Day Five: Chania

Today started a little differently then normal. We left the hotel at 8am, and drove for about an hour and a half until we got to the City of Chania. We went to a spot on the mountain that overlooked the whole city, and we ate our breakfast there instead! This spot was near a high school and the Technical University of Crete, so we got to see both of those campuses.  A reporter came to visit Theodore, Maria's husband who was accompanying us for today's trip, and he interview myself and a few of the other girls on our trip to city how we liked our trip so far. That's was pretty cool, especially because we got to do it all with a gorgeous view! We took a picture of us also, starring one of the city's stray cats that was befriending Jess during our stay. He is part of the family now.

Next, we were off the the production site of Tera Creta. They pick and produce olive oil here along with a lot of other products like balsamic vinegar, marinated olives, etc. We got to go insides of the production rooms and were taken step by step through the process of making olive oil. After we went through the production room, we got to "professionally" taste the olive oil. And by "professionally" I mean one of managers taught us how to swirl the olive oil in our mouths and smell for quality... it was like a real taste testing! lol. We felt like little connoisseurs of olive oil They gave us a little goody bag with their olive oil and balsamic vinegar, so I'm very excited for that!

After that, we drove the Mannas Bakery where we got to walk through the production of Rusks. Rusks are twice baked bread, so it goes through the oven process twice. Do no confuse this with toast, because toast is always only baked once! Rusks are baked twice, until 95% of the humidity is out of the bread. They have a great crunch to them, and can be uses a variety of ways! We had to put on hair caps and shoe gloves along with a little lab coat when we went through the bakery, so you KNOW we had to take a picture!

Stylin.

At the end of that tour, we got a goody bag as well filled with numerous types of rusks and things they produced there. I'm super excited to have them, but I have a feeling all of these gifts along with the souvenirs I've bought are going to make my checked bag overweight....

Anyways. After getting all of our bread goody bags, we headed to Downtown Chania where we got to wander along the harbor and do some shopping. It's a beautiful little town with tons of pretty alleyways. We wandered in the city a little and then on the shore line, there was a huge stretch of brick walk way that led to a lighthouse, so we walked all the way to the lighthouse and back, The shore of Crete is incredible anywhere you go, but I have to say... This few was probably my favorite.

We wrapped our day up with a long(and bumpy) drive home and when we got to the hotel, they had personal pizzas ready for us. BOMB. It was awesome.

But today was pretty long, so I'm gonna head to bed early. Here are the words I learned today!

Lighthouse - φάρος (fáros)

Wheat - σιτάρι (sitári)

Gelato - παγωτο (pagotó)

Post card - καρτ ποστάλ (kart postál)

See ya! 

Andrea Rose