Ready for a touch of luxury after a perplexing and slightly macabre stay in Iraklion (small dog skull, anyone?), OT and I booked a real hotel, with a proper shower stall, comfy beds and pretty furniture. We've been here three nights, and will leave tomorrow evening on the overnight ferry back to Athens.
Although Porto Del Columbo is a real hotel, it does not have every one of the mod cons. For instance - no WiFi, as yet. But we think that's a small matter, worth putting up with to sleep in a building that was the French ambassador's residence, eat the thick white yogurt with thyme honey they serve for breakfast, and look out of our third floor window over tiled terracotta roofs to the harbour, and the old Venetian-era mole.
Not everyone is so sanguine at Porto Del Columbo. On our second night in Hania, OT and I separated for a while in the evening, attending to various small tasks in the town. When I arrived back at the hotel, I found an elderly(ish) couple, both dressed in pale linen, standing in the foyer and saying quietly to each other 'but the cases, the cases, can we carry the cases?'
Those of you who have been in on the plans for this journey will know that OT and I decided we were going on a wheelie suitcase type-holiday, not a backpack type holiday. And that our first action, after deciding the trip was to happen, was to go out and each buy ourselves the largest wheelie suitcases we could find. Many people have looked doubtfully at me when wheelie suitcase is mentioned, muttering about steps and having to carry it, and what seems to to be the cardinal virtue of traveling, packing light. But, as I have to lift my own body weight at least once a week at yoga, I've developed quite considerable arm-strength. So I've waved my hand airily and cried 'don't worry, I'm strong'. Which I am.
So, with charity in my heart and muscles in my arms, I said cheerily to the couple 'do you need help with your cases?'. A simple question, a plain enough offer - but it threw them into confusion.
'Oh no no no', cried the man, pulling his mouth down and shaking his head.
'We are quite alright,' said the woman, her hand resting on the back of a chair and shaking slightly.
'Really,' I said, 'it's no trouble, I'm strong. Where are they?'
'Oh, at the waterfront,' said the woman (all of 2 minutes away, but with some steps in between it and us, and lanes too narrow to admit their hire car).
'Let me help you,' I said.
'Oh no,' said the man, real pleading in his voice. He bent towards me and clasped his hands, entreating me not to help him.* 'You are the second kind person to offer. No no, I'd be so embarrassed'.
So I gave up, and wished them luck and scooted up the stairs to our room, where I found OT.
OT: 'Did you see the couple downstairs?'
ATML: 'Yes, I tried to help them with their bags.'
OT: 'Me too! They wouldn't let me. When I came in, they were saying to each other "no porter? how can there be so many stairs and no porter?"'
We looked at each other, the two kind people, and started giggling.
Twenty minutes later, we were on our way out (for ice cream). There, on the threshhold, was the elderly safari-ites, porterless, struggling with two large bags.
I seized one, OT seized the other.
'No no no, you'll hurt yourself' they said.
'I'm strong!' I cried. I was overtaken by a wilful desire to carry the damn cases - it really was no trouble and the dear old chap, flapping like a stalky hen, had been dragging them painfully up the lane, step-by-step, for the last quarter of an hour. He held on to the handle of his case and protested. I looked him in the eye. 'I am a gift from the universe, sent to you to carry this case,' I said. He let go of the handle. I carried it off in triumph.**
OT, giving up on her case (her being strong for her size too, but a rather smaller creature than me), backed me up 'She is strong, you know', she said to the woman as they stood in the foyer watching me with the case on the stairs.
'How did she get so strong?', the woman whispered to OT.
'Yoga,' said OT, nodding wisely.
'The case is full of gin,' said the tired woman to OT, 'I was going to drink it on the cruise, but there was so much wine I haven't touched it. She's carrying five bottles of gin up the stairs.'
Yiamas!
*It is no doubt relevant to note that this couple were British.
** It was NOT as heavy as my case - actually not particularly heavy at all.
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