Tuesday 29 May 2001, Agia Marina.
Today we moved along to the western end of Crete. It really is a surprisingly far, more than 120 miles between Hersonissos and Chania. Needless to say, nobody from the tour company have bothered to give any directions as to how to find the hotel here, or even a name or contact phone number. We set off, reasonably confident we would find it eventually. We took the fast road as far as Iraklion and then turned off to take the twisty mountain road through the little villages to Rethymnon.
We thought the road would be deserted, but it turned out that there was a quarry somewhere and a cement works, so the narrow, twisting, climbing roads were subject to heavy lorries thundering along. It was very reminiscent of Corsica and the coaches, though they moved more slowly. Here, the sheer drop was to the valley floor far below with its olive groves, rather than the sea. Actually it wasn't as bad as Corsica, except when a lorry forced you off the road so that it could get by. The views were wonderful. It took ages to reach Rethymnon on this route but well worth it, and we were not in a hurry. Arid mountainsides loomed above and around us, but there was a fertile valley below.
We stopped for lunch at a little village called Drosa. Indeed the whole village was nothing but eight or nine tavernas, all set for lunch with lambs and pigs being spit roasted over open fires on the street in front of the tavernas. We had fresh squeezed orange juice, a bottle of iced water and two lots of lamb with chips. The lamb came as huge roasted chunks, rather salty and over cooked but it had to be tried once. Later as we left the village we saw their skins hung out on wire fences to dry. From what I've read shepherds make them into coats for the winter time when out with their sheep on the mountainside. I would have thought it hardly likely to endear the shepherd to his flock when they saw him approach with the fleece of their relatives adorning his shoulders. When we paid our bill the waiter gave us a plate of plums and told us to go back to the shady terrace and enjoy them before we left. As we did so, several coaches arrived full of school kids aged about seven or eight and their teachers. They poured into the various restaurants and the place was immediately alive with excitement. Why they were there we never discovered, in the middle of nowhere, just a little old village with chickens in the road, lined with peach trees, and with ordinary village folk sitting in the shade outside the coffee house watching the few vehicles that pass through. It was obviously something special today. Little stores had been set up selling jars of honey, ceramic oil lamps, and water whistles, little ceramic pots to fill with water and blow down the handle so that the pot sings like a bird.
As we returned to the car I saw another chameleon shoot across the hot tarmac road and disappear into the bushes. The sun burned relentlessly down, and we reckon is hotter than some places in North Africa. It burnt my arm on the driving wheel so that it really hurt, despite high factor sun shield. Eventually, feeling hot and sticky, we reached Rethymnon and parked in the shade of a palm tree. We walked down to the blue sea, to be met by the slightest of breezes. We passed along the base of the beautiful Venetian fortifications with their turrets and watchtowers. A pity, but it was far too hot to climb up to investigate more closely. At the harbour we crawled from one's patch of shade to the next. A wade into the sea cooled us off for a while. Fish just swam around our ankles, ignoring us completely. Then we wandered along past the waterfront restaurants and coffee lounges all under cool canopies. Once we turned into the narrow streets of the town, we realised what a remarkably lovely and interesting town Rethymnon is. There is a very strong Turkish influence in the town in its architectural style and even the Arabic script that can be seen inscribed on various pieces of stonework.
From the dark little shops came the sound of music which seemed to owe more to Arab roots than to Hellenic ones. We explored street after street of little shops or private residences, cool against the sun, big stone buildings huddled close together, opening here and there to form little shaded squares with seats beneath cool palm trees and even fountains playing. It is astonishing the difference even the sound of splashing water can make.
Everywhere in these little alleys were flowering shrubs, vines and creepers giving colour and shade. Here and there we come across a Catholic church or a mosque. Priests passed by in their long black buttoned tunics, stretched tight over rounded bellies, wearing black fez type hats with big black or white bushy beards. We could not look inside any of the churches because I was wearing shorts and they are not allowed, although a skirt of the same length would be. We sat on a shaded terrace near a tall minaret on the edge of the city walls, eating ices and watching people pottering around the shops. I then bought a dolphin rug for the bathroom at home and we reluctantly decided we had better continue our journey as it was another 60 km to our destination and it was nearly 6 p.m..
