Our transfer coach wasn’t picking us up until 4pm this afternoon so the evening before, we’d deliberated about whether to keep our room on or not. We decided against it, but this morning we changed our minds as it was too much of a faff to store our luggage and use the courtesy shower room with everyone else. So at 6am I went down to reception to ask if we could keep the room on, at a cost of €30, but hey, it’ll be worth if for a) the peace of mind and b) we can have a leisurely day and won’t need to rush!
After our very unsuccessful night with the air-con a few nights ago we made the decision to sleep with the balcony door open again, Maice accepting that she’ll probably end up playing host to a few more mosquitoes. Round about 2am we heard a familiar noise. It definitely sounded like the drone on the beach was back but this was no drone. This was more deadly than that, this was a mosquito. It carried out a fly-past above our heads, made a nose-dive towards any exposed flesh and went in for the sting. Fortunately we were too quick and hid under the bed clothes whereby it stopped on a wall somewhere to counter another attack. We switched the lights on, tissue in hand and the search began for the little blighters. After about five minutes we’d manage to squash one then reverted to closing the doors and switched the air-con on again in the hope that it would die of the cold. We never did find the other one but it found Maice and she ended up with a few more bites in the morning. As for me? I still had nil point!
We enjoyed our last breakfast sat in our favourite spot by the jetty, overlooking the lagoon and the mountains beyond. It was a beautiful. Breakfasts at home just won’t be the same anymore. Mind you, we did hear on the grapevine that a heatwave is coming to the UK this weekend so who knows, breakfast in the garden and on the balcony may well be an option!
On our way to the beach we stopped off at the bakery, which was extremely busy and joined the queue. I think we were invisible as we stood there for at least ten minutes before we were served. Of course the locals who came in after us were served before us but hey, that’s the Greek way and some things never change! We finally made our purchase…..two doughnuts for the beach and two cheese pies and two spinach pies for the airport and plane. Oh dear, more stodgy food can only mean more abdominal workouts when we get home!
We made our way to Mylos for the last time and enjoyed our final frappe overlooking the beach, the sea and the mountains. The owners, who always say hello to us came and had a little chat with us and bless them, they gave us both a large packet of Cretan mountain herbs, ideal for the Greek salads and feta cheese that we’re going to eat when we get home. Such a nice gesture from them. 🥰
It was fairly quite on the beach, and we lay there on our sun-beds listening to the waves gently lapping against the shore, the distant mountains looking resplendent against the blue sky and the soft warm breeze tickled the air ever so gently…….and then the digging started again, as it did yesterday and in that one moment the ambience was spoilt and all we could hear was the constant tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat of the digger! Despite the noise we managed to spend a couple of hours on our sun-beds before packing up and heading off back to the hotel to shower and finish packing our suitcases ready for our departure. Not even an Aperol Spritz was on the menu for us this afternoon!
Cases packed we made our way up to the meeting point and stood outside the mini-market at the allocated time of 16.00 with Alan, Betty and Carol waiting for our transfer bus. At precisely four o’clock this very sleek and shiny jet black Mercedes’ Benz mini-bus with very sleek blacked out windows drew up opposite where we were stood and out stepped this very good looking James Bond 007 doppleganger all suited and booted in what had to be Armani. We’d got our hopes up thinking it was our transfer but we all agreed it was ‘too posh for us lot’! Well, you could have knocked us down with a feather when he produced a clip board and started calling out our names. The mini-bus had to be brand new, it smelt brand new, it was all leather bound inside; the seats, the roof and around the windows and the seat belts were so tight you could hardly move in them. You certainly weren’t going anywhere in them that’s for sure!. Once you were strapped in that was you in place until you reached the airport! We were hoping to go straight there but luck was against us as it picked up various couples from here there and everywhere. We didn’t really mind as we’d arrived in the dark and hadn’t seen any of the scenery so it was nice to see where we were going.
