The Floating Church of Georgioupoli

Many years ago back when the tectonic plates were still cooling and the world was still in black and white, my Uncle embarked on an expedition to Crete – you may have had to take a ship - along with his then new wife. They decided to stay in a little seaside village on the west coast of the island, which they instantly fell in love with. They had a wonderful break from the world of black and white as this village was apparently in colour!

When my Mother said that she was going to go to the west coast of the island for a night he insisted that we pull into the village to have a look as in his memory it was an idyllic Greek village off the beaten track and the perfect place to relax and enjoy yourself.  

Having spent the morning wandering around Chania accumulating Christmas and birthday presents from the highly interesting variety of little shops we were running a tiny bit short of time as we had a four hour drive and we wanted to get home at a sane hour of the day.  

Nevertheless given that we had to drive past the turning for the village we ventured in … the road was winding and in some places falling apart which made us wonder what on earth we were letting ourselves in for, perhaps my Uncle had been the last visitor before the whole village slipped into the sea … the entrance to the village, which we later discovered was the back entrance, was an avenue of enormous eucalyptus trees – the smell was amazing.

Eventually we found the village which I imagine had grown some and advanced somewhat since my uncle had visited. It was still a lovely sleepy seaside village, the huge difference between it now and then, I imagine, was the large hotels that lined the beach.

Georgioupoli is unique in the sense that it has a substantial river running past it that flows from a natural lake high up in the mountains, the village is tucked away between the mouth of the river and the coast line. The river is guarded by a huge flock of geese, which became extremely noisy and very angry when I tried to take a picture upstream!

 Slip way with an old docking system operated by a lot of blocks and an old winch hidden away in its own house. 

As we were getting into the car to leave, having had a little wander around the town and up the river, Mum turned around to discover a small church at the end of a rock bridge out at sea.

Normally churches are places that I admire from afar but this one was different, it is on a very small island about 200m from the coastline. To get to it you must walk down a rock bridge which is in fact a pile of rocks made from volcanic lava, making it extremely uneven as over the years mother nature has weathered them which makes getting to the church much more interesting.

I don’t know the name of the church all I know is that I have seen it in hundreds of photographs and have been trying to work out where it is since I moved to Crete. I was pleasantly surprised to accidentally stumble upon it. It is well worth the detour in the route just to have a look at the church.  

 The building on the land behind is another church 

Georgioupoli is about a 25 minute drive from Chania city centre it is easy to get to and if your staying in Chania a great day trip which might include taking a canoe up the river to find the fresh water turtles and perhaps a spot of lunch.

I want to ride my bicycle … I want to ride my bike …

Sunday … what a day! The weather has finally started to cool down here, we have gone from 38 – 40 degrees to 32- 36 degrees which let me tell you, makes a huge difference.  However for Sunday’s excursion it would have been better if the temperature had been in the 20’s but hey nothing we can do about that!

For my husband’s birthday the year we moved to Crete he was given a mountain bike – the idea being that it would replace the off road driving we used to do with off road cycling – I very cheekily purchased one at the same time… well it was something we should do together anyway!

My husband’s relationship with his bike has been a serious case of love hate. Some days there is more love than hate, other days a lot more hate than love … it took him a while to get into it.  In fact, the first year I think it had about 8 outings - the rest of the time it has very industrially decorated the wall under the stairs.  This year it would seem that love is in the air! At the beginning of the year, aided somewhat by our house move, the bike went from being a wall ornament to a bike which was actually used, he got all enthusiastic about it and even went out and wait for it … yep you guessed it … he went out and bought another GPS … this one of course was a hand held one which he could mount on the bike. This GPS and his previously mentioned love for Google earth has brought his enthusiasm up 100 fold.

So when Sunday came around he was ready for it … the route had been meticulously planned. We had our water, bananas, gator aid, emergency medical equipment and even my trusty camera - we were ready, so we thought!

His bike - Note the GPS mounted to the handle bars! 

The route was to be 30kms, it would be a loop from our house up a mountain, down the other side, up another one and then down the road home. Easy as pie, yeah right. The beginning was ok, we climbed a winding road that would take us past the village of Achladia and on to Paraspori – this section I knew quite well as at the beginning of the year I had been getting up early in the morning to get a ride in before work. Note: at the beginning of the year! The summer had arrived and along with it the heat and constant high wind speed - the bike was retired to its house and my cycling legs had gone into hibernation. I have only taken the bike out three times since it started to cool down and well, that’s not really enough for the route we were on!