Between Rethymnon and Chania the landscape changes. Distant mountains still have patches of snow on their peaks and the countryside is much greener with a variety of different trees adding beauty to the landscape, sycamore, oak and other varieties. Vines and olives continue but no longer dominate. We actually passed a small artificial lake with water in and a tiny stream trickling along – our first flowing water in Crete, hardly more than a trickle, but we got really excited. Flowering shrubs lined the roadside the entire length of the route, pinks, yellow and whites providing a foreground for the green slopes of the mountains which rose taller and taller into the distance until they merged into a vague blue haze. Rarely have we actually seen the mountains clearly delineated against the sky. The road turned and ran along by the coast, offering us wonderful vistas of sea and hills. This end of the island is infinitely prettier than the other, to my taste at least. We missed our turn off and ended up driving back along the old coast road to Agia Marina where we passed right by the car hire place that we had loaned our car from. He had a hell of a way to drive to deliver her to us.
The coast road here looks awful, just an endless row of seaside tourist shops selling sun cream, beach hats, inflatable pillows etc. - all the usual paraphernalia writ large. Red holidaymakers in skimpy tops and shorts, the men usually with corpulent tummies overhanging their shorts, looking very red and painful wandered back and forth across the road in front of us. Locals on motorbikes and scooters wove in and out amongst them and tourists parked jeeps just anywhere, so driving was hazardous and slow. We had no directions, and searching proved quite futile, the hillside above the road is full of little full of little lanes lined with white flower-fronted hotels looking exactly like the picture of ours. We scoured every likely place without success. However we made lots of friends amongst the local, very helpful people, speaking and reading excellent English. They all asked their friends in cafes, tavernas, supermarkets, or just sitting outside in the shade. Nobody recognised it, everyone was worried for us and wanted to be the one to sort out our problem. Eventually a lady in another hotel sent Ian to a waiter in a taverna who lived and worked here for years. He knew immediately, and a few minutes later we drove up a dirt track on the very edge of the town and we arrived. We would never have found it on on our own.
Giorgio was suffering from the heat but was friendly and helpful. He knew absolutely nothing about us coming. The holiday company Golden.Sun had failed to inform him. He rang their local representative. They had also failed to inform her. As we suspected, tour operators have no flexibility for the independent traveller and cannot comprehend anything that doesn't fit their usual programme. How had we arrived before the plane landed anyway? If we arrived at Iraklion, why were we up this end of the island? Eventually Giorgio was happy, and showed us to an upstairs studio with two patios, one overlooking the sea with an island offshore, the other with a superb view of a range of grey crumpled mountains. We are on the very edge of the area so there is nothing much beyond this but fields of drying grass, a few wild flowers, Georgio’s olive trees and green woodland, probably olives, further off nearer the mountain range. From the side we can see down onto the rest of the town of Agia Marina and its hotels. It is very hot in the studio, which is equipped with the bare minimum; we were spoilt at Alma Studios. There is endless hot water here though which, paradoxically, is good despite the hot weather. We found a little supermarket a short walk away and stocked up on wine, water and salad stuff. Then back to the cool of our balcony for supper in semi-darkness with the moon shining from a clear velvet sky and little stars twinkling. There seem to be less insects bother us here.
Wednesday 30 May 2001.
We slept wonderfully, with the door wide open allowing a cool breeze. Fortunately there were no gnats and mosquitoes to add itchy patches to our already badly affected limbs. I'm writing on the balcony which in a few minutes will be subject to the searing heat of another day. Already the sun is turning the corner of the building and has reached the further end of the balcony. Where can we shelter today? There is no pleasure in it at all. I have a packet of Petit Beurre biscuits in front of me written in Greek script as Πτι-Μπερ, which we are delighted to to realise is a direct phonetic translation. I would love to be able to just read the upper and lowercase script without having to sit puzzling over it first but we will have gone home before we achieve anything. Reading road signs can be a problem, and sometimes we have to stop to puzzle them out.
