Right, I'm going to write about Crete. If you're interested in me covering a specific topic, leave your requests in the comments, and make them substantial.
Crete is a Greek island, the former home of the Minoan civilization, the oldest in Europe. 2600 BC — such antiquity that it gets scary. Modern Cretans consider themselves Greeks. That shouldn't really add to their pride, because Pushkin himself wrote to Vyazemsky:
One may reason about the fate of the Greeks as about the fate of my brothers the Negroes, and one may wish for both to be freed from unendurable slavery. But for all the enlightened European nations to rave about Greece — that is unforgivable childishness. The Jesuits have talked our ears off about Themistocles and Pericles, and we have imagined that a nasty people, consisting of bandits and shopkeepers, is their legitimate descendant and the heir to their textbook glory. You will say I have changed my mind; if only you came to us in Odessa to look at the compatriots of Miltiades, you would agree with me.
However, the inhabitants of the island always emphasize that they are, after all, Cretans, and this is a fact one can actually be proud of, because islanders have always been a bit more lively than mainlanders. For instance, comrade FVL in the comments to the post above goes off about democracy and the principate, and mentions the hot temper of the Cypriots, although not the Cretans.
You shouldn't confuse Crete with Cyprus, even though they're similar.
Crete is marked with the red arrow, Cyprus - with the blue
There, where the green arrow points, is kinda the Sea of Crete. 'Kinda' because further north lies the Aegean, and some maps show only that one. Below Crete, where the black arrow points, lies the Libyan Sea. The situation with it is similar — it seems to be surrounded on all sides by the Mediterranean, or perhaps it's entirely a part of it. Geography is an inexact science, kinda.
The climate on the island is moderate — 10-20 degrees in winter, 30-34 in summer. Nature is top-notch — mountains and gorges, warm and beautiful seas. There's no crime at all, but ancient ruins and temples, on the contrary, are everywhere.
Considering the above, it's no wonder that Crete gets over two million tourists a year.
The island lives mostly off growing olives and tourism. There's also some citrus, spices, and a couple of factories that process and package it all for shipping to the mainland.
Overall — a warm and lovely land, it's just a pity the prices bite, and the selection in grocery stores doesn't thrill you — it's a small island after all, there's no one to set up a consumer paradise for, except the tourists, who are interested more in souvenirs and clothing than in food. The exception is spices, which of course there are heaps of. They smell wonderful, taste quite alright too, the prices are hard to figure out, but they seem to be noticeably cheaper than back home. There's quite a bit of alcohol too, but I'm not interested in it, so I won't be able to tell you anything, besides mentioning buying wine in future posts.
Now about our trip. I went there because a buddy/colleague/college-mate was buying a package tour, and there was a spot (or rather, he needed to fill a spot with me so he wouldn't end up in a room with god-knows-who). I didn't know anything about Crete before that, but all the more fun. The most interesting part was that the tour was "all inclusive", I hadn't had this kind of experience before, so I was curious what kind of beast this sort of unlimited free-for-all was. I satisfied my emotion of curiosity, but more on that in the following posts.
The package tour cost a shitload, it's scary to even say, so I'd better keep quiet. I'll just say it was over a thousand dollahs, and how much more I spent there over the week! Our resort had 4+ regular polygonal objects aka stars, and, as already mentioned, was all inclusive aka booze it up to your heart's content, which generally suited us. Obviously, this format implies that you sit in the hotel most of the time. I knew this and had no illusions — I wanted to try this out too, even though I usually prefer a bit more activity.
P.S. On the only zombie channel I watch — Euronews, they were running an ad for the site https://www.explorecrete.com/russian/index-ru.htm.
Speaking of the zombie box, by the way. There's this service — www.zombobox.com . I haven't visited it, but the address is good. They say it's like www.moskva.fm, only for TV.
Also, Euronews shows such a commercial for Armenia that it makes you want to drop everything and go immediately. It is partly a historical homeland, after all. It's good to have many homelands.