Cat sitting and catwalking

Another dullish day, but we were promised a ride up into the mountains to see the Lassithi Plateau. Our first stop, however, was to the ruins of yet another palace, that of Malia on the north coast east of Heraklion. Interesting again, but it's possible to see too many palaces. This puss followed us around, though I had to catch her posing as a strangely named exhibit!

The most interesting thing for me was a grove of ancient tamarisk trees, usually seen as shrubs in the UK, growing along the south coast. These trees were huge and very ancient. I've put a picture on as an extra.

Next on the list was a leather clothing factory. It's all a con, this visiting commercial outlets, but I thought that this one might be amusing as we were promised models parading on the catwalk showing off various of the company's products. Those of us, myself included, who were expecting a bevy of slender youngsters, were rather surprised to find that the three models, one man and two women, were of mature years and of larger size! It was rather amusing to see them acting like teenagers! I had been told that I could take photographs, but while doing so in the main sales area I was ticked off for the third time!

A lot going on today, next up being a lunchtime visit to a restaurant high up in the hills, around which were a number of ancient windmills, the sort with the cloth sails. These were once used to grind grain. Two of the tour ladies perfomed while I took a picture! Unfortunately instead of visiting the plateau we turned back and came down again, missing the plateau altogether, but calling in to the village of Khasi, or maybe Krasi (!), to see a magnificent plane tree which is said to be the oldest tree in Europe. It was certainly impressive and is added to the extras!