Saturday 2 June 2001.
We woke this morning to the blessed sound of a howling wind around our apartments. Our patio furniture had been blown over, and we were obliged to eat breakfast in our room or it could have been blown away. The sun was as hot and glaring as ever, 33 degrees by 10 am, but the wind made it bearable. The fact that the wind reached us from the south across the Libyan Sea, straight from Africa, is astonishing. Can it really be cooker and fresher over there? We decided to make the most of the more pleasant temperature, so drove up through the Lefka Ora across to the south of the island to Paleochora on the Libyan Sea. A perfectly reasonable road, apart from the need to drive around the occasional enormous rock falls along a twisting route that made the journey three times longer than it otherwise would have been.
The scenery is spectacular, so much more greenery at this end of Crete with bright pink flowering shrubs on the wayside and upon the cliff face. There were whole areas of woodland: chestnuts, sycamores as well as the usual vines and olive groves. On the lower reaches were whole groves of oranges and lemons, heavy with fruit, as were apricot trees. We passed through little villages scattered along the way, each with its church and its cafe with the elders of the village gathered outside. On the outskirts were goats tethered by the roadside and we saw several elderly black-clad ladies taking them for walks. Donkeys sheltered under the trees, or carried happy faced, weather-beaten labourers back to the village. Views were magnificent and we were forever stopping to wonder at yet another mountain vista with the sea beyond. Eventually we started the long descent down into Paleochora, which turned out to be a delightful little town, really isolated with only the one route in and out. On seeing a garage, we speculated as to whether the petrol tanker followed the same route in as us or whether petrol have been delivered straight up from Colonel Gaddafi across the Libyan Sea.
Road access is also being improved. Many minor roads up to little isolated mountain villages, marked as unsurfaced tracks on our map, are in fact now metalled and although steep and twisting, easily navigable for everyone anyone not in a hurry. We paddled, watched the fishes, strolled past the row of shady tavernas and made our way from one side of the headland around the coast to the opposite side of the town and the more touristy sandy beach with its sunbeds, parasols and cocktail bars. On the way we passed a little seaside house where an older man and woman beamed at us and waved calling “yassas”. It later became obvious that tourists would never be likely to follow the headland walk as it is currently no more than a building site for the marina and much speculative building of holiday apartments. Soon the town will be spoiled, scarred and ugly like all the others, full of half built properties. Incidentally, we had always thought that the unfinished appearance of so many buildings was because they ran out of money and intended to continue at a later date. Although this is often true, the main reason, it seems, is that it is a tax dodge and buildings are exempt from certain charges until completed.
The further side of the town is very pleasant but, being more popular because of its sandy beach, it is more developed. It is also hotter, as the cool wind from the Libyan sea was blowing far more strongly on the stony beaches of the other side of the peninsula. So we crossed back and had lunch on a shaded terrace on the water's edge with views to die for of the white mountains rising from the green land bordering the marine blue sea where the heat haze made the distinction between sea and sky quite indiscernible. Lunch was delicious. The menus were delivered ne at a time by a little girl of about four - they were too big for her to manage to carry two together. Her father then brought us iced water, a dish of vegetables: courgettes, potatoes and tomatoes topped with cheese and baked. There were to accompany the main dish of keftedes, pork meatballs with salad and chips. The meal and the setting a superb and the cool breeze enabled us to feel comfortable for the first time since coming to this end of the island. Our bill was 3,500 drachmas, less than £7 for the two of us. We took a photo of an elderly Danish couple dining at a nearby table. They seemed delighted when we offered to use their camera so they could be in the same photo. The lady appeared to have Parkinson's disease, and I think they were really brave and determined to face such travel under the circumstances. They seem so happy to be there. I hope they continue to enjoy their holiday.
