for the landslide.  Too late again!  We still drove home carefully as there was a lot of flooding on certain parts of the roads and was also difficult to see at night.  Stef texted us to say she was settled in her room on the ferry, which she was sharing with three Greek ladies, and was enjoying her fennel pie!