Day 3 - Jericho, temptation hill, Wadi Kelt, Jerusalem

Today we travelled again, being on the bus at 8.00am prompt to head off to Jericho, the mount of temptation and a wadi that was associated with the parable of the good Samaritan. This meant a drive into the west bank occupied territories. Passing the border, the difference was quite striking: the land arid and seemingly neglected, rubbish piled in drifts where the wind had blown it. One of the party wondered out loud how they could want to form a government when they couldn’t even clear away their rubbish, but much more likely one was a symptom of the other.

So Jericho was a scruffy, sprawling town filling the valley that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Turkish hinterland, with the famous ‘walls’ (first ice cream manufacturer in Israel) in a small area by some sand dunes below the hill. TBH the ancient city seemed too small to have been significant, but I was assured that’s all there was of it.

We caught the cablecar up the mountain/hill in front of the ruins to get to the monastery that is built over the spot claimed to be the place where Jesus was tempted. The cars are in sets of 3, and half way up they stop directly opposite each other. The air in the car is stifling, and by the time it has begun to  move again we are all damp with perspiration. When we arrive, the cable car station at the top is like all such places: essentially a café and sales area to flog punters trinkets, but the monastery itself  is cool, quiet, smaller than expected and quite pleasant. We are permitted in to see the stone and religious artefacts, on the way out being each given a tiny piece of stone as a memento, before heading back down the stairs to the transfer station. I pass 2 rooms on the way back, one full of orthodox priests in full uniform and the other a small kitchen with microwave and toaster, which seem slightly bizarre in such a place.

Before lunch we have the ‘pleasure’ of shopping for tourist junk. The shop we stop in has various things that might or might not be good value, but it’s impossible to get away from the sales guys, and being English, everyone wants to browse un-hindered. Less is sold than might be, and we buy a small blue & white patterned bowl for 10$ as a token purchase in the hope that it may have been made locally.

Lunch consisted of kebabs made from minced lamb and pieces of chicken, and were some of the best we’ve had, plus chips and token salad. Local beer was fine, but I developed a headache later.

Next stop was wadi Kelt, for an example of what the road would have been like in Jesus time when travelling between Jericho and Jerusalem. For the first time we were in a wilderness, without concrete houses, roads and litter, though there was a junk vendor and his son plying their wares at the start of the path up to the lookout point and from tables at the top. On the opposite side of the road could be seen a track leading off into the hills, and I take a few pictures, wishing I could go that way while everyone else carries on with the tour.

We gathered around the cross at the top (how could there not be a cross there?) and various readings read & songs sung. Below the summit lay a deep valley with the wadi at the bottom, and in the distance some palms and an elegant building – apparently a monastery - constructed in the previous local style. I wandered down the rubble-strewn slope away from the group, unplugging the wireless communicator as I went, and with them out of earshot found the first peaceful place of the trip. Across the valley I could see sheep trails worn into the slope, ancient paths through the dry, amber grass and lower down in the wadi valley the deep green of palm leaves in the distance. The wind was lower here too, and it was a lovely, though rather harsh & barren place.

Another coach ride, another stop.

Jerusalem of grey.

This time the mount of olives, overlooking Jerusalem in the early evening light. Another somewhat scruffy middle-eastern city with an enormous building & golden dome in an old temple area. The area between the old temple mount and the top of the MoO appears to consist of a single huge graveyard, with tombs running in their hundreds and thousands (there are apparently >100,000 Jewish tombs plus Muslim and Christian) across to the lowest walls.

We took photos, had a geography lesson and tried to soak up the atmosphere. The dome of the rock was a spectacle in the evening light, but it was difficult to see anything ‘special’ about the city compared to, say, Bodrum, which it superficially resembled to quite a degree apart from that edifice.

After a while we headed back onto the coach and then on to the Ambassador hotel in north Jerusalem. The rooms were pleasant, but we were disappointed that there was no pool compared to the Ron Beach we stayed at in Galilee. Food was OK – typical buffet – and we had to be ready for a 7.15 start next morning.

There was one bit of excitement. Popped out with one of the other guys to visit an ATM, we found it OK, but then on the way back smelled smoke and thought we saw a bonfire up ahead as part of the Ramadan festival. Getting closer we discovered a burning car, after which Police & the fire services turned up to deal with the blaze. Local kids were playing near the car while all this was going on, presumably as normal.