It is not the custom in Greece to put any paper down down the toilet so everywhere there a little plastic boxes with lids into which you place used loo paper. Some poor souls then earn their living removing it all. How they must love us tourists! It is the same everywhere; the pumping system isn't designed to cope with it. In every loo is a notice saying μην πετάτε χαρτί στην τουαλέτα, which means Don’t throw paper in the toilet. Musing, as one does on the loo χαρτί is phonetically charter so although the English for paper comes from the Latin papyrus, we get the word for a charter or chart from the Greek. Interesting, unless you are clever and understand Greek already, like everyone here who can equally well understand our language. I do sometimes feel ignorant!
Thursday 31 May 2001
Yesterday was so unbearably hot and bright that we both felt quite ill. There is no pleasure for us in a holiday like this; if hell is half as hot I'm going to reform at once! Actually, going to a monastery definitely has its attractions, as we discovered yesterday when we entered the Monastery of Moni Odigitrias on the Rodopou Peninsula. Inside the white-washed walls was a cool shady courtyard filled with green palm trees and bright flowering shrubs. From it led doorways to dark inviting rooms, mainly the monks quarters. An archway led to a stone balcony overlooking the sea. In the wall was lodged a cannonball, evidence of the struggles of christendom against the Turks in the past. The chapel is a cool dark oasis of peace, furnished with typical Greek icons and beautiful screens and chairs carved in olive wood. Unfortunately for us the monastery closed its doors from the public from 12:30 until 4 p. m., the hottest and worst time of the day. There are virtually no shadows so everywhere is shadeless, unless under the canopy of a tavern or coffee house. It is too hot for coffee anyway. We were politely ushered from the Monastery by a young priest in his black cassock, his long black hair tied back in a ponytail and his long black beard free-flowing.
We had earlier visited the little village of Kolimbari at the foot of the peninsula, a little fishing village with a stony beach hardly touched by tourism. A great deal of harbour development is taking place, so heavy lorries loaded with cement or quarried stone were thundering up and down the narrow twisting coastal road out onto the Peninsula. In the village we had discovered along at little road lined with little houses, each covered with its own shady vine, a tiny white-washed chapel with its little Belfry over the door and bell rope dangling. At the further end the apse with its red tiled roof bulged as an attachment to the body of the church. It really was tiny and we peeped in at the door. It was cold and dark with a heavy smell of incense. Even here there were lovely icons and the rich altar was adorned with gleaming candle holders and accoutrements of the mass. Outside tjhere were fig trees and vines. We drove out along the peninsula at first through an avenue of Tamarisk trees. Beyond the monastery though the route was bare and exposed following the coastline. We stopped at a little beach with a few small pine trees almost at the sea’s edge. Despite the sun it was colder here, especially when we waded out onto some rocks and stood with fishes swimming around our legs. Then we continued, following the narrow coast road and up into the hills with goats scrambling up the bare rock face by the roadside. Eventually we arrived at Afrata from where a number of dirt tracks led out to the further reaches of the peninsula, but here the metalled roads seemed to end. Not many tourists make it out this far. It looked a pleasant place, full of flowering shrubs and potted geraniums. We descended the road towards a little Bay. Our Rough guide had mentioned a little taverna that sounded appealing. Sure enough we found a tiny unprepossessing little white building above the road with an olive tree outside and two white haired, white mustachioed elderly Greeks chatting contentedly in the shade.
