A beautiful sunrise greets us as we make our way to Agios Nikolaos for our late morning arrival into Crete.  A relaxing morning – the normal routine: gym, breakfast, shower, then a little change with a Destination Enrichment Lecture from our one speaker – Dr. Alan Fisher who presents a wonderfully interesting discussion on the impact of Classical Greece on Modern Life – mostly in terms of language.  While we all know many of our English words come from Latin, many words and prefixes come from Greek.  We are quite surprised to know the origin of some of the words we use on a normal basis: bios (as in biology), circum (circumvent), hydro (hydraulic), micro/macro (microscope).  You get the drift.  Quite the interesting 45 minutes.

Arriving in A.G. earlier than on our itinerary, we head off into town to find Thrifty rental car – which isn’t open yet – because we are earlier than planned.  Our car isn’t booked until 12:30 and we are at the door at 11:20. Fortunately the agent come arrives pretty quickly and we are out on the road before noon, winding our way out of town and out toward the Eastern end of the island with our sights set on Dionyssos – an abandoned – i.e. “ghost” – resort town.  Our ghost town tour continues…..in Greece!

The hour and a half drive takes us along the coast, past villages and towns, olive groves and small forests, always with those looming gray stone mountains in the background.  They look like a collection of pebbles and rocks that have slid down the mountain sides.  Really different and distinct. 

Soon we start heading up into aforementioned mountains, providing us with stunning views of the coastline, and in a couple places, a view back across the Mirabello Bay to the A.G. harbor with the Journey at dock. 

Soon we can see Dionysos Village out in the distance – a collection of villas and townhouses snuggled up against the now sand colored cliffs.    The idea of the village was to create 7 holiday settlements, however in the end, only one – Dionysos – ever was created.  470 small houses and shops were built in 1995, 70-75% of them sold.  Unfortunately, the entire project was abandoned in 1998 after disputes and environmental issues, such as excessive garbage on Analouka Beach, and the company behind the village was closed when it was found they had been collecting money in a Ponzi scheme.  Crazy!  Today, about 10 families do still live here full time, and allegedly, many of the homes are used in the summer.  But otherwise?  Virtually empty.

Arriving at the gated entrance, we park outside and wander in through some of the upper lanes.  The landscaping is being taken care of, and there are a couple of cars parked here and there, making us a little leery of wandering too far into the complex – we don’t want to be picked up for trespassing. 

Be that as it may, we still manage to make our way to the middle of the complex and what was once the hotel here. We had read that there were plans to revive the village and hotel a few years ago, which is evidenced by the desks and village models and general office and bar debris (there are still stacks of coasters left on the tables) left inside the hotel itself.  There is also the relatively freshly painted – albeit empty – pool. And notices hung on the hotel doors talking about Board meetings in 2019, lawsuits and the 2020 meeting being canceled due to the lawsuits.  

Some of the units look like they are being taken care of, others, not so much.  It is actually a cool looking place, and you can see how it might work (aside from the environmental issues, and the fact there isn’t a beach here, just really rocky shores), but I would be sort of creeped out staying way out here now, in the middle of nowhere, with hardly anyone around. Just nuts. An entire complex virtually empty. 

Deciding not to push our luck and get nabbed for being there without permission, we finish our “ghost town” (ok, so semi-ghost town) explorations, and head back toward A.G., passing yet another unfinished and abandoned hotel or condo looking structure on the beach side of the road.  The whole area seems like it might once have been a good place to develop but now has been abandoned for whatever reasons.

Taking our time, we stop frequently at waterfront overlooks – at Sitia (the closest town to Dionysos), further along where there is a great long view back at Dionysos, and various other pullouts where the olive groves climbing up the mountain sides capture our eye. 

This island is absolutely gorgeous – in a green and brown and blue sort of way.  The terrain isn’t overly pretty on its own, but when combined with the shimmering ocean, the contrasts of vibrant green olive groves and dark sand or gray rock cliffs, the little villages and towns perched on rises above the water, or in little valleys between the mountains, old stone windmills on the hills, just makes for incredible scenery and a fabulous drive back to A.G.

On our way out to Dionysos this morning, we had passed by signs for an archeological site called Gournia, a Minoan settlement, and since it was far earlier than we expected to be returning, we thought we’d make a stop there.  Sadly, we arrived 5 minutes before closing time, dashing our hopes of a little historical side trip.  Ah well, it was just a thought.

So, back we go to A.G., easily dropping our car back into the lot by the ship where we picked it up and delivering the keys to the Thrifty office – spying this cool/scary/creepy sweatshirt on the way back to the ship.   We would have stayed outside for dinner at one of the tons of restaurants here (we’ve actually been here eons ago and had a fabulous lunch on the waterfront), but we have Aqualina reservations so no last Greek meal for us.  But we’re good with that, spending the rest of the evening onboard, then on the balcony for a while watching the sail away with the fabulously lit statues on the pier jetty.

Later we actually went to the show – another new one for us – the ship orchestra doing a jazz night.  Which was very good.  Then the cabin and balcony for the rest of the evening.  A great easy day – with views and vistas on our drive that made it all worthwhile.  Tomorrow, our only sea day of this leg.