And God saw bare arms in church and He was like

It makes me wonder what some people think it must be like when you're on the loo, or even worse, having sex with your spouse. If you try to pray then, does He want to send thunderbolts? And if they aren't your spouse what then: does He have to pretend that He couldn't see but you did it anyway?

It makes me wonder how much stupidity I've simply acquired over the years because of traditions that I unthinkingly accept, but that I just can't see. It makes me wonder how much stupidity we accept now because it's current thinking and portrayed as how a 'good person should think' that is just as dumb.

Sadly this isn't one of the pictures I saw in Israel, however a constant question to the guides was "do we need to cover up here"?

Day 2 - Boat trip, mensa Christi, Capernaum.

This started out with a visit to a museum at Capernaum with a roman era boat, found in the mud during a drought period, in the sea of Galilee. Construction looked like it might be related to the 3400 YO boat at Bodrum that we saw last year from what I remember but may be entirely different when you actually get down to engineering details. The museum with the boat is interesting, but feels limited - archaeology-lite, compared to what one might expect.

Then off on a boat trip across the SoG – the Christian package tour equivalent of a camel ride. The guys running the boat try to provide what it is assumed people want, with a local man singing worship songs over backing tracks, national anthems for both Brits and Yanks, a brief nice bit where the motor & music was shut off in the middle of the lake and then more singing & readings by our group, followed by a fishing demonstration and dancing to Israeli pop. Afterward everyone commented how nice the silence was, but perhaps the noise was needed to emphasise the silence?

Next to the top of the hill of the sermon on the mount (probably) walking to the bottom down what had once been a path, now a broken-surfaced farm track. By this time the day was very hot and we were a bit gaspy, and we stopped under a shady tree by a monument to have readings etc.

Lunch was St. Peters fish for those who fancied it and chicken for those who did not.

Immediately after lunch we went to the Mensa Christi chapel at Tabgha where Jesus may or may not have set up a barbecue for the disciples after His resurrection. I’m told the water level is much lower than it was 30 years ago when so of the group last saw the place. Here there was more scriptures, singing, breaking bread. Many found it significant.

Finally on to Capernaum (the guide pronounced it coppernum) with more ruins and a building described by one of the group as a ‘flying saucer’ over an old dwelling that was pretended to be Peter’s house. The ruins were modest but OK as ruins go, and typical of things we’ve seen elsewhere. The interior of the flying saucer church was bright & spacious, looking reasonably attractive in a religious sort of way, even if jarringly inappropriate to the humble home that had once existed below. In retrospect, while I appreciate the idea of these building may be to magnify the glory of something ordinary, they are simply out of place with their ostentatious displays of riches and demands for ‘respect’.

However we had a treat in store, with an early end to the touring and a chance for a dip in the hotel pool and a swim in the lake itself. For the first time in nearly a week I slept well that night.

Day 1 - Caesarea, Megiddo, Nazareth

Sleep was a fleeting activity.

Monday dawned with another warm perfect day. Alarm went off at 6.30am, followed 15 sec later by a wake-up call from the automated switchboard.  Rush shower, breakfast, rush, cases on bus, rush and off by 8am.

We first visited Caesarea Maritima – a once great city and port destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again many times. The introductory video is well shot and informative, and probably the best part. Some bits of biblical history happened there and there is a decent enough amphitheatre and a large hippodrome plus a lot of piles of stones, but as an archaeological site for tourists to visit it isn’t spectacular compared to much of the stuff scattered across Greece and Turkey. In the distance can be seen chimneys and towers that are part of Israel's primary industry, petrochemicals, and the juxtaposition between those and the marble columns laying on the ground suggests some kind of relationship, even though that never was.

A little further on we pause to look at the aqueduct that brought fresh water to the old city, though I wonder how much is left of the Roman-era stones and how much has been replaced over the years considering how good condition it seems to be in.

Next stop was Megiddo for lunch and a quick tour of another pile of stones on a hilltop. Highlight this time is a tunnel cut through solid rock to the city water supply that lay outside the city walls. The city also sits above the plain of Jezreel, which just seems a bit nothingy really. A once fertile area now farmed and irrigated intensively that still seemed scrubby and scruffy. Perhaps if we had been on foot and it took a couple of hours to walk across it might have seemed more important, or maybe I’m suffering Naaman syndrome and wondering why this place is special compared with, say, the Cherwell valley?