Roxanne’s is run by a charming Greek lady of the same name, also quite elderly but with jet black hair and a happy smile. One of the white haired gentlemen turned out to be her husband. We had a great time there. There were no other visitors and they seemed to speak even less English than we do Greek. They welcomed us in and attended to our first request for “cold water, please”. After that our Greek vocabulary was exhausted so we were taken into the building, the fridge was opened, and we were shown a big bowl of little Mediterranean fishes each three inches long. We were offered these with a Greek salad and bread. Roxanne went off to cook them and Alexis showed us to a shady terrace overlooking the sea and sat with us while we drank the ice cold water. Considering that we couldn't understand a word any of us said, we had a lovely, interesting and informative meal. He told us that quite a few English people had bought properties locally and that he was friends with one English family and had taught them Greek. By the time we left he was well on the way to teaching it to us as well. He also told us there was a beach nearby with no tourist facilities where people went to bathe naked, and he went to watch. He continued to chat and explain to ask the best way to eat the little fishes, which arrived cooked whole, crisp and delicious. Then Roxanne gave us a dish of apricots and Alexis seemed pleased to eat one with us and continue chatting. Then Roxanne also joined us and they showed us a dog-eared book in English written by his English friend. It was about this part of Greece, and had a whole chapter devoted to this very same charming elderly couple. There were even photos. Alexis proudly pointed out “me with my mule”, “me with my vines. I own lots of trees here, olives, figs, apricots also fruit and tomatoes, potatoes, onions”. Either that, or we misunderstood but I don't think so. Then they took us back inside to show us some house martins that had nested in the rafters of the room. The parents were flying in and out the front door searching for food, so presumably they can never shut up the property. The total bill for all this was about £6. Alexis was delighted when we asked to take his photo and posed proudly in front of his restaurant, but Roxanne had disappeared. From the account he gave his friend, which was reproduced in the book, he comes from a colourful background. He has lived all his life in little village of Afrata but his grandfather stole a gun and killed a Turk who had been seducing all the girls in the village during the time of the Turkish occupation towards the end of the 19th century. His grandfather was immediately outlawed and sentenced to death, but was supported in secret on the hillside and in caves by friends. The whole family was obliged to live this way for thirty years. His grandfather became a local hero, and this is reflected in the family name today; the family are called after the grandfather. Then when Alexis was small (this he explained to us himself in Greek) the island was occupied by the Germans and he had no school, no education, nothing (tipotis) but it didn't matter. Quite an experience for us, thanks to our Rough Guide.
We then continued our journey westward to Kissimou, a not very inspiring little town. The weather had exhausted us, and we stopped in the first side street we could find with any shade and promptly fell asleep for an hour, waking with a headache and swollen watery eyes from too much sun glare. We felt awful, hot and sticky.
We drove, the only way to get a breeze, up to Platanous, the end of the main road westward. It was a pleasant little place with tiny unmetalled roads leading out to even more remote hamlets in the hills. We bought some bread from a local baker who was watching Sky TV in English but seemed unable to use the language with us. Buy now we can say “bread, please” and point anyway. We returned towards home along the old road, where there was a surprising amount of greenery, flowers and shrubs, along the roadsides. The road passed through a number of attractive villages. We stopped by an olive grove and made a walk along a dirt track in search of a Minoan settlement signposted from the road. There was not a great deal to see when we arrived, but the groves themselves were neatly tended, each tree with its own water supply. There must have been a fortune made for someone in Crete with the amount of rubber piping to be found snaking around the entire island.
Then we rejoined the old road and through Maleme on the coast road where the tourist Mecca begins. As we drove along the endless parade of beach shops, supermarkets, car hire firms, restaurants and apartments to rent - these stretch all the way from Platenias and Agia Marina - we turned off inland to see the German war graves here.
It is ironic that this is the site chosen for the cemetery, as later, just a few hundred yards away, an ancient burial tomb of the Minoan period was discovered, showing this to have been the site of for burials for 3,500 years. We scrambled along a footpath in the setting sun, beside yet another olive grove, disturbing a large green Balkan lizard sunning himself on the path. Rounding a bend we came upon the entrance to the tomb, magnificent with stone walls leading up to the high gateway with its huge stone lintel. Inside is the chamber about 10-ft square with a stepped roof which has collapsed at the centre allowing access to the sky. It reminded me strongly of the better-preserved Cornish fougous, but better crafted and larger.
Finally we returned home, where it was at last cool. We sat eating supper on our balcony, the lights of the tourist Mecca along the seafront below, and the sounds of Greek music, singing and dancing drifting up to us, providing us with a free concert, although I am beginning to tire of the theme tune from “Zorba the Greek” now.
Thursday 31 May continued.
It is now 7:30 p.m. The sun has moved from the patio and it is just bearable to sit here with a glass of wine and the perpetual birdsong while Ian cools off in the shower. I have just been for a wonderful swim in the neighbouring hotel. There is no pool here but Giorgio says the one with a pool belongs to his brother-in-law and it's okay. I shared the pool with an assortment of bugs, most of which were making good attempts to swim into my mouth, and a family with an inflatable dalmatian which they all shared as a swimming aid. Who cares? I feel better than I have done for two days.