Then we braved the heat and climbed up to the ruins of the old Venetian ramparts above the town. There was not much left of them and the area of dead dried grass and thistles and a couple of scraggy olive trees was given over to a pathetic pair of kri-kri (goats) tethered there in the sun's heat without food or water. From here we had a vista of the rooftops of the town. In the streets below you only notice the white-washed walls and flat roofs. Up here you can see that each room has its own water system, central heating oil supply, various television aerials and an assortment of solar panels. All very ugly in fact, but also very practical. Where buildings have been given red tiled pitched roofs they looked most attractive by contrast. One thing in a land of limestone, where the raw materials for cement manufacture are all around, is that imagination is the only limitation on what and how you build. It seems that structures are built on a modular system using reinforcing iron rods through the centre of concrete pillars. The frame is in filled in with cement poured into a mould formed by two skins of wooden planking which is later removed. This rough and ready framework can then be finished as the fancy takes one and finally colour washed. The effect can be quite spectacular, with all sorts of finials and archways in concrete and the use of black paint to contrast door and window surrounds with the walls. Here in Paleochora it had been taken to excess with a new church, highly ornate, entirely in concrete, including the cross on the top. The whole was coloured pink and white. In front was a concrete gateway topped with a cross and looking like something between a centrepiece for a wedding cake and an Eleanor's cross as seen in certain market squares in England. If done tongue in cheek, it was quite good fun, but I suspect it is intended to be taken seriously.
All that climbing had made us hot. On returning to the seafront we sat on the jetty and dangled our feet in the cool clear water and watched the fishes exploring around our feet. Maybe they gave off the nice sweaty smell for them. Then, along the street on our way back to the car we stopped at a shady cafe on frequented by the local people for an ice-cream. We were sent to choose them from the freezer so I also helped myself to a couple of ice cubes from the corner of the cabinet which melted in seconds when rubbed on arms and legs. Out of the wind the temperature was as hot as ever, but it is astonishing the difference a breeze can make. We sat in the shade on the street watching the everyday life of the town, trying to fathom its mysteries. Why did the elderly lady open the door of her dilapidated house opposite the cafe and shout at a man on the cafe terrace? Why did he cross the road and shake her hand before disappearing inside to emerge later to speak to the cafe owner who in turn crossed to the old lady’s house Clutching an enormous bag of around a hundred bread rolls? What was she doing with them in her tiny house? She couldn't get that hungry surely.
The mystery unsolved, we returned to the car and drove up the road again, twisting away up into the mountains. The car behind had a blue light on top and police written down the side. I hate the idea of navigating endless hairpin bends with the Cretan police in hot pursuit. It would have made a good TV advert for the Fiat Cinquecento though. Ian reckon we could find an alternative route back on minor roads through the mountains, provided the roads were not just dirt tracks. We turned off, the police continued on. The roads were tarmaced, although the heat had caused all the tar to go soft and runny, and there was very little traffic. The scenery was stupendous but it was a little scary up there with the huge grey mass of white mountains looming ominously above us and an unfenced road with poholes and drops of hundreds of feet just inches from our wheels. Ian was pretty scared at times on the outside edge and of course, with endlesis hairpin bends, you never know what might be around the next corner. We climbed upwards for ever, the sunlight was glaring and the wind away from the sea was minimal, so we were really hot and sticky.
At last we reached the point where we had intended to turn off to the sea at Sougia, but you can have too much of mountain roads, so turned inland towards Chania. The road was slightly less barren and deserted, passing through villages. In one of these they had just killed a sheep and amid the blood two villagers were starting to remove the animal skin. We didn't linger to watch. Several times on bends I pulled over to allow jeeps putting boats on trailers to pass by, twisting their way down to Sougia to launch them. Surely it would be easier to go round by sea. You must be really keen to take a boat up over a pass of some 3,300 feet high.
And so down the long descent, leaving the barren mountains behind us. As we descended shrubs and then trees appeared, and the countryside became green and beautiful, always with the white mountains looming above and the valleys still far below, the sea of the North Coast now visible from time to time. Eventually we left the mountains completely, and travelled through endless rows of fruit trees, past houses and through villages alive with beautiful brightly coloured flowers. Eventually we reached our studio from where I went for a welcome plunge and twenty lengths of a deserted pool. Then, back on our balcony, we watched the cat and her tiny kittens as we sipped Cretan wine and gazed at the Levka Ori as it turned from white to yellow to pink to black as the sun set over the Rodopos Peninsula.
Sunday 3 June 2001.