Then on to Nazareth.

There is an English hospital in the city that owns land under which was found evidence of a roman-era settlement, and over years they have reconstructed a roman era ‘village’ with structures and actors to show what life was like. The guides taking us through were warm and engaging, well practiced and very good, and they were able to illustrate some aspects of how an ordinary person in 1^st century Israel may have lived.

One thing kept coming up, that Jesus was a builder’s son – not a carpenter. The Greek word has been mistranslated, and now the idea of carpenter has been ‘set in stone’ in popular culture to the point where bible translations can’t or won’t say different. I think I’d heard this previously, but it was really brought home.

We visited a small crusader church built on the site of a synagogue and had a time of bible readings, prayer and singing. The church was very simple, ‘clean’ and uncluttered, with a good atmosphere.

And then we come to the church of the annunciation, a vast edifice dating from the 1950’s and 60’s, done fairly simply in some ways, but still with substantial elements of religious control. It looked spectacular inside and imposing outside, built over a small cave dwelling that tradition considers to have been the home of Mary where she saw the Angel announcing her pregnancy with Jesus.

And finally, the basilica of the annunciation, the Greek/Eastern Orthodox building constructed over the local spring where Mary was supposed to be when she saw the angel. When we got there they were starting a service, so in we went to look, photograph and get a good dosing with incense. There’s something odd about the EO church that makes me feel it’s more – authentic is the word that comes – than the Roman church, but I can’t say why. It’s not as if they don’t do some bizarre, arguably even heretical stuff.

One observation I made is that Israel has a real traffic problem. At all times of the day there are cars jammed, delays, hold ups and more crawling vehicles. They have a real issue for a ‘modern’ nation, and need to fix it badly.

And finally to our next hotel, at Tiberias on the shores of the sea of Galilee. The hotel is nice, they have a decent pool (that we used as soon as we could) and the rooms were good. Dinner was OK in a Turkish kind of way, and we’re now sat around chatting while I’m typing this up.

Lets do something I haven’t done since our trip to India – blog our trip to Israel

Most of this was written up while we were away, so hopefully it *feels* live, even though we're home now.

Despite some suggestions otherwise, this is not a pilgrimage, at least from my perspective, even though I have received information that started “Fellow pilgrims”.  Pilgrimage to me implies travelling for religious reasons, and that’s really not why I’m going to Israel. Perhaps Chris’s reasoning is different, at least a bit, perhaps not.

A question that’s come up in various ways is whether there’s a historical validity to bible events and Israel. When a work colleague heard where we were going they expressed doubts about this, and someone else I know from another company who had been previously had done a ‘secular tour’ that he said was interesting while expressing unease about the religious tours. I’ve studied a little, have a bit of a sense of the history of the area up to the 4^th century, and am hoping these will help me see through the religious traditions that have sprung up.

One of the guidebooks I’ve seen described the mother of Roman emperor Constantine – the first ‘christian’ emperor, although some did express faith at times apparently – as the most successful archaeologist ever. Everything she looked for, whether the birthplace of Jesus or the ‘true cross’, she found. I suspect we owe a lot of the sites now revered to her. Perhaps some of them may even be the actual places as claimed? Who knows.

At the airport. It’s almost impossible to stand back and look at the experiences we’ve had so far with proper detachment, and I find that really frustrating. I hate when personal feelings get in the way, but from arriving in the airport, this trip has been tinged with Jewishness that feels in your face. It’s almost like a challenge is thrown down every time one interacts, that even though they are just doing what they do, wearing what they want etc. The people look different, even though most of those I’ve seen so far must have European blood. There’s also a characteristic body shape for most, tending towards the pear for both sexes over about 40. It’s quite odd. Skull patches – too small to be caps - abound, held on by some invisible adhesive in many cases and hair grips in a few others. Plus one homburg on top of a large black velvet skull cap.

Lack of sleep may have also jaundiced my feelings a little.

Friday night I was still in the throes of a nasty cold, and although it seemed to have abated a little last night (Saturday) it was still present and sleep was not. Travel arrangements were what they were, and we were awoken at 4.45am to travel to the airport at 5.30. Naturally the plane was delayed, but only by an hour, so I guess we should be grateful.