The nights are ok. We sleep with the doors open, no sign of bugs or mosquitoes. When we wake about 7 a.m. The sun is already too hot.
This morning we walked down to the beach. Daft or not, I used an umbrella as a sun shade and was glad of it. I have not seen one other person doing likewise. On the beach folk were spreading themselves out on towels and oiling up for a day's frying. A topless lass in a G-string, glistening in oil, strutted back and forth with an equally oily Mr Universe. Others started to occupy chairs laid out under the beach umbrellas where they failed to actually lay a shadow on the sunbeds. We paddled in the tepid, sandy water with the usual shoals of tiny fishes, no seaweed, interesting stones or rocks and you needed to walk out miles for sufficient swimming depth, but it was good for kids perhaps. At least the air felt slightly cooler. The main problem is that there has been no breeze at all. Just a stone’s throw offshore is the island of Agia Theodori, uninhabited and a sanctuary for kri-kri, wild ibex. I felt rather sorry for the ibex, seeing not a blade of decent grass on the island, relentless heat and no shade. Still, I suppose they are consoled by knowing they won't end up on a dinner plate like their goat cousins on the mainland. Legend has it that the island was a sea monster coming to swallow Crete - there is a huge cave like a gaping mouth at one end. Just in time the gods petrified it and it still stands as a huge stone outcrop offshore. We sat for awhile in the shade of a palm tree trying to enjoy ourselves but feeling incredibly bored. How can folk spend all day in an English-speaking hotel or frying on the beach. Fed up and hot, we returned to the main street, which was even worse, hotter and nowhere nice to sit for a cold drink. So by 10:30 we were back in our room, taking cold showers and sheltering from the heat, reading guide books and writing diaries. Feeling cooler, we set out later, still in the cooking heat, up to a nearby village, Stalos. Everyone else was now taking a siesta so no hope of lunch in a rural village. A pleasant chap suggested a place we might eat so, having no fixed plan, we followed his suggestion until we got lost and ended up in the wilds of the countryside at an orange packing factory I have never seen so many mountains of oranges. We passed several pretty villages full of fruit trees and flowers, with the usual collection of sunburnt local men sitting outside the coffee house watching us go by.
We discovered a small lake with some wildfowl on it, deep and clear, with pondweed but no sign of fish. It is of no size really, but one of only two this end of Crete and probably anywhere on the island. A significant flow was leaving the lake, so it must be fed by an underground source from the Lefka Ori (White Mountains).
After the German invasion in 1941 King George of Greece was rushed across Crete and down through the Samaria Gorge to evacuate him from the island. He had fled there in the first place because it was the only part of Greece not under German occupation. We decided to follow the road up to the Samaria Gorge at Omalos. This turned out to be a 33 km white-knuckle ride up hair-raising bends with sheer drops from unfenced roads. The road climbed 3,000ft over this distance. Most of the road is a reasonable width to accommodate the coaches that take visitors up, leaving them to descend 17 km to the sea and take a boat round to a suitable place for the coach to collect them. The Gorge is reckoned to be the deepest and narrowest in Europe. We have no intention of going down but it was well worth the drive up there, passing through isolated villages such as Lakki, with stupendous views back down over the plain with its terraces of fruit and olive trees.
Up here the fields still had crops that were green, and there was an abundance of fresh flowers by the roadside. We observed a memorial by the roadside commemorating the spot where a British soldier and a Cretan colleague were ambushed in August 1941. Their story is immortalised in the memoir The Cretan runner, written by George Psychoundakis, then a young Cretan shepherd who became a "runner" in the Resistance.
Eventually we merged we emerged onto a flat plain 1000 meters above sea level, the Omalos Plain, used mainly for sheep and goats, olives and grain during the summer months, hemmed in all round by mountains, and icy cold in winter. Four kilometers further on the road terminated at the entrance to the Samaria Gorge. It really is most spectacular and worth the long drive just to look down from our eyrie as the gorge disappeared between the folds of two huge mountain peaks.
And so back to our room and my welcome swim. It's currently 8 p.m. and the moon is in the sky. So too is the sun and it's still really hot. From our balcony we can watch a mother cat returning from searching for food. She is now laid out on her side under one of Georgio's olive trees while her three kittens suckle. We have obsserved them playing at other times, and trying to climb into the tree. So many adorable wild cats, what will become of them all?