Anyway, determined to get on with it, off we went. The road is generally quiet but we were overtaken by a few farmers who looked at us and seemingly wondered what on earth was wrong with us.  To them I am sure that we were what they considered crazy foreigners! The truth is that we were.

Eventually we made it to Paraspori where the down hill started … It was lovely to coast for a while after climbing up a mountain for an hour, it was great to ride without huffing and puffing like a steam train. The downhill of course could not last for ever and with a heavy thud we were very sharply brought back down to reality as the track went into a horrific incline.

Climbing up the second mountain was hard … almost so hard that it took the enjoyment out of it. It made me make a mental note to remember to eat breakfast, as I struggled up the mountain. Eventually after a fair number of rest stops and quite a few wheelies – it’s very hard to keep the front wheel on the track when you’re climbing almost vertically - we made it to the road. I have NEVER been so happy to see black top in my life.

The ride from the end of the track home was fast and the majority of it was downhill. In total we cycled 30kms during which we gained 1000m in altitude. We managed it in three hours, which given the fact that both of us are pretty unfit I thought - was a fairly good effort.

If your are a mountain biker I can’t recommend Crete enough, there are just so many tracks to go up and down with every kind of terrain you can imagine. Plenty of climbs and given that what goes up must come down there is some pretty wicked downhill riding to be done too.

This particular ride is detailed below along with all the inclines!! Unfortunately I didn’t really take too many pictures as when your trying to make it up the mountain the last thing on your mind is a picture or two!

My husband uses Wikiloc to record all his routes you can you can have a look at the route from Sunday here.

Oat Cookies

On Friday I ventured back into my kitchen … I say ventured back into the kitchen because my dear husband has kicked me out! He has decided that he is going to take over cooking the dinner, which I have to admit is a very much welcomed notion. He is after all a very good cook and has slightly more time on his hands these days than I do. So far he has produced some wonderful creations, which again I must admit I don’t think that I would ever come up with so, so far, so good!

With a kitchen ban I had a slight problem on my hands, the long and short of it was that I had to sneak back in when he wasn’t watching. Easier said than done. I then had to hunt around the cupboards for all the bits and pieces I needed as he in all his wisdom has decided to re distribute everything … its ok for him he now knows where he has hidden everything and I don’t have the foggiest!

After stumbling around my own kitchen I finally managed to locate all the bits a pieces I needed and proceeded to make the cookies as per the recipe, which I had found online. The cookies where lovely and so simple, however they where just too sweet for my taste buds to cope with, so I thought I would re engineer them. This would of course mean sneaking back into the kitchen…

The original recipe had flour, a heap of sugar and butter in the mix. I though that I would dispose of the flower and sugar completely. I had a couple of reasons for this. One my business partner who really liked them is not allowed flower and butter due to heath reasons and two I thought that they where just too sweet to be any good for the waistline.

To my surprise I managed it. I ditched the sugar completely, substituted the butter for an olive oil based spread and scrapped the flour completely replacing it with ground oats. I was pleasantly surprised with the out come. The cookies where light yet still nice and soft on the inside, the best part is that they are super simple to put together, you can have everything done in under half an hour.  

To make my new and as yet unnamed creation you will need the following:

1          Mug Oats

¼         Mug ground oats

½         Mug margarine or olive oil based spread

200g    Dried fruit

½         Mug seeds or unsalted nuts (anything you like)

3 tbls   Honey or golden syrup

50g      Chopped dark chocolate

I couldn't find ground oats - so i had to do it manually! 

Next up you will have to mix them together you can use a spoon but I always find using your hands best. Make sure that everything is mixed together really well. You should find that it come together pretty easily. One its all mixed up your going to make miniature mud balls! Squeeze small amounts of the mixture together to produce a compact oat ball about the same size as a golf ball.

The oat balls should be placed to a baking tray that you have covered with a sheet of non-stick baking paper. Line them all up and then take a water glass and press the balls down so that they are flattened and about 1cm thick. 

Next up place them into the oven for 18 mins and let the oven do its magic. After 18 mins pull them out and let them cool. Job done, yum!   If you have a huge sweet tooth then I recommend that you follow the original recipe which you can find it here.