Ferries, part four

Remember those rough seas outside our Crete Hotel? Well, the reason we had extra time in Crete was that our boat to our next stop was cancelled. We were supposed to take one of the high-speed catamarans that cruise the Aegean, but they can't tolerate too many big waves. We should have made offerings to Poseidon when we saw him in the museum in Athens.

So instead we had to rush and find another way to travel. Don't believe the claims on the side of the boat. These giant ferries, which we used for all our travel, are reliable even in higher seas, but they are universally called "slow boats." The trip that should have taken 1 hour and 45 minutes took 19 hours! We had to take a crazy route: back to Athens and then out to Santorini.

The ferry to Santorini was nice but the Deck Class, which provided a reclining Pullman seat on other ferry lines, was really deck class on annoying Blue Star ferries. On the Minoan Line ferry, by contrast, we could lay down and sleep on a row of reclining, cushioned seats.

At least on our long ferry trip we got to see islands that weren't on our itinerary. Here is lovely Naxos. This is the island where Theseus, slayer of the minotaur, allegedly abandoned Ariadne after she betrayed her father, King Minos, and helped Theseus escape. Ouch!