14/10/07
Crete -
Categories: Back from my hols. Crete. Lovely. An apartment ten metres from the sea and ten metres from the pool. And that was as tricky as the decisions got - working out which to do each day.
It's missing home comforts, granted. You can't put toilet paper in the toilet, for example - you have to bin it. I wasn't sure if we were meant to poo in the bin as well, so just to be safe...
Meals out were nice - though Greek cuisine isn't exactly my thing. But the Greek salads were nice, and in the main the tavernas were lovely. Although some of the places in the nearby town of Chania were a little dodgy. We went to one taverna, with a lovely atmosphere, out on a street in an old-fashioned, high-walled, pedestrian square, with a couple of guitarists playing acoustic Greek music. Only whenever we walked past it (we did the rounds, trying to see who had the best menu), a different waiter would be out front collaring us to lure us in, and all of them followed this pattern...
WAITER: Hey! You want to come look at our menu?
US: Er...
WAITER: Where you from?
US: London.
WAITER: No way! I worked in London for 7 years, at Bella Pasta on Leicester Square.
Every waiter in Crete seems to have worked in Bella Pasta in Leicester Square. I don't even know if there is a Bella Pasta on Leicester Square. It's clearly a ruse they have. And it's not the only one. Next up, when seated, we're asked if we prefer fish or meat. We answer individually, and are told what the special is of each. We'll even be brought the very fish we'll have cooked for us to approve it. We eventually have to prise a menu off the waiter, but by this stage he's made his mind up that we're having the fish special and chicken special he's just pitched to us, so pays no attention to us trying to order anything else from the menu. Something fishy and something chickeny just appear on our tables ten minutes later. Oh, and the uncooked fish we're promised we get to approve never arrives, not that that fish would be the one you get cooked anyway.
And to cap it all, the 'good price I give you' for the fish, of 11 euros, is somehow forgotten about when the bill comes, and it has suddenly changed to 32 euros. Luckily Zoe checked the bill and queried it. We didn't tip. They be swizzlers.
That aside, I wholly recommend Crete. A fine place. Just don't look in that bin next to the toilet.
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