Greek Honeymoon Gone Wrong Pt. 2

While in Greece, Jake and I decided to take a bike ride to the countryside and see the botanical gardens of Chania. Sounds charming, right? Think again.

Just to warn you, this is how the day started off:

And this is how it ended:

Now, I’ll admit—some of what happened that day was entirely my fault. Avoidable? Absolutely. But I have a long-standing habit of ignoring life’s lessons and making the same mistakes with bold confidence.

First: I chronically underestimate extreme weather warnings. Tornado? I’ll just sidestep it. Flood? I'm a strong swimmer. So when Jake warned me there was a heat advisory and even national parks were shutting down, I barely blinked at the 97-degree forecast.

Second: I never felt the need to truly have a good grasp of the metric system. So, when Jake was saying blah blah meter elevation, blah blah kilometer distance, I had no idea what that meant, nor did I care to find out. Although the skepticism in Jake's eyes should've been a warning, I just told him it shouldn't be a problem.

Third: I’m a repeat offender when it comes to being wildly unprepared. Thank God Jake brought a backpack, because I set off with nothing but my purse—which held my sunglasses, a single water bottle, Chapstick, and blind optimism.

And then came the bike.

The only one available was a men’s bike, two sizes too big. In the photo below, you’ll notice I can barely touch the ground on tiptoes, which caused the seat to be aggressively wedged between my cheeks.

And I know what you're thinking: Why the flip flops and the cute outfit for a bike ride?

Well, in my head, we’d be at the botanical gardens in, like, forty minutes. I’d be casually pedaling, then posing in front of some flowers looking Grecian-chic. I had no idea what was actually in store.

Let me preface with, Greek roads are absolute chaos. No rules. No mercy. Drivers operate on pure vibes and zero concern for pedestrian survival. But to get to our route, we first had to bike along a busy street.

Naturally, Jake is zipping through traffic like a Tour de France pro, while I’m wobbling behind on my oversized bike. That’s when a moped comes flying out of nowhere, headed straight for me.

I panic, swerve, hit a curb, and crash.

Now I’ve got a skinned knee, mystery bacteria likely entering my bloodstream, and blood trickling down my shin and into my toes.

I didn't take a picture of when it happened, but this was my knee three weeks later, when I reopened it at a trampoline park.

Despite my hurt knee—and ego—we kept riding. But as time passed, something felt... off. We weren’t getting anywhere. After three hours, the GPS still insisted we weren’t even halfway there.

To make matters worse, the roads were getting more rural by the minute. And by “roads,” I mean dirt paths and gravel trails. We were quite literally biking through private orange groves plastered with no trespassing unless you want to get shot signs.

This is when Jake puts two and two together. He’d set the GPS to “avoid busy roads,” accidentally turning our quaint little three-hour countryside ride into a seven-hour off-road survival challenge.

By this point, we were so deep into the countryside, we lost cell service. No GPS. No guidance. Just instinct and desperation. Then—a blessed sign of salvation. Peeking above the trees in the distance: a roof. We aimed our bikes toward it like moths to a porch light.

Six hours in, we finally emerged from the wilderness. A few minutes later, we saw it: a sign for the botanical gardens. We were only 1.5 miles away!

Just one tiny problem: we were now at the base of a very steep mountain.

It hadn’t really registered before, but our entire ride had been relatively flat—brutal, but flat. That "elevation" Jake mentioned earlier? Yeah, that was all waiting for us now, crammed into the final 1.5 miles. A 2,200-foot climb in that short a distance was painfully vertical.

As we ascended, cars passed us, their passengers giving us the same look you'd give someone wandering barefoot on the highway—equal parts pity and are they okay?

We were not okay. We had run out of snacks and water hours ago, and we'd been baking in the relentless sun and heat all day. At this rate, some passerby would find us shriveled up on the side of the road.

But alas, we persisted. And after seven hours of touch and go, we finally made it. Now that I could finally give my cheeks a break from that unforgiving seat, I couldn't help but give a double thumbs up.

Thankfully there was a little restaurant at the entrance of the botanical gardens. We replenished with food and drink, and admired the view—joined by Vlad the cat who bit Jake multiple times in the hand.

My linen set was drenched with sweat. My knee was bloody, and my toenails were caked in dirt. I was sunburnt and exhausted. But we came here for one reason: the gardens. However, the real kicker was, this entire time, we thought the botanical gardens were free.

Not free. Fifteen euros per person.

I love plants, truly. But thirty euros to see some shrubs after seven hours of suffering? Absolutely not. So we decide to leave instead. And that's how we get here:

Here we are, returning our bikes at the shop. Turns out, once we turned off that “avoid busy roads” setting, the ride back was a breezy, glorious 40-minute downhill coast.

But I didn’t know that at the time.

After what it took to get to the botanical gardens, I was bracing for the worst. So I came prepared, and that meant changing into Jake’s spare shorts—which, much to my chagrin, were actually a little snug (I'd been eating good on vacation)—and his old-man, boo-boo baby sun hat, complete with a chin strap, to shield my already crisped face.

Jake actually loves that live photo so much, he turned it into a sticker and repeatedly uses it to respond to the most basic things. For example:

Who knew that one little GPS setting could derail us so drastically. Did we do what we set out to do? No. Were there times throughout that eight hour journey that I was genuinely scared? Yes. But looking back, that bike ride from hell ended up being one of the best experiences of the whole trip.

And there’s absolutely no one else I’d rather face what felt like certain death with—only to emerge sunburnt and jelly-legged—than Jake.