Playing the Palace

 

September 13-14

Like most islands, Crete has had a long list of different people running things. When the Venetians had their turn, they built a fortress on a spit of land to protect the harbor. It’s known by its Italian name, Rocca a Mare.

We went to see it for ourselves on Thursday.

The fort is still there, somewhat restored, I guess. So are a number of large storehouses across the harbor from the fort.

When we got there, the harbor had an array of boats and ships. Two large ocean liners were docked next to each other. There were small boats tied up along the arm of land that we walked to reach the Rocca.

We wandered around inside the fort for a while. A couple of old storerooms hold artifacts recovered from old commercial shipwrecks—dozens of amphoras arranged in the way they had been loaded.

Years ago, Mechanical Engineering magazine carried a story about exploring shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. The leader of a project to salvage a modern ship told our reporter that one of the complications in working the Mediterranean is that all the ancient Phoenician wrecks get in the way.

We headlined the story “Potted Old Wrecks.”

There are vessels from at least three ancient shipwrecks arrayed in the fort. The amphoras from each one are arranged side by side secured by rope as they would be in a hold to keep them from shifting and possibly breaking in transit.

None of them is old enough to be Phoenician. One is Byzantine, maybe 10th century. Another is later, perhaps 16th or 17th century. The other is identified by the type of amphoras as coming from Rhodes and may date to the second century A.D.

There are baroque cannon barrels on display. They were made to be striking not just with cannonballs but also with imagery. Many were embossed with fantastic crests surrounded by garlands. 

The whole place is a warren of chambers. One has an exhibit about the defense of Heraklion against the Ottomans in the 17th century. 

Much of Crete had fallen to the Turks by the time they attacked Heraklion. The city, defended by the Rocca a Mare, withstood a siege of 21 years.

I’m not going swear to that. I wasn’t there. But that’s what the narrative on the wall said.

The fort’s defenses were breached in 1669, but even so, the Venetians were able to negotiate terms that let them empty the city of all its people and avoid a massacre. When the Turks entered Heraklion, they found a ghost town.

After a brief rest back at our rooms, we gathered to go to a tasting of wines made on Crete.

Larry had struck up a friendship with the owner of a wine store, My Cava, near the apartment in Athens. When he learned that Larry was going to Crete, the store owner told him about another serious wine bar.

It’s called Kelari Wine. Kelari is within easy walking distance of our hotel in Heraklion.

The man said to ask for Nicole and mention his name.

So Larry did, and suddenly we were VIPs.

Nicole conferred with Larry over the wine list. He wanted to taste wines made on Crete from local grape varieties.

Larry and I had a half glass of each wine. Joanna took sips of my glass each time.

The first was a white aged in oak from Amargiotakis Winery. It used a local grape called Thrapsathiri. Aging a white wine, especially in oak, is rare, Larry told us. 

Maybe I liked this one more than Larry did. I enjoy the flavor that oak can give wine. And Larry? Not so much.

The second was something really new to me, an orange wine from Ampelourgein Winery. It’s not made with oranges, Larry promised. The color, an orange-tinted pink, comes from fermenting white grapes in their skins.

Ampelourgein ages the orange wine in amphoras for several months

Power of suggestion may have come into play, though. Joanna and I both sensed a slight orange flavor and aroma in the wine.

Next up was a rose from a winery called Pateromichelakis.

Rose wines begin by fermenting red grapes with the skin, but only for a limited time. Then the grapes are pressed and fermentation continues with the juice alone. They pick up some color from the skin.

This rose was made from a local red grape called Romeiko. 

The final sample was a red wine called Archanes from Moinoterra Winery. It is a blend of two local grapes, Kotsifali and Mandilari. 

They were all terrific, without exception. The discussion of the various wines between Larry and Nicole was way beyond my understanding of wine-making or wine-tasting. So I’ve hardly scratched the surface here.

Somebody with a diploma in wine could have done a much better job. One guy with a diploma like that even said he might help me out. But then he just handed me some notes. He knew I was going to bust his chops about it too.

From there we went to an interesting place for dinner, Paradosiaka Taverna.

The menu had something identified as antikristo lamb. We all did a double-take. What’s that? Devil’s food? We knew one of the things we were going to share.

Google told me later that the name is a little less sensational. Antikristo is a traditional form of barbecue on Crete. The term means “across the fire.”

