We were off to an early start to pick up our car rental, which we will use to explore the island for the next 3 days! We were pleasantly surprised when we found out our rental was a black BMW! Talk about touring in style!

Today, Jim was at the wheel and Pete was navigating! Kelley and I were much more comfortable in the back seat this time!! We headed east, to the capital city of Crete, Heraklion. Even though it is Greece's 4th largest city, it only has a population of approximately 180,000.

We started our tour at the the Archaeological Museum, which houses archaeological finds from all over Crete, covering over 5500 years of the island's history. The museum is the home of Minoan artifacts uncovered from the Palace of Knossos, where we visited at the end of the day. Photo's 1 and 2 are of Pete and Karen in front of some of the amazing artifacts.

For our next stop we drove to the Lyrarakis Winery for lunch and wine tasting. This is a family winery established in 1966, and we enjoyed a wonderful vineyard tour and wine tasting with sommelier, Eva, followed by a delicious Cretan lunch. Photo 3 is our delicious lunch, and Photo 4 is with Eva.

We ended the day by visiting the Palace of Knossos, just outside of Heraklion. Knossos flourished until the 5th century AD. The site has a number of large palace buildings and is still being excavated at the present time. Photo #5

It was another wonderful, and hot day in Greece! It was great having a vehicle to see the sites of Crete as well! Tomorrow, we will celebrate Canada Day with a day trip west, to the city of Chania! Happy Canada Day to all our family and friends!