As I sit here now, looking up as the sun sets, turning the Levki Ora a beautiful pink, I can think of us up there a few hours ago. The evening is cool. Ian has now foregone his long trousers and socks he's been wearing all day and donned shorts just as everyone else is dressing up to the evening. There's something about endearing about his white legs, gnat-bitten calfs and pale grey socks. Give me him in preference to a bronze beach Adonis any day. I won't ask him if he prefers me or a lass in a G-string.
Friday 1 June 2001.
Last night we decided to eat at the restaurant where the waiter helped us to find Georgio's on our first night here. It was a pleasant atmosphere but all the customers were British or German. We ate by candlelight rabbit stifado, which was a sort of stew and very nice. Afterwards we were given a little dish of something that seemed like crystallised pistachio flavoured fudge and a little jug of liquor both del;icious. With it we had Cretan wine. It turned out to be a sweet red wine, a malmsey wine, which apparently comes from here originally. It was rather odd; being used to the dry red wines of France neither of us liked it, and Ian says the best use you can put Malmsey to is drowning the Duke of Clarence.
We decided to drive into Chania where we hoped to hole up between two and four in a museum. We parked on the outskirts and walked into the walled city through little residential streets, many with orange and lemon trees in their front gardens. Each house seems to be responsible for maintaining the pavement outside their own property. This led to hazardous walking conditions and many different ways of making up the pavements: tiles, concrete, rubble, etc., with sunken manholes to catch the unwary.
Outside the church, beneath one of the palm trees, a horse stood waiting to pull tourists around the streets in an open carriage. He suffered the indignity of wearing a straw sun hat with his ears poking through. Having eventually found a cash machine in working order after three or four attempts, we lunched in the ruins of the Venetian loggia. It was cool and pleasant, protected by acacia trees and white sun blinds on top of which cats raced, fighting each other as we ate. The building dates from the 16th century, built in Renaissance style, but only the external shell remains. Ian had a tuna onion and tomatoes dish, and I had stuffed aubergines topped with cheese. We also had a refreshing cucumber and tomato salad and bottles of iced water.
By now we were exhausted and made our way back to the harbour to discover, joy of joys, a breeze has blown up, and even some wisps of cloud were in the sky. It made the mile walk back to the car following the coastline almost bearable. Passing the seafront swimming pool we stopped off to watch Italy vs the Netherlands ladies water polo international match. It was a cool wet thing to watch in a place where the sight of water had become an obsession with me. The match was commentated in Greek with scores given in Greek and English, good number practice for us. Italy won by seven to five. Returning to the car we drove through the centre of Chania - the confidence a good navigator can give one - and made our way to Souda bay and the British war graves cemetery. This is in a beautiful spot overlooking the sea with the mountains of Levka Ora behind. In the peaceful heat and sunshine of today, it seems hard to imagine the horror of 60 years ago when young Allied soldiers defended this very area from the invading German forces. There are more than 1,500 soldiers from the allied forces of Britain, France, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, far fewer than the 4,000 or more in the German cemetery at Maleme, but even this number is more than there should have been, so many unidentified, “known unto God”. Flowers and a photograph on one such grave decided us that it had been adopted by a family who did not know where their own loved one lay. Each white headstone stands facing the sea in perfect lines, as in France, English flowers, roses in reds and pinks, bloom around the headstones, and the very English bright green lawns have been tended and trimmed with the same care as in the regions of Northern France. Pathways lead to a central monument bearing a cross, and the area is surrounded by flowering shrubs, beyond which the land the arid land and bare rocks of the surrounding hills rise up.
As we left the guardian had gone, and groups of youngsters arrived to shatter the peace with their scooters. They entered, shouting and laughing and proceeded to romp and play on the deep cool green grass, happy to enjoy such a pleasant spot in their dry country, and oblivious to the significance of the place. A war 60 years ago on their soil, and the death of so many lives is purely history to them. We assume the Greek soldiers who died are all buried in their own local churchyards.
Then back to our studio and welcome showers, and supper on our balcony as we watched the nest of kittens and their mother on their evening prowl.
