Hania, Crete -Day 6
Today, on the first bus, we are on the way to the Palace of Knossos, in Heraklion. The trip is fun, the locals are on their way to work and observing them on and off the bus is interesting. Along the route, we pass several seaside resorts and Rethymnon; we may stop at Rethymnon on the way back. The city of Heraklion may have some charming neighborhood, but we did not see them. It is crowded and the architecture is not notable.
The Palace at Knossos
This place is not easily described. It is huge, about 215,000 square feet, most of which were not accessible on the day of our pilgrimage. Very disappointing... Not a great picture harvest. Note that except for the large jars called "Pithoi" the renovated structures are interpretations of Sir Arthur Evans. The worse part, the Museum with all the Minoan artifacts is also closed.
Very Few Pictures
The Palace at Knossos, Crete: Day 6
For more information on Knossos, see this website: Minoan Crete. Early Minoan (i.e. Early Bronze Age) at Knossos probably took place in the middle of the 4th millennium BCE.
Evans designated the building at Knossos a palace and named the civilisation that had built it the Minoans, after King Minos of Greek mythology. The function of Knossos is not very clear, newer interpretations advance that the palace could have been a temple or an administrative center or both, and maybe even a necropolis -- a huge burial site to which only a small band of priests and embalmers had access.
The most interesting area for me was the Royal Road, kind of majestic and reminiscent of the entrances of the antebellum drives of the Ammerican South.
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