We all thought we’d encounter a massive queue at the airport but when we entered the terminal building there was no queue and we were first at the check in desk. First! Well, that’s a first! We passed through security with no issues other than me being frisked and sailed through passport control. It was all very easy, particularly for a Greek airport! Of course once we’d sat down in the departure lounge they announced a delay of one hour!!! By the time we land at Bristol airport and picked up the car at SilverZone we won’t be home until at least 2.30am in the morning. Ah well, it’s all part of the holiday experience. There’s only one thing to do in a delay. We got out our over-sized playing cards and played a few hands of gin-rummy whilst listening to the couple at the end of our row of seats arguing for the best part of an hour and a half. Ah, don’t you just love people watching at the airport. You’ll never believe this…….our Scarlet Moffat lookalike is here and you’ll never guess. She’s wearing an orange top! No kidding. And guess what…..so are we!
Other than waiting a while for our luggage on the carousel due to our flight being one of five that landed at the same time the whole airport experience has been very smooth. In fact, the whole experience at the airport, the coming and the going, at Bristol and in Crete has been brilliant. We’ve read so much in the news about queues at check-in desks, at passport and security control and at the luggage carousels and think that we’ve been very lucky. We’ve had no issues at all!
The drive home however, was anything but smooth. Using ‘Mr Smooth’ from I-Maps for directions we chose not to go his chosen route via Shepton Mallet as wanted to go via the M5, coming off at junction 25. That’s the route we know and feel more comfortable with, particularly at 1pm in the morning. However, Mr Smooth had other ideas and wanted us to turn off at J23 but we continued on until we were forced off at the Glastonbury/Wells junction due, to the M5 being closed for maintenance! That obviously explains why we were guided toward Shepton Mallet in the first instance!. So we ended up driving cross country, not really knowing where we were going as we chose to ignore the directions from Mr Smooth as it appeared we were being directed down narrow lanes rather than proper B roads. In the end we had to resort to using the I-Map directions on Maice‘s phone and finally came across a sign-post to Yeovil. At least we knew our way from here! It’s taken us just over two hours to drive home from Bristol airport, with Maice being dropped home a few minutes past 3am and I got through my door at 3.30am. Next time we‘re going to listen to Mr Smooth and travel via Shepton Mallet. It seems after all that he does know better than us!
On the drive home we had time to reflect on our holiday. We’ve never travelled with Jet2 Holidays before and we have to say, we’re very impressed. They have been excellent and other than a delayed flight which can’t be helped they score 10/10 from us. They operated a very slick and professional service both in the UK and Crete, so well done 👏👏 and we’ll definitely be using them again. They‘re also very good when the plane lands at it’s destination as they tell everyone to stay seated as the cabin crew will disembark passengers row by row. Usually passengers get up the instant the seat belt sign is switched off and it’s bedlam with people trying to get their overhead luggage. So well done Jet2 for taking the initiative…….more airlines should do this!
We can honestly say we’ve had a really great holiday and even though the weather has had it’s moments we just ‘went with the flow’ and laughed our way through each day. It was so nice to be back in Greece after all these years, so what are our stand out moments? Well, in no particular order……a) drinking Rakomelo with Manos after our supper b) hiking in our flip-flops! Twice c) drinking frappe’s in the sun whilst watching the world go by and d) having breakfast with amazing views as our backdrop. In fact there’s just too many things to mention. They were all stand-out moments to us.
So, athough our holiday has come to an end we’re both looking forward to collecting Milly and Sir Winston tomorrow. A big shout out must go to Alison and her team at Purrfect Cattery, Weymouth for looking after Milly so well as she too is on her holidays. And a big shout out to Jane, Mike and Geordie, their Labrador for having Sir Winston in their home for the week. They’ve been out on adventures every day and you can tell by his photo he’s made himself at home. As you can see, he’s clearly commandeered that sofa of theirs!
So καλυνυχta, goodnight and goodbye until our next adventure. It’s been fun 😎
M&A xx