Day 4: Rethymno

Tim had a couple of online exams to sit this morning, so while he was doing that I walked down to Kalyves for another stroll by the sea.

It was an incredibly hot day again today; so much warmer than I expected for the end of September.

I walked around by the harbour, from where I had a nice view back to the main church in the centre of town.

The mountains beyond the town looked gorgeous in the morning sunshine.

As I walked along the coast in the opposite direction, I got a glimpse of the hilltop fortress which we'd seen from Aptera yesterday too.

Once the exams had been successfully passed, we jumped in the car and drove along the coast to the little town of Rethymno, which is only about 45 minutes away from where we're staying. We managed to find some free parking, right by the sea.

In the other direction we caught sight of Rethymno's Venetian fortress.

We walked towards it to get a better look.

It was really huge, towering above us on a rock.

I particularly loved the fact that there were cactuses growing all the way up the fortress rock.

Eventually we made it round towards the centre of town.

We stopped for some lunch at a cafe with an amazing view of the sea.

After lunch we had a stroll through the picturesque streets of Rethymno.

The town seemed to be a mixture of old and new. It hasn't come out very well in the picture, but this building had an Arabic inscription above the door, presumably a legacy of Ottoman rule.

We found our way to what seemed to be the town's main church, complete with large bell tower.

From here we followed little streets down to the sea.

By the sea we found a huge Rethymno sign. It seems to be a local recycling initiative, with people encouraged to fill the letters with plastic bottles.

I enjoyed walking under palm trees by the beach.

As we walked we could see the town's lighthouse in the distance.

The old harbour here is Venetian, although the lighthouse looks newer.

The harbour itself is really pretty

Once we'd finished exploring we walked back around past the fortress and towards where we'd parked the car.

Rethymno was a lovely little place to visit, but with temperatures over 30 degrees again today we were glad to get back to the air-conditioning of the apartment to cool off for a while!