The security experience at the airport was actually slightly less bad than expected, though we did get a mild grilling about what we were doing, where we were going and staying etc. There’s a side of me that sees this as entirely reasonable and another that says “sod your country, I don’t want to visit”. Tolerance generally wins out, but the other feelings never completely leave.

Now on the plane, the b*st*rd in front of me has leaned his seat back and is standing in the aisle, occasionally leaning on the top of the seat, pushing it further back toward me and making it more difficult to type this. I am not charitable toward those who recline seats on aeroplanes (birching seems a fitting punishment) and firmly believe it’s time all seats were made without the ability to recline.  Generally we’re all cramped and uncomfy in an older 737-800, there’s lots of noise from a higher level of chatter than one normally seems to find on flights, and I'm unable to sleep but tired from various early starts.

The plane seems really old, without a personal entertainment system, but with a streaming service for personal devices. We only discovered this would be the case a couple of days before leaving, and that didn’t really give enough time to do the old fashioned thing of visiting a library for books etc. The streaming system is not impressive: apps are available for Android & Apple devices, but not windows phones. HOWEVER if you have a windows 8 or 10 laptop you can stream, but this Macbook is unable to do so, despite downloading & installing silverlight as required. I did manage to load some films onto the hudl tablet, so at least Chris has something to watch. Lunch was just odd. Sweet soft dough-pastry thing filled with ‘swiss cheese’ (I later learn that the hostess said sweet cheese, but my ears & her accent made something different) pots of what appeared to be fromage frais AND yogurt, although the roll was nice.

Well, I’d say things can only improve, but I know that’s just foolish optimism. ;-)

I have also been trying to figure out why ‘Jewishness’ feels like a provocation when other middle eastern behaviour ranges from fine to fairly threatening but on nothing like the same level. I wonder if it’s because inside me there’s an expectation that ‘they’ are like ‘us’, but to ‘them’ I am a gentile and ‘they’ are separate and different. Also having spent most of my life completely steeped in the bible, it is ‘my’ culture too, and naturally I identify as belonging to a kind of greater nation of Israel, when the reality is nothing like that at all.

Someone is probably going to find this offensive. If that’s you, consider that I’m trying to work through thoughts and feelings in order to understand, but if you want to take offence the be my guest.

And then we arrived.

Immigration was slow, and someone was having ‘problems’ at the front of our queue for a long time. Actually immigration was like immigration is almost everywhere, with long, slow-moving queues and at least a 1 hour wait for foreigners. Questioning was less intense than at departure when we finally got to the desk, luggage arrived and at last we left the airport.

Our guide, Foteh, seemed a sensible, down to earth and practical chap, and also a baptist Christian (it makes a big difference here, with Christians being born into their ‘faith’, rather than by personal belief or understanding) although his family actually originated from Italy, coming over in the 12th century with an early crusader group, and thus would have been Roman Catholic. He also did his best to win us over as a group, and that helped too.

Tel Aviv was warm, with soft, spice-scented breezes and a fabulous sunset over the sea as we arrived at our hotel. Dinner was a buffet and fine, and we then had a walk along the seafront before bed. The city itself is large, with lots of big buildings and an impressive skyline, but also a lot of poverty and people living in scruffy, semi-derelict conditions.

The difference between the ‘in-your-face’ Jewishness and actually being in Israel is enormous. Perhaps it’s because we’re paying guests rather than gentiles in a foreign land, but we were made to feel welcome and invited instead of undesirables.

A link about how we're affected by the internet.

It was tempting to use the usual click-bait style title, but honesty seems preferable.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/internet_root_cause_of_current_problems/

Yes, I chose it because it mirrors and reinforces my thinking on the subject.

Something not about blowing up people or elections.

Other people can talk about those.

A friend mentioned at lunchtime today something he'd heard on woman's hour on BBC Radio 4. A (female) journalist had made the observation that bookshops were full of self-help books for women, yet there wasn't a single book on how to help others.

From my own life & character, I know that often I feel better serving others than serving myself. I need to be able to work & help in order to hold off feeling down or without value, even though doing that can feel nearly impossible at times. Could there be a clue from the dead-sea principle?

