I went down to breakfast a little after 8:00 and then brought my luggage down. We loaded up and proceeded directly to Iráklion. We unloaded our gear at the Olympic Hotel amidst heavy traffic in the middle of town. I was surprised to see how congested the city center was but then learned that Iráklion is Greece's sixth largest city. Bob, Anne, Drew, and I grabbed a sandwich at a nearby bakery and ate in a sidewalk café across from the hotel.

After lunch, w e drove directly to the Minoan Palace at Knossos and toured the palace and its grounds. It is quite impressive but somewhat tainted by an early 20th century attempt at restoration, parts of which are falling apart and need restoration! British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, began excavating there in 1900. He is responsible for the reconstruction efforts, much of which was based on the palace he saw in his mind's eye and not based on much hard evidence. Anne and I made lots of measurements on wall orientations. Oddly, the palace is supposed to be oriented toward Mt. Juktas, but its summit appears to be about 10° off. We spent time at the House of the Fallen Blocks and took orientations of the 4 blocks that fell off the palace wall onto the house below during an earthquake. After about 3 hours, we had seen our fill and took our bus into town.

Bob and Drew were going to take the group, via public bus, to the beach for some R&R. Meanwhile, Anne and I took a cab out to the British School at Knossos and found Don Evely, the archaeologist in charge of the Knossos excavation. We wanted to run some of our ideas past him but it was clear that he thought geologists were only good for identifying outcrops from which artifacts were made. I proceeded to educate him a little on the topic of paleoseismology. He seemed interested and will likely support any proposal we put forth.

We caught another cab back to town and looked at maps in my room. The heat finally made us quit. Then, Anne made an unsuccessful attempt to join the group at the beach while I fought with an uncoopeative air conditioner (and finally succeeded). Then, I read a terrible paper on the paleoseismicity of Ayia Triada.

I joined Anne and Bob for a glass of wine and then we walked down to a pedestrian area next to the Lion's Square where ate at a sidewalk restaurant a few meters from an almost 400-year old Venetian Fountain. We had an excellent dinner of our usual fare of kalamari and octopus with a Greek salad. Bob is including this scene in his upcoming novel. It was a wonderful, almost timeless, setting. Afterward, I returned to the hotel and took a shower. With considerable frustration, I was able to turn on the air conditioner. I was soon asleep.