Night view

This is the view I get from the balcony of my children's bedroom. Can you see the ship at Souda Bay??? Send me a note and tell me where it is. Use the colours and sizes of the lights to pinpoint the position exactly.

Answer provided on tomorrow's post!

ABC Wednesday: Taxis

It's ABC Wednesday again, and T is for taxi.

In Hania, we have two different colours of taxi cab. Taxis whose base is outside the town of Hania (ie, they are registered in a village) are grey, while taxis registered in Hania are blue.

The new rules governing cabs now state that a newly bought town taxi must be painted blue all over. The one in the photo has a white roof, because it was bought before the new rule came out.


And here's my husband sporting his (new) taxi, parked outside our house.

The ferry boat

This is one in the monopoly fleet of ferry boats that take us to Pireas Harbour in Athens, when and if we choose to go there, which is unavoidable at many points in the life of a Cretan, sometimes for medical reasons, other times just to escape small-town living. The Ariadne is the latest addition to the ANEK Lines fleet. The boat (one of a few used on this route) leaves from Souda Bay, about 5km eastwards out of town, in the evening at 9pm, and arrives in the early hours of the next day (about 6pm). When it's not being used as the main link between Athens and Hania, it acts as a cruise boat, or it's used in some of the more 'luxurious' routes for Greek tourism, linking Greece to Italy.

Something old, something new...

Here's a colourful example of the old houses behind the old port area of Hania. Some are luckier than others, but that's just a natural part of the wear and tear process. The red one has been completely renovated and is now an architect's office.

These houses are very similar to the ones that were built by former Greek residents of Alexandria in Egypt, at a time when there was a Greek colony there. One of my wonderful students at MAICh told me that he was amazed at their similarity. The travelling Greeks always took their culture with them.

Nana's rooms

Another example of the multi-faceted uses of neoclassical houses in Hania. You can barely see the sign on the top balcony - it shows the name of this 'pension'-style hotel; the English bed and breakfast. But that's only the two top floors of the building. The bottom floor is a residential property - I've been inside it quite a few times. It's got high painted ceilings and it's decorated in an old-world style by a very proud owner. The owner also tends a large garden very lovingly. No one would think this town villa is located on a busy road leading into the main centre only a few metres away from the municipal gardens.