Today dawned as glaring and hot as ever but without any sign of wind. Panic immediately set in. We decided to visit the Akrotiri Peninsula on the far side of Chania for two main reasons, firstly it is not far to drive, and secondly there are two monasteries which should provide welcome shade. It being Sunday, we had no problem in getting through Chania but then got totally confused in the one-way system that kept sending us round in circles. Eventually we ended up at the entrance to the Venizelos tombs. Eleftherios Venizelos was born near Chania and fought for the union of Crete with Greece – it was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1646 until 1898. He was prime minister of Greece from 1910 and died in 1936. There is also the tomb of his son Sophoklis also a Cretan politician who died in 1964. The site is on a hilltop with superb views of Chania, its harbour and the bay. There is a little chapel with an iconostasis depicting a number of Greek saints in the typical stylised manner. It is very attractive little church, and there are also lovely shady gardens filled with local plants and flowers laid out attractively with shady vistas down to the town. There are carob and pine trees, flowering cactuses, shaped privet hedges, and plenty of bright geraniums.
We realised that a christening in the open air outside the church was about to take place, so we lingered to watch. The front was set up, encircled with flowers. There were loudspeakers and video cameras and guests, dressed quite smartly for such hot weather, foregathered. To judge by their number, their clothes, and the smart cars in the car park, it was a rather expensive baptism for the wealthy set of Chania. The baby’s mother was dressed in white. The godfather held the baby and had an important role. The little godmother aged about twelve, held a white burning candle throughout the ceremony which lasted an hour. Along the wall at the side of the church were presents for each guest: a sticky cake, each with a pink ribbon on because it was a little girl, which also became evident at the total immersion in the font which is conducted with the baby naked. The priest looked quite awesome with his black cassock, white embroidered ceremonial robes, huge black beard and long hair. He chanted in Greek, struggling against the noisy rasping of a lone cicada in one of the nearby oleanders. The only recognisable phrases were “Kyrie eleison” and “allelujah”. Candles burned, the baby was annointed with oil and then immersed in the font. Parents, godparents and priest processed around the font while all the guests stood around chatting with each other and only showed any real interest when the poor little baby was plunged into the ornate font we had previously seen being filled with water from a red plastic bucket. The baby was really good and didn't yell either at the anointing, baptising or being forced to wear a headdress of white silk flowers. It was a most interesting interlude, standing beneath the shade of a palm tree sheltered from the heat, and a lovely setting for such an event. We slipped away as it neared what we assume as the end - it wasn't easy to tell as the priest was still chanting for all he was worth, but people were wandering about and helping themselves to the little sticky cakes by now and the video projectionist was packing up to go home.
So we drove out further on to the Akrotiri Peninsula to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, set at the end of an avenue of pine trees with the monastery’s vines and olive trees surrounding the pale orange coloured monastery walls. Through the gateway, the gardens and the entrance of the church welcomed us. The church is cool and dark, the floor scattered with olive leaves, the ceiling painted blue with golden stars. From the roof of the central cupola Christ looks down in a pose displaying a blessing on us mortals below. The altar is hidden behind the ornate iconostasis but there are a number of beautiful icons and the usual gold and silver church ornaments.
There was a lunchtime celebration taking place. As we peeped in at a window in the cloisters, we could see the daunting sight of a whole row of church dignitaries in full black regalia, including fez, sitting down to a celebratory meal. As we wandered around the peaceful cloisters and looked at the domes of the monastery roof, the pinky orange white-washed walls, the huge shady palm trees and the fruiting citrus trees dropping their orange and yellow fruit into the scarlet geranium beds beneath, we greeted by a man who gave us each a delicious macaron. The rest of the box was destined for the banquet we had seen a few moments previously. We lingered as long as we decently could in the shady garden and beneath the huge stone entrance, but eventually braved the heat to continue to the next monastery that of Gouverneto, set on a Headland overlooking the sea 2.5 km further on. The countryside was straight out of a cowboy film, with an unmetalled road twisting itself through scraggy countryside littered with dry white boulders. A perfect setting for a moussaka western.
The temperature was unbelievably hot yet there were little groups of people walking the road between the two convents. None seem to have any water and there was none on offer when they reached the second monastery from where they have had to walk all the way back and beyond to get a drink. Most appeared to be Dutch.
