Four Weeks In Greece: Day 23, Pink Beach and Chania

The photo below is from yesterday. The owner of the place we're staying in, Maria, had a basket of these pastries, made fresh that morning by her sweet mother, Liza. They were filled with a soft cheese similar to ricotta but, according to Maria, better than ricotta. 😊 It was yummy. I asked Maria to write out the name of it in Roman letters and in Greek letters. She emphasized to me that the CH is pronounced like H, the C being silent. So I think the pastry name would be something like lee nah ROCK ee ah.

Okay, now on to today's highlights. We drove 2.5 hours to the western most part of Crete. En route, our highway was lined with oleander and bougainvillea and tall grasses and Cyprus. Off to the north, we often had awesome ocean views, like this.

And this.

We had to cross some mountains, and in one little mountain village we saw a sign that said, "910 year old olive tree" so we stopped and snapped this photo. Later we learned that if we'd walked just a few meters deeper into the olive grove, we would've seen the 2000-4000 year old olive tree of Vouves.

Our destination on the west coast was Pink Beach, AKA Elafonisi Beach. Why is the sand pink, you might ask?

A specific type of microorganism lives in its shallow water. Once they die, they leave behind a pink shell. Those shell pieces then mix with the white sand to give it a pink color. Sadly, there is less pink sand there now because tourists take samples from it to bring home as a souvenir. This area is nature reserve and its sand and flora and fauna are protected.

After a quick dip, we headed back over the mountains, stopping for a late lunch/early supper at a little restaurant in a mountain village. The restaurant had a large eucalyptus tree out front, ftom which it took its name, The Eucalyptus. Reportedly, the tree is 140 years old, a mere pup compared to Ye Olde Olive Tree down the road.