We wandered around various ideas related to this, including the puzzlement that men don't get anorexia but many more men commit suicide than women, about how we didn't suffer body dismorphia when we were young and saw all those adverts for bullworkers in magazine an comics that told us we'd get sand kicked in our faces if we weren't built like Charles Atlas. Also included was the question as to whether the focus on self-fulfillment isn't just because of widespread illiteracy about faith, but also if a humanist focus that made us our own god had robbed us of the ability to serve something greater and become less fractured through doing so.

And now off to washing lab floors. :-)

Thank you, Emma.

For the kind words you left.

A little Monday moment

Ever wish words weren't so loaded?

When I grew up, being gay just meant being happy - no other connotations attached.

More recently, the word 'inclusive' used to mean exactly what it said, without all the gender-ambiguous, sexuality confused, racist connotations that have now replaced the original meaning.

So we come to gender neutral.

This morning I read on the BBC website that Emma Watson had won the first gender neutral award in showbusiness for her part in Beauty and the Beast. What they meant was that she had won the MTV Movie and TV award for her performance. It's just an award - it's not gender-neutral, but simply an award - that will be given to people in the entertainment industry.

It seems that in order to become not against something, one must first divide the world up into little bits, all opposed to each other, and then declare that you are overlooking all those divisions you just defined in a very public way.

People are strange.

Disconcerting co-incidences

Wishing someone nicknamed 'peachy' happy birthday via LinkedIn, then receiving an email from someone with the surname Peachey just 5 min later.

Bizarre, if quite unconnected.

It seems I've started praying again

Not the odd few words in a public place, though I've managed that when put on the spot, but finding that I'm starting to pray for people and situations without having to.

After our friend Jo dying last year I effectively stopped talking to God - why do it if what we say or ask doesn't change outcomes? That question is still very present, but I found myself praying when I'd just woken up a few weeks ago, for a couple experiencing hard times and difficulties. It hasn't opened the floodgates, but there are people I care for that are struggling in a wide variety of ways.

I can understand somewhat why Muslims developed a theology of inshAllah - if God wills - not expecting Him to be involved with their lives. At least that's better than a Greek understanding, where their gods were just badly behaved people.

To Scifi or not Scifi

A couple of weeks back I had an idea for a scifi story, about an ordinary guy working in a garage fixing cars. He's based in a technological society not so very different from ours, but where the self-driving car has become normal, everything is connected and mankind is still wondering what's next.

What's the story then?

Well, he's just an ordinary guy, knows about cars, happy to fix them, but he's shy, not otherwised inclined to tech and finds the lives of those arpound him bizarre as he keeps his head down and just does his job. There would be little cameos of customers and situations that arise from the vehicles he fixes. There could be snatches of home life, a wife & small, puzzling people that seem to share the house with them, but he really lives in his own world most of the time, observing life through a half-open garage door.

Artemis Hearthroug.

It would not be a 'Christian' book.

Will it happen? Probably not, though it's a nice idea. I've heard that everyone has a book inside them, but these days too many of them are getting out and being published when they should have been left out of sight. There's more than enough rubbish in virtual print already.

But you never know.

So my legs don't hurt so much now.

Yes, that title is all wrong. Ain't life grand. :-D

I managed a total of 3 runs up to the beginning of last week, at which point life just became too busy and my legs were too achey for me to want to run any more for a bit. Today, for the first time in over a week they don't seem to be hurting much, and I actually feel inclined to try running again.

I forgot my kit this morning. :-(

Never mind, maybe tomorrow night.

Since we're talking IT - CRTs!

In the lab below where I presently sit there's a CRT monitor for a 10 year old computer (running Windows XP) and driving a microplate reader.

Yesterday I was working away analysing some data when one of our tenants wandered across and commented along the lines of "didn't it belong in a museum?" and about how large it was. The we actually started looking at the screen - rather than just reading the information - and realised that despite being only 17" across and 1024X768 resolution, it was displaying the information in a way that was clear, detailed and pleasing to the eyes. We could see individual pixels, but instead of being harsh and jaggy like a LCD, it was smooth and easy on the eye.

I'm typing this on my (old) 20" Sansung at 1680X1050, the main screen at home is a Dell 2412M running 1920X1200 and my laptop does 3840X2160, and is astonishingly crisp and clear. I don't miss the bulk of the old CRTs, nor their power consumption & the subsequent heat they produced, but I do somewhat miss the kind of image that they produced.

Ubuntu does something radical.