This monastery is different from the other. The contrast of the cool flowering gardens inside the thick peach washed walls, with the arid rocks and shimmering glare of sunlight on the sea is striking. The cool darkness of the shady walls is like ointment on a throbbing sore. I could have stayed for the rest of the day. The church is far more ornate, with carved monster heads and foliage on the facade. Surrounding the church, set into the walls, are the cells of the monks with their tiny doorways. Again the gardens drip oranges and lemons and figs are forming on green, shady trees. There must be a deep well for water somewhere but we never saw it. Monks were wandering around in white shirts and black trousers but still looking very priestly with their long hair and beards.
Outside in the desert again, we couldn't wait to put this parched searing landscape behind us. Pity the poor folk who had walked there and now needed to walk back. The read led nowhere further except to a tiny chapel, accessible only on foot down a rocky path to the sea - not something to be considered on a day like today. Ian’s Baedeker map was useless on this peninsula, the roads were either not marked or Mr Baedeker had looked at the landscape and thought “Sod that, I'm off to the beach for a swim and a cold beer”, and guessed at what might be out there. Anyway, we found out driving around in circles. The signposts were virtually non-existent or written in Greek. Sitting in the car trying to first transliterate the text, then find it on the map in that heat rendered me very bad tempered. So we stopped somewhere on the coast, we still have no idea where, but there was a beach, some tavernas, and lots of people enjoying themselves, so we joined them. It seemed mainly local people probably out from Chania to enjoy the family Sunday on the beach. Generally too everyone looked less sunburnt than the average summer visitor. We reckon the headland is the wrong side of Chania for most of the tourist resorts and yet accessible for locals. We had a delicious lunch of chef’s special salad followed by moussaka and grilled chicken accompanied by iced water. All around us Greek families, three generation sometimes, sat sharing a beachside lunch. Later we sort the shade of a tamarisk on the beach and slept for one and a half hours, sharing our beach towel, with a comfortable breeze from the sea and Greek families either doing likewise or playing in the little waves at the water's edge. Then we made our way homewards, getting further lost on the headland. A car hugged my tail on the badly surfaced narrow road, trying to overtake. I decided to take the next right fork to put off the road to let him past. I signalled and pulled in. He followed right without indicating his intention to do so, or I would not have stopped, assuming he was going straight on along the wider road. He skidded and hooted as he just stopped before hitting the back of tour car. It upset me at the time, as I ended up with an angry macho Greek accusing me of bad driving. If he’d not been trying to force past me it wouldn't have happened. That's the last time I triy to pull over to let them pass. Ian calmed the situation for suddenly remembering the Greek word for “sorry”. To have a wimp of an English male who let his stupid wife drive him around apologise in Greek restored the chap’s ego, and he drove off with no harm done. Actually the Greek male is an appalling driver Road courtesy is something he knows nothing about. They never signal, drive with their arms dangling over the edge of the door, stop anywhere, shout and hoot at friends, ignore no entry signs and one way systems and even drive the wrong way down dual carriageways. We have seen a whole family on one moped. Nobody wears a crash helmet we even saw a chap with his huge bulldog between his knees tearing along and high-speed, the dog's paws on the handlebars obviously enjoying the breeze in its face! How can they get away with all this and insinuate that I'm the bad driver? There are very few women drivers, and even among tourists I have not yet seen any other vehicle where the woman drives and the man is a passenger.
We made our way back to Georgio’s and I went for my solitary 25 lengths of the pool, what bliss, while Ian showered. We finished our wine on the patio and walked down the hill for some more, where we were recommended a good local red wine by delightful young man with excellent English. However we don't think much of his taste in wine. It is pale and lifeless, and give us as much satisfaction as voting Liberal will in the election this coming Thursday.
Tuesday 5 June 2001.
(I was too tired and squiffy to write anything last night).
“All the time I water, otherwise the plants they die” said Giorgio to us yesterday morning as we set off for a final day in Crete. It sums it up; here we are, surrounded by pretty flowering shrubs and shady olive trees but feet away from our balcony we watched the mother cat and the three kittens where they nest in the dead dried grass and weeds of the neighbouring field. Life, even for Georgio, is a constant struggle against the elements of this strange country where, as we discovered, violent winds can blow up from nowhere and disappear again just as abruptly, where there is no rain for five months of the year and virtually no running stream or natural lakes and ponds, yet rain must fall heavily at other times to judge by the boulders and rubble washed down from the mountains to be seen along the length of the dried-up riverbeds. Water must be below the surface too, as these river beds are frequently margined by bamboo plants and their little estuaries seem to support more flowering weeds and wild plants than elsewhere on the hillside.