Lamb or sometimes goat is quartered and placed on a rack around an open fire. The fire at Paradosiaka is behind a glass barrier placed where everyone can see it.

There is also goat cooked in tomato sauce on the menu. 

Two strange (at least to us) dishes in one place. We had no trouble deciding.

We bought a kilo of the lamb 

Allowing for the bones and fat, that left a little more than half a pound of meat for each of us. Perfect.

The barbecue came with roasted potatoes. The goat plate had potatoes, too, but they were fried, and they went very well with the tomato sauce.

We bought a bottle of red to go with the meat and settled in to enjoy another great meal.

Friday we took a cab to Knossos. It’s the site of a large palace complex surrounded by the remains of an ancient city. The British archaeologist who led the first systematic dig at the place, Sir Arthur Evans, dubbed the culture “Minoan,” after the legendary King Minos.

That’s a bust of Evans on the left.

The Minoans are generally acknowledged as the founders of Western Civilization.

They lasted for quite a while. In the end a series of natural disasters brought them down.

Some of the palace has been restored. At least one fresco, of figures bearing jugs, has been refreshed. It’s the top of the two wall paintings in the photo of the day.

There is also a chamber called the Throne Room. It has a formal-looking chair centered on one frescoed wall. There is a large bowl on the floor a few feet in front of it. 

Very ceremonial, but nobody knows what purpose it served.

The photo at the head of this entry is a peek into that room.

The most famous image of Knossos is what’s left of a portico supported by deep red pillars. Behind the remaining three supports is a fresco of a charging bull. 

A tourism promotional video that we saw somewhere along the way shows a mother and child walking through the Throne Room and strolling across the porch. Like hell.

If you type “Knossos” in your search engine, It’s likely to be the first photo you’ll get. It will certainly be taken from a better angle than mine.

We took the shuttle bus back. As we were waiting for it, we could amuse ourselves by watching people going in and out of the souvenir shops across the road. 

Even more fun was when one of the local peacocks showed up. He strutted around for a while looking for crumbs that tourists had dropped.

He wasn’t exactly shy. But he wasn’t too sure of me, either. Every time I stood up, he turned his back on me and strolled away, carefully and deliberately to make the point that he wasn’t in a hurry. 

He was telling me: “To hell with you old man, I’m too pretty to hurry.”

According to Google Maps, the bus was going to take us almost to the door of our hotel. We wound up at the bus station instead and had to take a short cab ride home.

After a brief rest, Joanna and I were starving. Dinner was going to be around seven, so we went out for a snack at one of the eateries on the long pedestrian street around the corner. 

The street starts at Kornarou Place, a park where pigeons gather next to our hotel. It runs up to the Venetian Port.

It feels like a Jersey boardwalk or the Temple Street market in Hong Kong. Here they sell an assortment of stuff, often souvenirs like tee shirts sporting Linear B and dream-catchers with a motif that wards off the evil eye. 

Once in a while there is a stand selling fruit and vegetables. There are plenty of food and coffee shops. 

We’ve walked the street several times because it’s the route to take to get to most of the places we’ve wanted to reach. The day before, I had seen a sign for Greek pizza in front of one of the food vendors. We found it at a place called Politia.

If this was supposed to be a snack, we overdid it a bit. Joanna had a very good chicken gyro, and I had the Greek pizza. It was topped with sliced tomato, no sauce, a melted cheese similar to mozzarella, and crumbled feta, all sprinkled with a bit of thinly sliced onion and bell pepper. 

They had retsina on the menu. It’s generally downscale and many people hate it.

It’s made with pine resin, which gives the drink its name. It’s usually white, as this one was, and sometimes rose.

I hadn’t had it in years. It came in a glass bottle with a cap, like beer. 

It’s not for everybody, and I probably won’t order it again before a few more years go by. But it was fun. And I was thirsty.

We strolled back to the hotel and rested until dinnertime came around. We went to O Tempelis.

After our serious lunch earlier, Joanna and I focused on a few small plates. We had some kind of green vegetable similar to spinach that was boiled and served cold. There were stuffed zucchini flowers, a preparation similar to stuffed grape leaves, but using the squash blossoms as a wrapper. The sliced beets cooked in olive oil were Joanna’s favorite.

The house white was nice and tangy. The red was OK, too. It was served cold and got better as it warmed.

Good night, gang. Remember to keep your hearts warm and your orange wine chilled.

Love to all.

Joanna and Harry