IRAKLION, Greece — We are in a shabby port spread out on the northern coast of Crete, staying at a Class B hotel that is modern and comfortable, except that the bathtubs seem to have been made for Minoans.
The Minoans, a race of small people, inhabited Crete from 5,000 to 2,500 years ago. They were followed by a veritable parade of civilization: the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Venetians, the Turks, the modern Greeks, and, during World War II, the Germans.
Now, the Americans have arrived. My wife and I were among 39 Elderhostelers on a 19-day archaeological tour that will trace Greek civilization from prehistoric times, through the Bronze Age and the classical period, into modern times.
The tour was one of hundreds sponsored by Elderhostel, a Boston-based nonprofit organization founded 20 years ago by Marty Knowland, a social activist, and David Bianco, a university administrator.
Their idea was simple: Young travelers stay in youth hostels on the cheap; why shouldn't older travelers have the same opportunity to go places and learn things without spending their children's inheritance?
Elderhostel started small, with about 200 people visiting a few New Hampshire campuses. Today, it sponsors tours to more than 1,900 places in all 50 states and in 50 other countries.
Our tour of Greece was tightly scheduled - six days based in Athens, six days in Navplion in the eastern Peloponnisos peninsula, five days in Crete, then two more days in Athens.
This is how our group, ranging in age from late 50s to mid-80s, spent a typical long day's journey into the past:
We got up early, ate a hearty breakfast, and assembled in the hotel lobby. Danae Tsoukalas, our guide, teacher and ``mother hen,'' led us to a bus waiting on a busy street parallel to the waterfront.
First stop: the Monastery of Arkadi, an hour and a half's drive west of Iraklion. The road wound past whitewashed houses and an occasional lonely white church. Sheep clambered over the scrub-covered hills. To our right, the Sea of Crete glinted blue in the brilliant sunlight.
The monastery was named for the Byzantine Emperor Arkadius, who built it in the fifth century. Standing in front of its fortress-like facade, Tsoukalas recounted how, in 1866, when the Greeks rose up against the occupying Turks and the Turks attacked the monastery, the outnumbered defenders blew up the room in which gunpowder had been stored, killing themselves and hundreds of Turkish soldiers and Egyptian mercenaries.
