Out of the blue

The store was supposed to be open 9.00 - 14.30 and 17.30 - 21.00.

The time was a quarter to six in the afternoon and there was no sign of the merchant. This is not unusual for this small town, everybody is relaxed and very flexible with their affairs!

On their book, half an hour more or less is not a big deal and as a matter of fact, it really isn't :)

I had two choices. Wait until the store opens, probably in a few minutes, or go for a walk and spend more than an hour wandering and taking pictures.

I went for a walk!

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Sitia is a town with around 10.000 people but I have always considered it as a big village. This is due to many small details in the town itself, like the painted white step streets or the flower pots in front of many houses but also due to the people's mentality that is pretty far from an urban way of thinking.

On the other hand Crete is a very touristic island and although Sitia is still unspoiled from the touristic industry, there are definite signs that there are plans to change that, like the brand new airport (although the flights here are very few) and the also new and oversized (for the town's needs) port.

Myself I enjoy to gaze the old buildings of the seafront, overlooking the new construction projects and patiently waiting for one more century to pass before they fall apart :)

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At the beginning of my walk I noticed that the ducks weren't at the canal that they usually are and I wondered what happened to them. I found them a little later, enjoying a more dry and more urban scenery! Who knows why, but they moved away from the sea, towards the first houses of the town. So in that neighbourhood there are stray ducks instead of stray cats on the streets.

Fine by me, I just hope the drivers are very careful. A duck crossing the street is hardly as fast as a cat, actually it is very slow :)

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The port I was talking to you about, looks more like a place to dump old vessels, rather than a modern harbour and even less like a luxury marina that some people seem to fantasise!

Nevertheless someone had a good time, riding his bike back and forth, on the very flat and very empty plot!

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In the picture above you can see how "Sitia" is written in Greek capital letters. Not so difficult, it is just that in Greek we have many "i" and this name happens to have two of them :)

Below is a phone booth of a kind that I though it was extinct, at least in Greece! Do they exist in your country? I took the picture because I really think that this might be the last one I will ever see!

This kind of booths remind me very vividly a scene from The Matrix. Do you know which one I mean?

But this one!

_source

As she's being chased by an agent driving a construction truck, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) calls headquarters from a phone booth which removes her from the Matrix. The truck drives full speed into the phone booth and she's rescued just in time.
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I have mentioned this movie more than once, I guess that I have to admit that it is very high on my list of favourite movies :)

And after this little movie intermission that literally came out of the blue, lets continue with the pictures of the walk!

As I was returning to the shop that hadn't open on time and become the excuse for this nice walk, the sun came out of the clouds and lit the dock with it's golden afternoon light!

And as a grand finale, I found the rest of the ducks, exactly where they were supposed to be, swimming gracefully at the canal :)

Every Wednesday @tattoodjay is inviting us to get out for a short walk, get some shots of what we see and make a #wednesdaywalk post about it. I made this walk five days ago. I hope you enjoyed it!
Happy walks, to all of you :)

Unless stated otherwise, all the pictures and the words are mine.

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