Chania Day 4

The wrist injury continues to improve, and it's certain now that the half-cast can come off when we get to Heraklion. So that's good news. Also good was breakfast in our hotel. The staff in reception have been slagging us about missing breakfast every morning so far, but they can't give out to us any more. What a breakfast! Four courses, each delivered lovingly by the main man and with the ingredients all described as they might be in a top restaurant. We have no idea how much it cost, but it doesn't really matter, it was so good.

Today's plan was to do a bit of shopping and to make our way around the old harbour to the lighthouse which is such a prominent feature here. We found a lovely beach-clothes shop just around the corner from home, and treated ourselves to shirts and shorts. On then by back streets to the extreme corner of the harbour for a wee pit stop before striking out for the end of the harbour wall and the lighthouse. Yesterday's hazy and windy conditions continued, but it was still quite hot. We made it, though.

The blip is my first panorama effort with the iPhone 5s, and the shot was taken from the top step on the base of the lighthouse. It's siesta time now before an evening meal and another bit of soaking up the night life here.

Another great day, and it's still only 7:15pm here. Who knows what else lies in store in wonderful, excellent, beautiful, fabulous Chania?

LATER: We got the news tonight about the closure of Greek banks and limits on ATM twithdrawals. We'd prepared for this to a certain extent before leaving home and took much more cash with us than e normally would. Since arrival here, we've also visited ATMs a few times to top up our cash reserves. We're not sure of where we stand with our various hotels for payment of their charges, which we'd planned to use our cards for, and we hope to get an indication tomorrow from our wonderful staff here in Chania of the attitude of businesses to credit card payments. In the meantime we visited an ATM after our evening meal but it displayed a warning that no cash was available.

My sympathies in all this are firmly with Greece, the Greeks and the Greek government. We heard last night about a referendum being called and learned this evening that the ECB is not prepared to wait for the referendum result before it pulls the plug. Why can't they wait? What difference will another few days make? The antics of the IMF and the ECB and the EU add up to a sad commentary on their regard for democracy, and do none of them any credit. It's all ridiculously topsy-turvy in my view. European institutions have demonstrated all too clearly their contempt for democratic principles by the way in which the Irish people were not allowed to vote in a way that didn't suit what was expected of them, and we were twice required to vote again. That's fundamentally wrong. Repeating this attitude in the case of Greece is doubly reprehensible in the light of this country being the very seat of democracy. Shame on you, IMF. Shame on you, ECB. Shame on you, EU.