We’ve got into a routine by the end of three days: lazy start, late breakfast, read in the early sunshine, midday saunter into town to get a coffee, longer walk, return for later afternoon sun, out for an early evening drink followed by a search for somewhere we fancy eating. We can go close- to the bars and restaurants near our hotel, or wander further to Venetian Harbour, where the wide sweep of the quay is fringed by restaurants. In addition to this, there are many, many more places lining the network of lanes behind the harbour.

On day four though, I wake and twitch the curtain to see a gloomy, cloudy sky, also it isn’t warm. Horrors! Our entire routine is founded on warm sunshine- heat, even. Hmm…

It’s not raining however, so we can still walk if we wrap up. We skip the post breakfast read and set off. If we turn left out of our hotel instead of right, the road takes us straight into the modern centre of Chania, a big contrast to the old town of course. We use our map, provided by the hotel reception. The main road passes a grand, if not old, building set back behind the tourist information booth [firmly closed, boarded up and fenced]. This, then, is the market. There’s nothing to explain its closure. I’m disappointed. I enjoy looking round a market, especially in a different country.

We plough on. It’s quite an extensive shopping centre and there are what feels like an out of proportion number of pharmacies. We need a couple of items and some advice so we step into one. The pharmacist speaks excellent English and the service is super efficient.

We come to the old town and wander the tiny, narrow backstreets. The cathedral square is an elegant space and we enter the cathedral but I’m not allowed to photograph its interior. Nearby should be the archaeology museum but in spite of much searching and use of our map, we can’t find it. Then we’re told it is closed.

Backtracking to the quay, we go along to the maritime museum at the end where we can escape the cool breeze for a while. The first exhibits date back the longest time and are absorbing, as Crete has a rich, mixed culture from being colonised by several different civilisations. Moving further into the museum it is mostly second world war memorabilia, with a huge number of model battleships and upstairs, a collection of uniform pieces and various items in cases, one of which is a ‘German soup bowl’- a white, ceramic, oval plate covered in holes. ‘I don’t think much of this German soup bowl’, I tell Husband, who replies that it’s no wonder they lost the war, as they must have been starving. I feel an overwhelming urge to laugh, which I have to stifle rather than destroy the gravitas of the war relics, so it’s time to leave.

We return to the hotel to relax a bit, but it’s tricky. Outside is windy and cold, our room is not conducive to relaxing [except for sleep] and the hotel bar area is furnished with some of the most uncomfortable sofas I’ve ever sat on. But I can make do if I use a pillow from our room, so we sit and read there for a bit.

We opt to go local for dinner- just down the road, In the meantime, the weather worsens into a deluge of wind and rain and we are to learn that this is the coldest May day in Greece for seventy years. The rain hammers down on the restaurant’s enclosed awning as we share the space with a family celebrating a birthday. Ho hum…

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com