The day was already hot but we decided to at least look at the Imbros Gorge; it might be shady. If not we would continue down to Hora Sfakion on the south coast, one of the few accessible little towns in the heart of what is what is even today regarded as wild bandit country. This area until the 1950s, when a road was cut through, was a very isolated and fiercely independent part of Crete with nothing but unmade, unmarked donkey tracks linking the few hamlets to be found in this mountainous inhospitable region. Even today there is a strong sense of isolation as you drive the twisting road through the barren countryside and the little villages. That said, whenever the land lends itself the cultivation, it has been used, for olives, fruit trees, apples and pears rather than citrus fruits. There is a constant melodious tinkle and clang of the bells around the necks of the sheep as the roam wild. Little black goats climbed the vertical recently hewn rock at the roadside where attempts have been made to improve the width on the countless hairpin bends. This causes a clatter of rocks and stones to bounce down onto the road which is littered along is inside edge with fallen rubble around which you drive gingerly, fearful at all times that more may come down. We saw one car abandoned, its roof dented and no glass in the windows, an obvious victim of a rockfall, and we were were driving an open top vehicle. We stopped about halfway up at a really ugly, gaudy, recently constructed church built on a very imposing rocky outcrop dominating a fertile flat plain that seems to be the norm in these high mountain areas – Lassithi and Omalos for example. This one, Askifou, even seemed to have fields of grain still ripening, the season being definitely later than lower down. The plain lies at 730 meters and the mountains, still towering above, are even now packed in places with ice and snow. Little hamlets surround the plain, linked by dusty tracks. Ugly as the church is, on the other side of the road is a little taverna run by a delightful young woman. It seems to be her home and her children played in the back room, but it is a lonely, isolated place for children, with no garden to play in, indeed nowhere outside at all for them. We sat on her cool terrace with a gentle breeze cooling us, drinking fresh orange juice. The mother seemed to speak at least three languages, switching from English to German to Greek according to her customers, cooking all the orders, serving at tables, and sorting out her kids when they quarrelled.
At Imbros we parked under a pear tree and followed a very uneven track across the hillside, turning left down the dried up stony river bed that eventually led into the gorge. There was no spectacular entrance, unlike the Samaria Gorge, and we were beginning to regret coming. How would we survive walking back across this open landscape in the heat of the day? Still, we continued down, grateful for the mountaineering sticks Neil had given us which added greatly to our confidence on such rocky stony ground. Then we found a man selling tickets, for the gorge proper, 500 drachmas each as sanitary dues to the municipality of Sfaki. There are no facilities of any kind in the gorge except about four waste paper bins along its five-mile length. What a long way to go to collect lazy hikers’ rubbish! We were told we could get a bus or taxi back from the coast, so decided to walk right through.
To begin with there were lots of people but it soon emptied out. It seems most people go in a little way and then go back. There was a pleasant breeze, fir trees both in the dried-up river bed and growing from rocks up the side of the narrow gorge that at times closed in to only eight feet in width. Over the five-mile length, there is a drop of perhaps 2,000 feet. There was plenty of shade, and boulders to rest on. The path was rough and the main fear was of twisted ankles, but the descent was pleasant, really enjoyable and not arduous. I'm glad I was going down rather than up though. We watched a large green Balkan lizard running across the white boulders, unconcerned by our presence, pausing from time to time before disappearing. They seem to run on their back legs and they really are huge compared with ordinary lizards, and the same is true of many of the insects, huge beetles, grasshoppers and bees. We could hear the bleating of goats on the ledges far above us and looking high, high above we could see the top of the gorge lined with trees against the brilliant blue sky.
About half way down we came upon a man checking tickets. He had very little English so did not understand my remark that it was a lonely job but told us, “morning, groups, now, two maybe three people. Then little while maybe two maybe three again.” We had seen nobody for a while at this point. He had his patient donkey tied to a tree and two large dogs snoozed in the sunshine, supposedly to protect him if necessary, but it is doubtful if they would have even woken up.
