Crete is my eighth and by far the largest of all the Greek islands I have visited. The family arrives with a stopover in Viennese style. Even at Easter, the sheer endless competition from car hire companies knocks car hire prices below the price of scooters in developing countries.
Our booked basic hotel suffers from construction delays. We are rebooked at the 5-star all-inclusive Guaves Waterpark Resort. The little one enjoys gigantic children’s pools and dad unlimited pita gyros with a few cocktails.
I spent a good part of my childhood in just such exclusive resorts. The people there bored me to tears. It’s the same today. The more money travellers spend, the fewer stories they have to tell. Colourless souls meet bright red and white striped Brits.
The walruses roll from meal to meal. Only at the sugar water dispenser do they make a brief appearance. Sophisticatedly cut NewYorker fumbling exposes everything you never wanted to see. The walrus boys are permasised with tablets. I don’t think genetics is the most important factor in their habitus. It’s the affluence as well as the 100% brain and heart free “travelling”.
The Borg assimilated me completely on the second day. The only way to get to the second floor is by lift – and the 300 m to the beach by car. The only really divine thing here is our little one at the children’s disco every evening. I love her wild dancing style – and the fact that she always refuses to listen to DJ Ötzi.
She’s a real traveller. She spends hours looking out of the window, fascinated by lonely mountain roads and delighted by the sand in every sunny bay with turquoise blue water. There is still snow on the mountains up to 2,500 metres high. She silently admires the fish in the aquarium. With offspring, every Cretan adds a big extra penny to the already gigantic Greek hospitality.
After four days of all-inclusive accommodation, we are approaching the walrus in a morphologically worrying way. We set off for the western tip of Crete, three and a half hours away.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.