Crete - Day 4 Flag raising, lunch at Zourva, wreaths at Galatas, evening meal

Friday morning we got up and went to the first of our official Battle of Crete commemorations, which was the flag raising ceremony at Hania. The flags are raised at the fort in the Harbour which also houses a small museum which had a very good exhibition on the Battle of Crete. There were quite a few of the old soldiers there, most in full uniform. One old Scottish soldier was berating another one for taking his hat off and wiping his head - "Put your hat back on soldier!". Very funny! The NZ contingent were easy to spot in their white polo shirts - quite a few from the Maori Battalion had made the trip over. The flag raising was very simple, but really very moving as well.

In the afternoon we did the trip from hell back up to Zourva to have lunch. And despite mine and Kevin's reservations given the road, it was worth it. We just ate and ate and ate (and drank some wine!) and it was beautiful. A lovely setting, sat outside, with an amazing view and the food was just gorgeous. And it kept coming!

In the evening we went up to two wreath laying ceremonies at the village of Galatas. The first one was at a memorial above the village, the second one in the village itself. The second one took quite a while - about 30 wreaths being laid, all being announced in Greek - luckily we were stood by a Greek who was able to translate who the wreaths were from!

Following the ceremonies it was down to the Panorama Hotel where the Mayor of Hania lays on a huge Greek meal, dancing etc, for the returned veterans and their entourages. Having had such a huge lunch I didn't eat very much at all! But I ended up being sat next to Neville Perkins, the brother of Dudley Perkins - known as Vasili - The Lion of Crete. It took me a while to make the connection - we spent more time talking about walking as he was doing a walking holiday of Crete! But it was quite fascinating to hear him talk about going up to the village where his brother had been based, and how emotional it had been, and how the villagers still remembered him.

I also bumped into a woman I used to work with at TPK - Harima. She was with the NZ group and she told me that the 'baby' of the group was 86! It was entertaining at dinner watching two of the NZ organisers fight over whether the veterans should be taken home or not. One of them thought they should be allowed to stay, the other wanted them home as they had a long day the next day, and in the end they ended up leaving before the end of the meal without their pudding - somehow I suspect the veterans would have rather stayed for their pud!