The weather keep getting nicer and more beautiful. We arrived to overcast weather and some clouds, but each day has been getting warmer. This morning we got up for a hike in the hills overlooking Souda Bay, the site of ancient ruins, a Turkish fort, and remnants of German occupation during WW2
It was a morning with lots of walking in the sunshine. This is the entrance to the ruins. They did a great job in the restoration process by delineating restored walls from original (with a bold grout line that would zig zag up the various walls). This obviously is all original and contains historical information of what we’d be looking at. I loved travel planning on the go, but it forces me to rely on my memory for blog posts, which isn’t nearly as fun or as exciting as the words spilling out of me every evening after a full day. Normally I would google more about Aptera to refresh my memory, but I’m half dressed for the ball tonight and hoping to get this posted before I leave. I’m ready except for my dress, but it’s a bit too early to put it on so I’m killing time, but not enough time for a history lesson.
Beautiful headlands with a warm breeze. It felt like a California day.
Tromping around the Aptera ruins. There were cisterns and public baths, old steps and it didn’t matter what we were looking at, it was just nice to be exploring outdoors.
The entrance to the cisterns
It is so similar to the large cistern in Istanbul with the narrow archways, but without the tourists.
Leaving the cisterns — Carter was parkouring all over the place. I fear that these structures have lasted hundreds of years, but my kids will be the end of them.
They believe the cisterns were built to feed the public baths. The baths are a short downslope away — easy to direct water there.
New entryways support the old walls
a door just her size!
fall wildflowers
The harbor has an island in the middle that is surrounded by turquoise water (because of the shallows)
The Turkish fort perched overlooking the harbor.
The thick band of rocks on the right is part of a huge wall that the Romans built. Layers of history and wartime all converging on this hill. There were also remains of German gun turrets that had been created back in the 1940s with machine gun cutouts.
The fort — we couldn’t go inside, but it was impressive.
After the morning of hiking and exploring it was time for a relaxing afternoon so we headed to . . . the beach! Surprise, surprise.
Cinderella is off to the ball, so part 2 will come later . . .