TIME TO LEAVE

SATURDAY 24th JANUARY 2009

They say all good things must come to an end.  However, it is still going to be an eventful day as last night Maria and Theo received a phone call from Auto Previli to say the farmers were going to block the main highway to Chania today and instead of leaving 'Creta Spirit' at 1.30pm as previously arranged we would now leave at noon.

We met Tony, our driver, at the Alianthos Hotel as then set off for the Airport.  We had lots of time as our flight to Athens wasn't until 16.10. 

The weather was lovely and the E75 road deserted.  Tony decided to go as far as possible on this 

main highway and then, when necessary turn off onto the old road to Chania, so at each junction we risked going on further.  It was only as we were getting nearer to the Souda intersection did I notice so many trailers parked outside various roadside buildings.  Surely they would not be so mean as to block the road at this major junction, but they did.  Suddenly we were at a police road block and although Keith had seen on the internet that if we produced our flight tickets they would let us through we decided to take the detour.  Along this highway several new juctions have been built especially those allowing access to some of the small beaches and thankfully a new juction had been built to our left.  Travelling along roads getting closer to the snow capped mountains I felt we were on another day out and not heading for home.  The road got narrower

and twistier and because of this traffic began to build up especially coming in the opposite direction.  The landscape was very barren - rocks and plants with sheep and goats who looked on disbelieveing the amount of traffic on what I guess would be such a quiet back road.  I had also had the foresight to pack our road atlas in my rucksack and this came in handy as Tony was also travelling on unfamiliar roads.  

Finally we found ourselves in the

streets on the outskirts of Chania and going past 'no entry' and 'no right turn' signs.  We obviously need to spend more time here in the winter months!  Then we all decided we were on familiar roads to the airport - but we weren't.  As I said we had lots of time and before long we were 3 kilometres from the airport. 

View of Chania taken from the car window whilst travelling down the mountain road 

Parking the car Tony came in for a coffee amazed at the empty check in area - such a difference from the summer.  We said our goodbyes and wished him good luck on his return to Plakias.

We had a long time to wait to check in but eventually signs of desks opening - not at the numbers displayed - and we were leaving with our boarding cards for both flights.  Upstairs the duty 

free shop was closed but again staff came along  and opened up, but with only a few passengers I wondered if the couple of sales they made warranted so many staff.  

Going out to the plane by bus Keith commented about the plane with propellors.  Yep that was ours.  It looked so old from the outside and even older inside but I think I got a good shot of the sunset from my window, and also as we came in to land of a small island with a cloud covering it like icing on a cake.  

Our luggage was booked through to Manchester so once we had negotiated the transfer route, which is very misleading at Athens airport, we went to eat.  Lots of choices in the eating area from Asian, Italian, Greek to McDonalds!  The Greek lamb and potatoes looked wonderful and later I wished I had gone for that instead of visiting the salad bar as our macaroni dish was a little bland. (I keep thinking I should try vegetarian sometime.)

The onward flight was not full either and we had a delay due to one of the cabin staff being taken ill and so a replacement steward was sent for.  I don't know what he did whilst on board but we never saw him carrying out any duties.  We only saw him because we were in the front rows.

We landed in Manchester on time and our luggage soon arrived.  Outside we were relieved to find there was no sign of the predicted snow.  We had to  ring our taxi driver who was surprised we were out so quickly.  He was just enjoying a cup of coffee down one of the back roads close to the airport. Just before midnight we arrived home and set about tackling the basket full of mail before giving in and going to bed at 4am Greek time!