Friday 13 October – Rest and reflection.

An easy day on this, our last day on the last of these beautiful Mediterranean islands.  We wandered down to the bus station and caught the bus out to Chersonissou, a beachside resort town halfway between Heraklion and Agio Nikolaus.  We passed through it on our way to and from Agio Nikolaus yesterday and decided to go back, wander the streets and do a bit of window-shopping.  So nothing much to report (we only visited one small church!).  One thing we have noticed is that petrol is expensive in Crete - €1.60 a litre (AUD2.40).  Perhaps that’s why there are so many small cars and motor scooters buzzing around.

We also took the time to reflect on the wonderful places we have seen and reported on.  One thing that has struck us as we have travelled from island to island is that, during several thousand years of human habitation, they have all been invaded, conquered and ruled by all sorts of different people: the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Venetians, Knights of St John, Ottomans, Spanish, French, Austro-Hungarians, British (and we’ve probably missed a couple). In all cases, there have been changes in their rulers as recently as the past one hundred and fifty years or so, and all came under serious threat during World War II. Although this regular change of rule is almost rule-of-thumb for Europe, it is a bit hard to come to terms with when you come from a country that has only been invaded once in the last fifty or sixty thousand years. It leads us to wonder whether the current level of freedom and independence that the people of these Mediterranean islands now enjoy will last. Will Sicily remain part of a dysfunctional Italy? Will Malta retain its independence as the power and influence of its strongest supporters – Britain and the United Nations – wanes? Will Cyprus become totally Turkish?  After all, it’s only about 100 kilometres from Cyprus to the Turkish coast; it’s more than 900 kilometres to Greece - and both countries would claim to have a legitimate historical right of occupancy.  Will Crete remain a province of an almost-bankrupt Greece?  Is it simply too much to expect that the world as we know it will stay as we know it, in the face of almost continuous turbulence and power shifts over the past several millennia.  Is regular change actually the status quo?

Of one thing we are certain: whoever rules these people in the future, it will not change their nature.  Although we only visited these four islands for a very short time, we found them to be charming, happy and resilient people who went out of their way to make our visit enjoyable and trouble free.  We have had an amazing time.

Tomorrow: on the plane to Rome via Athens for an overnight stay before embarking on the long flight to Hong Kong, arriving Monday morning.  We won't post another blog until Monday.