Gyro-tastic!: Still no dagger

Thursday morning we headed to the town of Archanes, stopping along the way at a few small sites. Archanes is known for a grave site at the top of a hill, which we were told would be just a short hike. Right. Short hike. After an intense uphill climb we got to the site, which was definitely worth the work. The view was pretty breathtaking (there are only so many adjectives that I can use to describe the views around Crete...) and the grave sites themselves were pretty intact, and you could get some sense of how a burial ceremony must have gone. The town itself was pretty deserted, since tourist season is over, but we did find a delicious pastry shop for lunch. The stray dogs on Crete are much cute than the ones in Athens, and we made friends with one in particular that I was very tempted to take with me. There was also a small museum in Archanes that showcased what they found in the graves, including a few skeletons and a hilarious sketch of what the ancient people looked like as an earthquake hit the area.

After lunch we boarded the bus for Chania, which is the other major city on Crete. It's located on the southern coast, and is very, very touristy. However, as my friend Sam and I were exploring, we found a small synagogue hidden on a side street. When we walked through the doorway, it was like entering an entirely different place. The walls were all covered with vines and flowers, and the synagogue itself was old and ornate. We asked a man working there to tell us the story and this is what he said: It was originally built in the 17th century as a church, but the pirate Red Beard bombed the town and the structure was given to the 1,000+ Jews in Chania, who were ghettoized in that part of the city. By World War II there were about 300 Jews remaining on Crete, and they were pretty much left along even after the Germans occupied the island. However, towards the end of the war, the Germans decided to go after the Cretan Jews, and rounded up all 300 onto a boat which was full of other prisoners of war. The boat was flying the Nazi flag, and a British sub torpedoed it, killing everyone on board. There was one Jewish woman from Crete who was out of town that weekend, and so she was the only "survivor." After that, the synagogue was basically abandoned and used as a house or barn at various times. Finally, in 1996, it was put on the World Monuments Fund list of endangered sites and got enough funds to be restored. Today, there are around 8 Jews on Crete, and the synagogue has services every Friday. The man talking to us turned out to not be Jewish, but he had a remarkable knowledge of the culture and religion that we were quite surprised when he revealed this towards the end of our talk. Sitting there, I was struck once again by how difficult it must be to be Jewish in Greece.

We had dinner by the water at a so-so taverna, and strolled around the town for a little while. The market stalls had a ton of daggers, but I chickened out again.