4th June 1984 - The Palace of Knossos

Monday 4^th June.   I got up and bought some fruit for breakfast.

   It had to happen one day. As I was going to the post office, I met a fellow Trans-Siberian passenger, Margaret Walker. [I think she was in her 70s, or late 60s; she was very energetic. She was very interested in archaeology.] We didn’t stop to chat for long because we found out that we were going to Santorini at the same time. I went to the P.O. and then bought a ticket to Santorini, 666Dr. Then I caught the bus to Knossos.

  There were a couple of busloads of school kids there but they didn’t bother me none. The actual site is smaller than I thought it would be, but there are still some unexcavated areas outside the fence that I could see (they might have been excavated before for interesting bits and pieces but left to become overgrown.)

Ticket to Knossos Palace

   There are small parts of the palace which have been reconstructed – a room here with a column and mural behind glass. They are mostly of concrete, unfortunately. What would be really interesting would be a reconstruction of the whole palace itself, on another site, so that one could explore all the labyrinthine corridors – built like the original, not in concrete. And not anything like Kryal Castle in Ballarat (i.e. ultra-commercialistic.)

Knossos Palace - North Portico

    After quite a while at the palace (including time spent sitting down writing and eating), I had an ice cream across the road (there are several souvenir shops, of course) and caught the bus to back to town. I went back to the hostel (when it was open again) for some reason, went out and about. I sat in the park for a while, went down to the old Venetian fortress on the harbor. It is very interesting inside – vaulted chambers, spacious and dim (one had thousands of round boulders of varying size). The top is reached by either some stairs or a ramp inside. The stones are very clean and perhaps the thing was only rebuilt recently.

  Then I went walking up the market street (butchers have marble slab tables, rabbits complete with eyes, ears and tail hang upside (skinned), meat very exposed; souvenir and hardware stalls – how tedious to put all those cutlery pieces and clay things etc and pack them up again, every day; fruit and fish: clothing).

Ticket to Hiraklion Museum (from yesterday)

   I changed another $40 (4220Dr.) at the bank and bought a ΚΡΗΤΗ T-shirt (495Dr.). Returned to the hostel, had a cold shower, had dinner and read before beads of sweat popped out of my forehead. Went to bed.