We did not even feel particularly weary when we rounded a rock and, like Xenophon's soldiers, shouted “Thalassa!” as the sea at last appeared. We had crossed Crete and were looking down on the Libyan Sea with the little town Sfakia on the coast still far below us. Shortly after this we left the gorge and followed a track up through old stone walls surrounding olive groves, each with a black net rolled up underneath. Come the harvest in December they will be spread out beneath the trees to catch the olives as they are presumably beaten from the trees. The track led to a cafe with ice cold drinks and a shady balcony like an eagle’s eyrie, down onto the road and the sea way below. We were told a bus could take us down from here in 30-minutes to Sfakia, from where a bus would drop us back at Imbris on its way to Chania. This worked fine with a few minor crises, like nearly missing the bus from the taverna because it came early and we had to clamber down to the road. The waiter yelled to the driver to wait, and we scrambled aboard a cold bus with air conditioning. Oh joy! Then down to Sfakia where we piled out to wait with lots of other people who gone up in the morning to the Samaria Gorge, walked the 12 to 14 kilometers through, and then taken a boat around the coast as there is no road out at the foot of the Samaria Gorge, the only way out being by boat, and they were now returning by bus to Chania. I wish to modify my remarks about Greek drivers. I have every possible respect for the bus drivers on these mountain roads.
The route up from Sfakia to Imbros is second to none, with endless twists as it corkscrews on its way, the front almost into the next bend before the back has rounded the previous one. Up and up we climbed; we had descended this depth through the ravine earlier. Never did it seem to reach the top. We took a view down onto the coast; it looked more as if if we were in a plane than on a bus. We were dropped just feet away from where we had left the car, a perfect day’s achievement. It has done much to improve our feelings about this holiday. At last we feel a sense of real achievement, only possible because of the gentle breeze playing in the mountains all day.
We descended in our car down the northern slopes of the Levka Ori and followed the old road back towards Chania, passing through pleasant little villages such as Vrysais. The landscape was such a contrast with higher up, or indeed the rest of Crete. Here there were thick wooded valleys with bushes and green grasses is by the wayside. It was almost like England in August! We drove through extensive areas of shady woodland, then fields of fruit and vegetables. Citrus fruits littered the roadside in the most fertile green area we had seen. We crossed a bridge and actually saw for the first time the sparkle of sunlight on a clear flowing stream. An old white-haired man sat on the parapet looking down into the water; it is obviously not just us that it attracts. A wind seemed to have sprung up, and it hit us with full force as we rounded a bend on the coast road at Kalyvas on the edge of Souda Bay. It was not at all cold, but very strong. We stopped to look across the bay from this angle at two islands placed just inside the mouth of the bay, which seems very deep and well protected all round with a couple of large warships moored. No wonder it was the epicentre of the Battle of Crete in 1941; it is a very strategic harbour. Even today much of the area is under military occupation with restricted access, particularly the Peninsula of Akrotiri.
Tuesday 5 June continued.
Last night the wind roared and howled around our apartment. It was quite ferocious, screaming through the shutters. It was not cold though, a sheet on the bed was all that was bearable. This morning the sun dawned as hot as ever. There was still a powerful breeze at 8 a.m., but now at 10 a.m. it has quite disappeared. We fly home from Iraklion tonight.
8:30 p.m. Heraklion Airport.
Well, here we are, our luggage has been checked in and we have just had a very much needed coffee in the lounge overlooking the airport runway and the sea with the island of Dia just off shore. I really hope the pilots always judge the runway with total accuracy as there is no margin for error. Around me are crowds of other British holidaymakers returning on the same flight. Some ordinary couples or pleasant families, but others are bright red, sunburnt, overweight families with silly moaning mothers and whinging fed up kids, all eating pizza and crisps, drinking Coke - I’m afraid I'm a travel snob. A ferry has just pulled out of the Iraklion port and it is sailing past the aircraft waiting on the runway. Maybe the ship is on its way to Santorini, or more probably Athens.
Giorgio shook us by the hand in a very genial manner when we left this morning. It was a very pleasant place for us to stay, above the town, away from the noise, cool and comfortable of an evening, with access to the swimming pool and endless showers to revive us after what has been even for Crete particularly hot unseasonal weather.
