Crete - the "middle"

12^th- 17^th February

Impressions of Crete & more lovely walks!

Having been in Crete for a few weeks now feel we have enough material to write a poem about the island! 

Overall our impressions are amazingly favourable, we really love this island even though the weather on some days has been quite wet, windy and cold.  The Cretan lifestyle (apart from excessive smoking) is a natural one with virtually all their produce being chemical free, their fruit and vegetables tasting so great.  Family life is the mainstay of their culture with many of them having not seen many other parts of their own island!  The sloping hills and valleys are brimming full of olive orchards with thousands of goats wandering up and down precipitous mountainsides with their neck bells jangling.  As we walk along (and up!)- the paths wending their way in every direction across the valleys and mountains - you always find the black plastic irrigation pipes controlled by a mass of water meters bunched together at their head.  They’ll be a picture of these in the blog.  It’s a strange site and quite ugly but each is numbered and no doubt the usage would be high come summer. Almost every house has at least one solar panel on the roof and quite often a black plastic water storage tank alongside. 

Crete has over 300 gorges and we’ve only managed to see 5 of them so far!  The hillsides are dotted with tiny churches usually white with red tiled rooves.  Now and again you spot the odd donkey laden with cut down olive branches and being driven by an elderly Cretan gentleman.  You can hardly drive a kilometer without yet another taverna,  about 30% open in winter.  Obviously if these are located close to the ocean then their speciality is seafood. 

Driving is nowhere near as hazardous as it is in Italy!  Although constantly pushed over to the “hard shoulder” which, on the national highway, is used as a lane – drivers seem to be a lot more cautious.

We reckon old ladies in black are probably “dying out” – after the current elderly generation, could be wrong.  Most villages have these old “venetian wash houses” which probably don’t get used very much now!  But they remain intact with the water running down through channels into the wash house area, into the basins and away down the mountain.

We spent another day in Rethymnon on Sunday meaning to visit the Museums which, on the net said they were open but shut when we got there!  Its only 50 mins away so we didn’t mind and spent time wandering around the wonderful back streets of the old town and treated ourselves to a lovely lunch on the port. 

And so the first month of our Cretan adventure is over – onto the second month in the next chapter!

18^th February – 2^nd March

So, as we start our second month on this lovely island we decided to make our second side trip from Mirthios this time to have a look at the western end of the island.  We still had to be convinced that other parts of the island were as lovely as the Plakias area.

We headed north again thru the middle of the island towards Rethymnon 36 kms away and then headed west on the National “Highway”.  First stop was Chania or as the locals say Hania which was its old name and often spelt Xhania.  Once again it had an old centre which was an old Venetian port.  The port promitory was very very long ending in a lighthouse and looking back at the semi circle of the port you could see the old Turkish mosque and then the backdrop was a mass of snow covered mountains, all quite lovely.  Very quiet as still off season with a smattering of tourists around.  We had parked up opposite the football ground in a virtually empty car park which rapidly filled up around 7 pm much to our horror.  We spent a very noisy night with massive loads of traffic trundling by.

One of the reasons we overnighted there was that the “book” said the “famous” Chania market was a must.  Well, we don’t know why but we were unimpressed.  It was just a small market and not a patch on the Athens market or the Victoria Market in Melbourne.  Guess we’ve seen too many markets-or the people writing the book haven’t seen very many!.

So in the drizzle we set off further west making our way to Falisarna – the “best” beach in Crete which lay below a road winding down to it.  It was a lovely beach and we were rewarded with a drop in the westerly winds  which have caused havoc in the past few weeks. 

We spent one more night in the area finding a massive parking area in the port town of Kolimbari which lies well west of Chania.  It was a wonderfully peace and tranquil night for once.  Next day after finding a Lidl and spending up, we made our way back to Mirthios. Home sweet home.

So, what to do in our last 10 days in the area?  More walking.  The numerous trails created probably initially as access to the enormous amount of olive orchards allow one to traverse back and forth, up and down all over the place.  Always rewarded with magnificent views in all directions.  Although the winter picking of the olives is over there are still many not harvested higher up.  Picked a few and trying to ferment them…….takes a few months, will probably taste like shit!  Lots of citrus around, the oranges are to die for!  More wild flowers – and evidence of spring with the blossom coming out on the odd almond trees and avocado trees producing tiny little fruits.  Crete is just one big vegetable and fruit shopAmongst our walks towards the end of February were a circular walk uphill to about 200m from Koxare village – views back towards Frati Gorge.  Blew up really cold but once again wonderful views.

The next was a loopwalk from Lefkogia using the aquaduct paths – managed to find a wonderful orange orchard!  Another was  a walk from the lovely Venetian bridge near old Preveli up towards Frati Gorge where we discovered, buried in amongst a load of olive trees, a couple of dutch guys who looked like they were renovating an old place.  They seemed to have a load of plastic covered igloos on their land so couldn’t really understand the purpose – what a great spot to live!

We took a drive to the tourist village Kalypso tucked around in a cove near Plakias – wasn’t even aware of its existence and when you get there its like a town!  The “resort” is tucked into a long rocky promitory with a dive centre, pool, whole tourist thingy.  Guess it would be great in season, they seemed to be working like crazy getting ready for it.

One day with nothing much to do and rain threatening constantly, we walked along the beach heading uphill (again!) and find this tiny fishing hamlet with just 3 little houses, one newly built.  Took some lovely pics.  Got caught in the rain and the MASSIVE northerly winds bearing down on us, not nice, got VERY wet.

We waited for a better day to take a walk from Gianniou village where we left the van and up and up between the hills – over the top – and wow WHAT a view down to the Preveli monastery which we had first visited over a month ago.  The sun shone all day but there was still that bite to the wind – have checked next 15 days and things are looking up as the wind swings round more towards the south. 

At long last got a pic of those strange and wonderful water pipes that meet on corners with their meters attached, will put the pic on the blog!

And so we say goodbye to the wonderful Plakias area and leave tomorrow (2^nd March) for Ierapetra on the eastern end of the island, we kind of feel that the beauty of this area cannot be repeated…..