Crête - On the road - 160 Km - day three

Our second hotel was located in Kokkinos Pirgos, near Timbaki, in the south. To get there we had to travel through the White Mountains.
We had a few stops in mind, but first we needed to master the highway.
There are only a few kilometers of regular highway in Crete (4 lines separated by a wall in the middle). The most important roads are a National road going east/westbound and a few going south. Those roads have 2 lanes for traffic and emergency lanes on each side. Those lanes are used by slower traffic, sometimes for parking... Cars pass other cars using the middle of the road whether there is white line or not...and a curve a few meters further down or not...
On the road the signs are first written in the Greek alphabet and a few meters later in Latin script. Sometimes those signs are located right at the intersection.
We looked for a village named Vamos. We missed a sign and ended up the road back to Chania with many signs forbidding to do a U-Turn. We saw someone doing one anyway, and followed suit. Eventually we got to Vamos and used the experience as a nice lesson about drive, navigating in Crete. One needs patience and courage. Courage is for the tiny mountain side roads. Vamos was recommended as a traditionally restored village. It looked like a nice little town, but nothing exciting.
After an iced coffee, we started to climb the mountains and we discovered a magnificent landscape. We drove trough some tiny villages. The roads were so small that we wondered many times "what would we do if a car comes on the other side?" We saw many goats, some donkeys and 2 old guys riding a donkey in a village.

We stopped by the Imbros canyon for lunch at porofarango, recommended in the Lonely Planet and we were not disappointed. This meal is ranked in the top 5 of our Cretan meals.

We were in the Sfakia Region, traditionally a place of resistance in Crete. The island was always occupied until the XX century, by turks, Egyptians, Venetians... The Sfakia region is so mountainous that the resistance could easily hide there. Because of those centuries of fighting, Cretans love having firearms and here more that in any other places we saw road signs having been used for target practice.

The road was really winding. And there was not protections on the side of the road. Very early we saw the blue of the sea mixing with the blue of the horizon. It took us a while to figure out the sea from the sky.

We stopped at Frangokastello, the ruins of a venetian castle built in the XIV century to fight pirates. It is open for free to the public. There is only a small sign telling the story of the place (more resistance fighting), beside that it looks abandoned. There is a beach below the fortress. We tried the water for the first time and it was delightfully warm.

Our last stop was Moni Prevelli, an orthodox monastery and yet again a place of resistance but this time during the second world war. I had to wear my wrap over my shorts to cover my legs to be allowed to get in. I was prepared for that. The place was serene but i didn't enjoyed it too much because I kep thinking of the way back doan the hill... We had to drive up 10 km on more winding road with a cliff on the side and NO PROTECTION!. Yes, I got scared and a little car sick.

We arrived late in the afternoon in Kokkinos Pyrgos. Luckily the place (a touristy village in the making) was small enough (2 roads parallel to the beach) and we found the hotel quickly. Except in the cities such as Chania and Heraklion the addresses to the hotels looked like this : "Hotel XYZ - 12345 CityName". Good luck with that!
We went right away to the smooth pebble beach. The sun was setting and the water was really warm, and we were definitely happy about our choice of vacation.

The bad thing of the day : the roads, the curves, the precipice, the narrowness...