We headed towards Rethymnon along the new road, turning off to indulge Ian's passion for exposed historic sites in scorching bright sunshine. Actually the site of Aptera on the hills to one side of Souda Bay turned out to be very interesting, having been occupied continuously since Minoan times. There are remains of the city walls from around 300 BCE, the seventh century monastery, abandoned but two storeys high with superb views over Souda Bay, cool with a breeze blowing through the windows of the upper floor, and barrel vaulted below, a place to linger in the heat. There is a huge deep Roman cistern and an early Byzantine building, the remains of a small Greek theatre and a church. There is also the Turkish fortress of Izzedin, dated around 1869, and finally a German gun emplacement of around 1942. All are intermixed, some constructed on top of earlier structures. There was hardly anyone around and the site was becoming overgrown now with wild flowers, mostly withered, but with poppies and marguerites blooming in cracks between the flagstones. Sheep tried to shelter from the heat beneath any scrubby bush or olive tree. It seemed surprising that there are so few lizards. Later though I had to stop the car twice on minor roads to wait while first a Balkan green lizard and then a snake crossed in front of us. There are, I think, only two species of snake on Crete. We waded through the thistles and mallow plants to discover the remains of a Roman villa, being excavated by a single archaeologist. The walls were in excellent condition and it was possible to see how they fitted the blocks together and how rods were fitted to the centre of each column to tie it to the section above. They were massive tumbled columns in the centre of the villa with the bases still in their original position surrounding the building.
We could have spent all day there and the sea breeze made the temperature variable, but we had other places to visit on our way. So we continued along minor roads to Vamos, visited as much as anything so we could tease our Hungarian friends Kati and Peter Vamos [both, sadly, now no longer with us] when we got home. We got some pretty good ammunition as the first building we passed was a hotel called Vamos Palace. The town of Vamos is on a steep hill. It is a curious place in that the local people have got together to form a co-operative to encourage ecotourism. They are restoring the old village to be typically Cretan and have little houses for rent. They have a traditional grocery shop selling local produce which is made or cooked or prepared by the women of the town, textiles, honey yoghurt, herbs and so on. There is a delightful taverna in the centre, part of the co-operative, where was sat on the vine covered terrace and lunched on a salad of mixed pulses, delicious, served cold with different oils and herbs including a sort of pease pudding and various haricot or butter beans. The menu was translated into rather curious English. We opted for a sort of taglaitelli served with “cock”, which we hoped meant chicken, but were a little apprehensive as the menu choice below was for a lamb dish claiming it was made from liver, spleen and intestines of a lamb. Fortunately when is arrived we were relieved to find it was most definitely chicken, whether cock or hen was immaterial to us so long as it was not an anatomical appendage of a lamb or goat. We had a jug of water and Ian indulged in a half liter of retsina all to himself as I was driving. We were given a gift of a bottle of raki and a dish of loukoumi or Turkish delight, perhaps the only happily accepted legacy of the Turkish occupation of Greece. Raki is not called fire water for nothing. Innocent as it looks, it has a powerful kick. I tasted a tiny sip to be polite but I still had a good 100 km to drive. Ian is more courteous which, combined with the retsina, meant he was slightly less of an able navigator than he had been for the rest of the holiday.
(We are now on the plane on our way to Gatwick, hence the indecipherable scrawl.)
