Water Slides

When we rented the car in Heraklion, the agent gave us a map of the island of Crete.  Featuring large on the cover of the map was a huge ad promoting Water City water slides, just a few kilometers east of Heraklion. Stewart had his eye on that water slide activity from the time we got the map, and I thought it was only fair, after dragging him through all the archaeological sites and museums I could, to give him some time in the water park.  Sadly, I don't like sliding down monumental slides into large pools of water, so Stewart didn't get his wish to have me go double with him on the double tubes.  However, he did enjoy quite a few of the slides, and got a bit of a sunburn as well.  The cost was quite high - 25.00 Euros each, which is around $30.00 per person.  I think that Splashdown in Tsawwassen is only about $18.00 or $20.00 per person.

Taking photos was a bit challenging as you go down the slides so quickly, but I managed to snap a few.  After the slides, we returned to Heraklion to find the hotel we stayed in our first night on Crete.  I thought it was going to be a challenge to find it again, and at first, I thought we were miles away from where we were supposed to be, but when we stopped at a gas station to ask directions, we were actually only about three or four blocks away.  If I had carried on the road we were on, I would have found it within a couple of minutes.

Fast

Faster - found a sliding buddy

End of the line

This morning, we got up and drove to Knossos, which is just 5 or 6 kilometers south of Heraklion.  There were about 50 buses that had just unloaded all their passengers.  It took longer to get inside Knossos than the Acropolis.  There were mobs of people everywhere and Stewart said that it was impossible to appreciate the site with all the people around.  I agreed, but I did want him to see it, so we pushed on through and managed to see quite a lot of the site.

After Knossos, we headed east again, past the water park, to the CreteAquarium, which was a disappointment after having visited the Vancouver Aquarium.  Finally, we returned to Heraklion to visit the extremely small archaeological museum here, and the exhibition of statues from the Greek classical period, and the Roman period.  We wandered around the city and down to the breakwater and Venetian fort at the port.  We still have three hours till we are picked up for our plane!!!  So we are waiting in the lobby of the hotel.  Yes, it is a shame when we could be out experiencing the city, but there is only so much walking you can do in a day, and the boy, though valiant, is wiped out.  We are recouping our strength!

Knossos - mostly reconstructed parts here

Knossos

Pithoi - with Stewart for scale