Memories of Crete

I've not been back from my week in lovely Crete, but it already feels like ages!  I wasn't too enthusiastic about the photos which I took while there, but I found a spurt of inspiration from somewhere (helped by the splendid new Lightroom 3 software which I bought yesterday) and finally got started and here are some of the results!

This was taken at Elafonisi beach in the far south west corner of Crete, and was utterly stunning.  It was reached by about an hour and a half driving through mountains, gorges, chestnut groves and many pretty villages.

Also at Elafonisi, what a fantastic blue!  The water was quite cold as still early in the season, but so refreshing after a very hot drive.  It was one of those beaches where you can't possibly sit down and relax first, you just have to rip your clothes off and get in!

The next two are beautiful old doors in Chania, the main town in the area where we were staying.  We've been to Chania many times previously but this time was on a Sunday morning and it was really quiet which was fantastic as all previous visits had been very busy with tourists.  We also had someone with us from our yoga group who had never been before, so we (mum and I) saw it in a different way as we were showing the town off to a newbie!

It's a very Cretan thing to hang your octopus out to dry, I'd never come across this before.  

We saw several dried bouquets of flowers hanging outside houses, I don't know the significance but will find out.