From Vamos we made our way to Georgiopoulou, curious to see the little town selected by the author of Winds of Crete, David MacNeil Doren as his ideal location, living in a Cretan peasant community, perfectly located twixt sea and mountains. From his account it seems a veritable utopia. However he was there back in the 1970s. I doubt if he'd recognise the place today. Its setting is as described, on the estuary of a pretty substantial green river with boats moored amid the reeds. It is however Little Germany By The Sea. Everybody spoke German in the shops and it was on all the signs. No doubt there were English visitors too, but not obviously so. There is a central square from where little roads lead out in all directions to recently constructed apartment blocks and rented rooms. The square itself is lined with tavernas and gift shops with people sitting enjoying cold drinks in the sunshine. We walked down to the beach, a narrow strip of boring sand, no secluded coves, rocky pools or anything remotely interesting. The sea itself was still choppy and it didn't really look inviting except to a large German lady wearing nothing but equally large white knickers wading out for some topless bathing, pulling on her swimming hat to keep her hair dry. We crossed to look at the church, in the process of restoration and locked. From behind the apse it should have been possible to have pleasant views of the sea, but unregulated planning meant half constructed apartment blocks covered in graffiti stood just feet from the church and in the weed-ridden patch next to it stood four concrete columns about six feet high with rusty metal rods protruding, obviously a development project that had failed through lack of money and was just left abandoned. We saw no real evidence of local people or their homes. Out of season the resort must be closed up, lifeless and empty, devoid of any of the character it once had. One day the bottom could drop out of Crete as a holiday resort, and the island would be left with a mass of empty buildings which it would not be able to maintain and which would ruin the beauty of its coastline. You cannot blame entrepreneurs for opting to benefit from tourism, what else has it to sell? The fault lies surely with the administration which allows such unregulated development; maybe penalty clauses if not completed within a certain time would help. Anyway I suppose we have contributed to the despoliation by coming and using the facilities we condemn. I would have preferred to avoid the tourist areas and stay in the little towns and villages in the hills, but up there are language would have been a difficulty for us. It is really only in the tourist resorts that you find either the linguists or the speculative development. Outside of those areas Crete is still largely unchanged. Now though, the shepherd drives his battered truck up to the olive grove where he had left his sheep or goats, loads them in a few time, and drives them down again for milking. We saw many vehicles on the twisting roads with half a dozen sheep squashed in the back. Or they may have been left outside the kafeinion while the shepherd joins his comrades on the terrace for a chat. Cretan men are very sociable people and enjoy each other's company. We rarely saw groups of women together except outside their doors, never at the kafeinion, which is still a male domain. Disappointed but not surprised at the development of Georgiopolou, we continued on our way, joining up with the main road as it was gone 5 p.m. and we still had to get to Iraklion and sort out leaving the car as per the instructions of the car hire company in a particular car park but with the keys locked in the boot.
I have already said much about drivers in Crete. Suffice it to say that, once they get a fast straight road, the only one in Crete being along the north coast, they become creatures possessed. I have never seen such appaling drivers. Road markings, traffic signs, rocks stumbled onto the hard shoulder all are totally ignored. A female driver in a little Fiat Cinquecento which is a hire car anyway has no right to be anywhere but the hard shoulder which serves as the pull over lane to allow vehicles to overtake. This road is not a dual carriageway and idiots are doing exactly the same in the other direction. The hard shoulder also a really good place for dozens of peasants to set up little stalls selling bags of tomatoes or oranges from their villages up in the hills. Black robed brown-skinned old women flag you down, trying to introduce you to buy their produce, standing there oblivious to the dangers. Or two drivers will pull in to discuss some matter, leaving their car doors wide open jutting into the main carriageway. Or scooters will pop along at about 30 kph whereas most traffic is travelling at about 130, and of course there are always the tumbled rocks from the newly cut cliff face. Roads like that, let alone drivers, would never be permitted in England, thank God. [Written before the introduction of smart motorways!] We followed the direction sign off the road for the airport, then it abandoned us, no further signs anywhere. Fortunately Ian worked it out correctly, but it was not pleasant driving through Iraklion with its traffic lights, ignored many drivers anyway, trying to find it airport without being carved up by Greeks who don't understand the concept of courteous driving, however courteous and charming they are to your face. With relief we reached the airport and found a parking area, but the barrier refused to lift to let us in. While we wondered what the hell to do now, we were approached by a smiling young man who greeted us in English, “I am from your car hire company and I am here to collect the car.” We had said we would be returning at around 8 p.m. and it was only 7 p.m. We assumed he had delivered a car off and waited for us to arrive. He then drove us to the airport entrance and waited for us to unload before disappearing with the car all the way back to Agia Marina. He told us that they had noticed us driving around Agia Marina several times during the last week.
And so we say goodbye to Crete. We seem to have done a great deal in two weeks despite the temperatures which have done much to spoil it and limit our activities. I think we have gradually built a feel of the island and its people. We have seen and done many things that most package travellers don't even dream of doing during our two week, 1,700 km stay in Crete.
The pilot has just announced that the temperature at Gatwick is 13 degrees just about 20 degrees less than the we've been "enjoying" this afternoon.
[Having just finished editing this blog, and having recovered my own forgotten memory of our detour to Vamos, I am dedicating this posting to the memory of our dear friends Peter and Kati. Ian, 26 February 2023.]
