A packed first day
We arrived at Iraklio at 6am when the sky was still dark. Looking for street signs that are in Greek was not easy at times but we managed to find our hotel without problems. Our rooms were not yet ready, as expected, so we left our luggage at the lobby and headed out for breakfast. The streets by this time was actually already getting busy. We went to Plateia Venizelou where eateries surround the Morosini Fountain. We had bougatsa for breakfast - a local specialty that I wasn’t so crazy about.
Our original plan for the day was simply to do some relaxed sightseeing in Hania and Rethymno. But since we’ve already travelled for 2 days since we last slept on a bed, we decided not to take the 3-hour one-way bus ride to those towns today. Instead, we took a 20-minute bus to Knossos, the Minoan palace that is supposed to be the highlight of our stay in Iraklio.
We arrived at the site before it opened at 8am. We had the whole site to ourselves for a good while before the tour groups arrived. Looking at the crowds coming in, we were glad that we chose to delay our honeymoon until this time. I can’t imagine what a zoo it’d be had we come in June!
On our way back to Iraklio the bus took a different route so we were passing landmarks that we didn’t see in the morning. When the bus made a stop at a big busy square I thought we must be close and got off. We couldn’t find any signs indicating where we were. I first asked a local where we were on my map. She didn’t know and pointed to a place on my map, quite randomly I might add. Doubting her answer I asked another man who proceeded to point to a completely different place on my map.
We gave up and walked in the general direction labelled as “downtown” on a sign. We weren’t sure where we were going for about 5 minutes before we recognized a hotel that we’d passed by earlier. We sucessfully arrived at our hotel, retrieved our backpack and headed up to our room. It was a tiny room and we were somewhat disappointed. Chris promised me that this would be the worst hotel of our vacation 
(she was responsible for hotel bookings).
After our first ferry ticket purchase experience, we decided to buy our tickets to Mykonos ASAP. Next we found a place by Plateia 18 Anglon with a beautiful view of the Sea of Crete where we had lunch. We went back to our hotel afterward and took a nap. We planned to wake up at 3pm to go to the Archaeological Museum of Iraklio, where many of the original artifacts found in Knossos are displayed. But we over-slept and didn’t wake up until 4pm!
After our musuem visit we went by the bus terminal to buy tickets to Hania/Rethymno for tomorrow morning. We plan to have an early start so we wanted to buy the tickets in case the counter doesn’t open that early. We spent the rest of the day around the old harbour and headed back to the hotel around 8:30pm after dinner, which was not that early considering our day started at 6am!
