Unternehmen Merkur

On May 20th 1941 Germany launched Operation Mercury - the airborne invasion of Crete. To this day the invasion continues, although the Luftwaffe appears to have been replaced by Lufthansa. How do I know this? - I have just retuned home after a lovely 2 week holiday on the island and I spoke more Deutsche there than here in Germany.

Our hotel was full of Germans, (myself being the only non-German) - all the Greek staff spoke German - all the shop keepers spoke German - most Taverna menus were in German - it was weird, but we had a teriffic time and met lots of nice people (Germans). What was funny though was when one of the barmen at the hotel found out I was English, he stopped talking German and nearly tore my arm off with his handshake!

The Juniorette and I did a lot of snorkelling. She really enjoyed duck diving to find shells. We spotted a couple of octopus and a couple of cuttlefish, along with a host of other little fishes. I went for a dive, max depth 25m, which was very nice. Saw quite a big octopus and several good sized Grouper.

We split our time between hotel pool and the local beach, and avoided the direct sun during the hottest part of the day. We did a couple of trips to see some very old ruins and a museum. I am not really into this type of thing (Mrs Haddock is though), but I found it quite interesting.

All in all we had a very nice time, and we will be definately visiting the Greek islands again sometime in the future. When I get time I will post piccys, but for now I have to get out into the garden. Everything has grown and there is a lot to do.