It's been a while since I posted anything about Linux, and more of my visitors use Macs than Linux boxes, but this seemed interesting.

Some years ago Ubuntu was the leading Linux distro. It was used as the basis for many other Linux flavours including Pear linux (that I used to love) Mint and a bunch of less memorable names.

There came a time when it seemed like the Linux desktop environment was trying to go all bleeding edge and make radical changes. Gnome (previously a conservative appearing design) launched version 3, dramatically different from before and somewhat difficult to use, losing a lot of users. Then Ubuntu went all Windows 8 and released the Unity desktop: designed to work the same across phones, tablets and even ordinary computers. Some lauded it, most either just got on & tried to use it or rapidly migrated to Mint with either Cinnamon or Mate desktops and safe familiarity. I tried it early on - it was fairly horrible, not very stable, and made Windows 8 seem intuitive and polished - but quickly binned it, sticking with openSUSE and then various flavours of Mint.

The world turns.

And so I've just heard that Ubuntu have ditched Unity as a desktop and gone to Gnome 3 as their default, now many iterations on and much better. And it also now looks like Fedora, apparently. I'm tempted to try it on my 'testing' drive, over-writing whatever is there at the moment (might even be Fedora - can't remember right now) just to see.

It would be nice if the creator of  the first Linux distro originally suggested to replace Windows on the desktop has found a formula that will give it as more mainstream appeal.

Like a well-used camping pump

Is how my lungs sounded this evening.

It's time to try to stop the bloat - I've reached 13 stone = 182lb = 81Kg - and so went for a run for the first time since August.

Managed the first mile without stopping, then paused at the turn-around point, gasping & trying to get my breath back without much success, before eventually conceding defeat on that point and running/walking the second mile home again.

Now dinner is done it's time for a shower and then a well-earned slouch on the couch with a DVD.

And a good cough.

Fake news and social media

More than a year ago I ditched my old Facebook account - it simply isn't helpful knowing what people and their children think, and I realised that I had become deeply ungracious towards what seemed like stupidity and worse.

But.

A few people we care about communicate almost exclusively through facebook, and eventually I gave in just to keep in touch, restarting under a pseudonym. :p

Now here's the odd thing. I normally browse using ad blockers, and in the time away FB managed to find a way around them. That's fine - no amount of ads on FB will make a difference and I pretty much screen them out anyway. But this time the ads were different. Instead of fashion items it started out with ads offering to help me meet 'singles' who were, from the pictures, all US based and pneumatic to a degree that defies population distribution and normal physiology. Then I started seeing adverts telling me that famous people had died despite them still being very much alive.

For example:

It seems that fake news isn't just about politicians. I can understand about businessmen like Richard Branson (his 'death' was reported many times) for potential profit, but why actors, musicians or scientists?

It seems to me that there is a determined effort going on to undermine the concept of truth and how reality is perceived through the media, and it's not restricted to elections. I wonder what this is building up to (other than the next step on from post-modernist relativism). And yes, I do blame post-modern thinking for softening society to the point where it now accepts blatant untruths as real.

*edit* 24.04.2017

And another one.

The (other) great getaway.

So we're looking for a holiday later in the year. Our original plan was for a week in Crete, and we'd found what looked like a good deal with Thomas cook for an all-inclusive just outside Rethymno, but when I tried to book it a couple of weeks ago the transaction failed at the final hurdle, and their helpline had a 25min wait at 10pm. The website also advised not immediately re-booking, just in case the transaction had completed, so we left it & of course it hadn't gone through.

2 weeks on all the decent flights have gone and the price has gone up. :-((

Idle lunchtime doodling encourages freer thinking, and I just found flights and accommodation in Whistler for 1 week at <£700 each. A quick google for directions shows one has to drive past Furry Creek, which is a wonderful euphemism akin to beaver valley or something similar. And it's only 2 hours drive/140km from the airport.

But being practical, it's much more likely that we'll end up at the invitingly named Filoxenia hotel at a lower cost and about 40% of the travelling time. It will also be warm instead of cold.

But it IS tempting.

*update*
Now booked for Rethymno. Sorted. Lastminute.com worked OK, though there was a hiccup that nearly scuppered things (selected flights, only for the site to decide the holiday wan't available when we tried to book) and it then selected Chania airport instead of Heraklion. Perseverance is the name of the game.