Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Wednesday 27th Sept Visit to a Minoan town

Today we drove along the old national to visit a complete Minoan Town at Gournes: this was on top of a hill overlooking the sea and very scenic indeed. We have been amazed at the size of the ruins of these ancient monuments, it's a great pity that so little is known about them.
We continued along the lower coast where we found the beaches were rather stony before coming back through the mountains and the village of Kastelli.
Travel is slow in these parts and it was quarter to three before we got back to the hotel

Tuesday 26th Sept visit to Phaistos

We drove across Crete to visit the second largest Minoan Palace at Phaistos today, and it was well worth the considerable journey to get there.
It was obvious that a great deal of the site is still undiscovered and buried in the hillside, I shouldn't be surprised if it isn't at least as big as Knossos once it has all been revealed.
We had lunch in the museum cafe with splendid views out over the valley and the distant misty mountains.
The big problem with Crete (apart from other drivers) is the sheer scale of the place, and the narrow winding roads, not to mention the fact that we were on a new motorway section that suddenly turned into a very rough track as the road wasn't finished over the top of the local hill!
Still we had a good day out and arrived back mid afternoon ready for a rest.

Sunday in crete

We had a good day visiting the Malia minoan palace, followed by a drive over the mountains to Agios Nikolis and along the coast to Spinolonga island, followed by a rainy trip over winding mountain pas roads back home

Drving in Crete

Yeasterday was our first day of driving in Crete. It was an experience!
Driving on the "wrong side of the road" isn't too bad, but dealing with lunatics at the same time makes it very interesting! If the British Traffic police were drafted in to improve the local driving, most people would end up in jail, the Taxi drivers would end up being either hung or jailed for life!
(Joking of course) but boy, I have never seen worse and more dangerous driving, nor drivers that are more impatient!
Knossos was an absolute wonder, we were so impressed, and today we drove across to the other side of the island, this wasn't easy as the maps are unhelpful, and most road signs are in Greek!
Nevertheless we ha d a great day out. The scenery wa beautiful up in the mountains.

Our Crete Holiday

first day in crete and a new experience, we hired a Quad bike and explored the seafront at Gouves, it stretches for miles in all directions, and ends on a beach in both directions.
Naturally it rained aty one point, but it was a new experience and we enjoyed it

Northumberland and Scottish Borders Holiday

We just got back from a glorious week up North: here's a couple of the 500 plus photo's I took!(Click the images for a larger picture.)

Panorama of the Humber Bridge

This is composite of five separate photos, please click on the image for a full size view

More photos

Out on my scooter today and in between showers (including hailstones!) I spotted this view looking back towards the city.
Simple, but I thought it very appealing.









Here's our cat about to consume the grass stalk in front of him: he's 14 years old now, but still quite a kitten at heart.
Garfield by name and Garfield by nature!

Had a great ride out on the scooter

At last we have better weather, and today I took advantage and rode out to the coast, along empty roads. The oilseed rape fields were giving off in enough pollen to block the intakes on a jumbo jet, otherwise it was great.













Back Home I have been experimenting with composite photos in GIMP, here's the latest example

Still awful weather

After a bad weekend we had hoped the weather would be better today, but no, it rained,rained, rained and rained!
The only time it stopped was mid evening, and I was able at last to get out for a short walk.
Still, it gave me the chance to take some bad weather photos of the wet flowers, etc., the rain had been hard enough to bring complete florets off the cherry trees, not just the usual petals, so that means less cherries later on in the year!
At least it's mild now, not freezing, and the fallen blossom is at least scenic!

Crazy weekend weather!

Aftr a glorious almost summer week, as usual the weather kept a surprise up it's sleeve for the weekend, and we had a eturn to winter temperatures and driving rain, helped along by a srong east wind.







thankfully thisdidn't stop us having a good weekend away with the caravan and I was out snappinf away with the new camera.
Sunday morning the dawn came up rather black and sombre, but at least it stopped raining and we were able to get the caravan packed up in the dry.

After the long winter, spring is rocketing away at high speed: here in the East riding of yorkshire the fields of rape seed colour the landscape bright yellow, and the huge amount of pollen is so thick in the air you can taste it!
This is a hard time for hay fever sufferers, even in the city, out in the country the air smells perfumed.


The city council are mad keen on gras cutting, but in the few areas that they've missed, the dandelions have completed one full growing season already, and started a second! this will be a record year for them, as you can see.






These are heading for the sun in the local graveyard!

A quiet moment in the mall

I couldn't resist this candid shot in the Prospect Centre Shopping Mall in central Hull.
a mother and daughter had just bought a "girls Vanity set" in the pound shop, and couldn't wait to try the rings and bangles.
There in the middle of a busy mall, they found a clear space and time stood still for them, I just loved the way they both mirrored each other, admiring the plastic rings they were trying on.
Truly a timeless moment, surrounded by crowds of shoppers, peace in the middle of chaos.

Its the local council elections today

And I won't be voting: what diffence does it make to me which bunch of rogues are elected?
I won't vote as I have no wish to legitimise the phoney "Democracy" that we have.
When the day comes when politicians have to respond to YES/NO buttons on consoles in our houses after the public have decided what they want doing on the political issues currently being discussed, then I'll vote again.
Till then forget it: don't expect me to endorse the status quo, it's phoney!

Mayday Weekend

We spent a few lovely days caravanning near Harrogate, Yorkshire

At a place called Pannal, in some lovely scenery. Despite it being the Bank holiday, the country roads were surprisingly free of traffic, so touring was a pleasure









There may be a water shortage in the South East of England, up here in the North we have flooded fields!





Not far from our campsite was High Almscliffe Crag, a popular spot for an evening stroll, or even for something more energetic





This chap ot himself into some trouble, but after a long struggle he made it to the top, to the relief of all concerned, especially his girlfriend watching from below!

This is a real dead end!

Here in Yorkshire when the road sign is "dead end" they aren't kidding! coastal erosion is terrible and as you can see from these pictures, quite a lot of land slides into the sea every winter.
This is as far as I can go on my scooter.







This is the end of the road and when I was young you could cycle a further mile and a half further out to sea, there was a church, several houses and even an amusement arcade, and of course the process continues.
The amount lost since last Christmas is the distance between the front and rear barriers, this is by no means an exceptional amount, some winters are far more destructive.

In at the Deep end

I went to "The Deep" yesterday, Hull's premier attraction, a superb aquarium, where you can easily imaging you are under a tropical sea.
This is one of the reef sharks, not something you would like to encounter while out for a paddle!
As usual the place was very busy, it attracts coach loads of Schoolchildren, and other groups from all over the region and beyond.

My wife and I have a season pass, and spend many a dull wet winter afternoon in there, ending the visit with a coffee in the cafe that overlooks the River Humber

This is the shallow pool that introduces you to the main aquarium, a junior school class are totally absorbed with the new experience, the looks on their faces and the general excitement makes us smile very time we visit.






As well as the enormous main tank there are set piece smaller aquariums set into the walls, they are absolutely superb!









Finally a view of one of the main windows to give you an idea of the scale of the main tank, it's abosolutely huge, about 20 metres deep!

Been a while, but..

After quite some time I remembered to blog, just got a new camera, so now taking lots of photos, trying the various settings.
First a closeup of my watch to show the image quality on the macro setting




Heres a composite of the kid next door:







Over the next few weeks I expect to add more photo's