Happy 4x4 for 4 at Easter

Easter, the most important time in the Orthodox calender, and in Crete it goes with a bang!

A stroll around the lake at Agios Nikolaos on the morning of Good Friday showed preparations were in full swing as 'Judas' was already hung on his floating gibbet ready for his fiery execution at midnight on Saturday.  Although we had previously enjoyed the spectacular lakeside events this year we planned to stay in Kritsa where three churches would hold separate celebrations.

On Good Friday evening we joined we joined the throng outside of the large church dedicated to St George to see the faithful start their procession behind the flower decked 'Epitaph' carrying an icon of Jesus as it passed around the church, and then on towards the village carried by men in traditional dress.  Following the crowd through narrow alley ways were emerged onto the high street to meet similar processions from two other churches.  Following shared prayers, all three Epitaphs were paraded slowly down the main street.  The photo below shows the Epitaph from 'our' church.

Easter Saturday saw the start of a very different celebration as Alan had his postponed Christmas present of a  four day hire of a small 4x4 to get us to places that our car can't cope with.  With navigator Phil in the front with Alan, and Hilary in the back with me we set off in high spirits.  The photo below shows the view of the Thripti mountains that we see daily from our balcony; the destination for our first adventure.  Our route took us above the Ha Canyon (V shaped cleft on the right hand side), to the village of Thripti, and ended in the 'dip' on the left hand side, near to the Minoan site of Karfi.

The next photo is the reverse view, taken just above the Ha Canyon, the white oblong nestled in the far hills is Kritsa.  Above Kritsa are the Dikti Mountains, more of them tomorrow!

Alan appeared confident, wrestling with the steering wheel to avoid rock falls and holes in the track so it was a bit disconcerting that he appeared so relieved to quite literally reach the end of the road.

Time to don warm clothes and rucksacks to stretch our legs on the climb to Kastro with views of fantastic rock formations, valleys, and coastline at every turn.  Yes, Hilary really did wear a scarf and gloves!

The site of Kastro has extensive remains and there are information boards to explain what they were - strange that one of the least accessible archaeological sites has such good information when many we have seen have nothing at all.  We found a fabulous wind free nook among the ruins to create our own dining room for a picnic that included smoked salmon sandwiches, hot X buns, and local strawberries.

Back in Kritsa we relaxed all evening, and then went out circa 11.00 p.m. to 'visit' the three main churches to see which had the best Judas.  By midnight we were on the top road above the village to see the Resurrection bonfires and fireworks.  

Our destination on Easter Sunday was the small fertile area of Liminarkos, high in the Dikti mountains above the Lassithi Plateau.  En route we looked down on two reservoirs, the larger reservoir was built in the past few years; strange how the two 'pools' are such different colours.  

Both reservoirs are clearly shown on Google Earth:

The first yellow marker shows the tiny church of the Holy Spirit on Liminarkos, where we were delighted to find the door unlocked so that we could enjoy their Epitaph, decked with locally picked flowers.  As access to this site is difficult, their service had been mid afternoon on Good Friday, rather than in the dark evening.  (As reported by the local on line news site, Anatolh)

Leaving the car, we made our 700 foot x 2k ascent to the ruined shepherd installation 4,300 feet above sea level that made a fantastic picnic spot (yellow marker 47 on the Google map extract).  In the photo below you can see concerted efforts to identify two huge birds.  Larger than buzzards, and too few to be griffon vultures, they wouldn't come close enough to 'match' up to the identification charts, so in the end we all agreed, big raptors!

Alan was probably tired when he got us back to Kritsa, but there was no time to rest until he relaxed on Nigel and Jenny's balcony where it was good to meet Nikos again.

Not that it was a peaceful occasion as we were there to enjoy a bird's eye view of the traditional Easter Sunday evening dynamite explosions in the cliffs above Kritsa.  Thanks for your hospitality Nigel and Jenny, we had a blast!

Another tradition for Easter Sunday is a very loud all night party in the small church literally above our house.  We were so tired we fell asleep as soon as we went to bed and none of the music, fireworks, shot guns, or explosives disturbed us.  The next I knew loud rapping on our front door summonsed me to meet a neighbour bearing traditional Easter gifts of kalitsounas (cross between egg custard and cheese cake) Easter biscucits and red dyed eggs.  My guess is that she had visited us the day before (probably several times) so was determined to catch us before we left home.  I was embarrassed to still be in my dressing gown at 8.00 a.m. so falsely blamed the explosive night.

Good job she woke us - we had another day of exploring to do.  This time we chose not to go so far and went to the familiar Kathero Plateau via Kroustas.  We choose to make the final decent the hard way on foot, via a rocky riverbed narrowly avoiding wet boots.

 After the drama of the previous two days we enjoyed our picnic in a very pastoral spot.  Snowy carpets of daisies, snowy blossom on fruit trees and snow on distant peaks - all in dramatically increased heat that delicate flowers will hate.

Our final 4x4 day saw us heading back up to Thripti to cross over to the south coast - a favourite trip from the days when we drove to Crete in our own 4x4.  Our coffee stop on the south side, was at the lush, stream fed village of Orino.  Always a mass of blooms a huge tub of arum lilies were at the peak of perfection.

The centre of this small village has a stepped theatre with plenty of room for communal feasting.  By the time we arrived a diligent woman was just finishing hosing everywhere clean, so apart from stacked dishes and burnt out BBQ there was no sign left of the weekend's festivities.  The sun had already dried a patch on the steps so we settled down with our flasks of morning coffee.  I recollected how that particular lady had treated us to a dish of freshly washed cherries on a previous visit .  Suddenly the lady materislised at our side with kalitsounas and tot of cherry flavoured raki each.  Yammas!

Almost back at home late afternoon, we bumped into Hilary who wondered if we'd like a kalitsouna - just goes to prove you don't need a scrap of chocolate to have a fabulous Easter!!

Spring Forward

Yes, it’s only a few weeks since we were last in Kritsa, but zipping back and forth is to be our lifestyle for a few years. With this in mind, bargain flights no matter what the day/time are high priorities so we were pleased to find a good price for the first Easy Jet flight of the season on 30th March. Our only problem was to remember to leave home at 2 a.m. as it became 3 a.m. when BST started. Greece is 2 hours ahead of the UK and also put their clocks forward so we didn't really have a clue what time it was by the time we'd been in Crete a few hours..

Our old village house needs a new coat of white paint every year (to hold it together!) so that has kept Alan busy. By the Thursday of Alan’s birthday, he deserved a day off so we enjoyed coffee in the village and watched 50 cyclists flash past in a very well organised road race. After this, it was off to sunny Elounda for lunch and a stroll before returning home for the serious business – the start of a new Scrabble tournament. I won the €10 prize last visit so Alan is keen for revenge. Despite it being his birthday, I refused to give him a head start and enjoyed a resounding win. This may not seem the most exciting of Birthday celebrations, but we were where Alan most wanted to be, at home in Kritsa.

We think Hilary and Phil know Alan well, just look at the bottle of wine they gave him as a birthday gift!

On Friday afternoon, Hilary and I went to a party in Elketos bookshop in Elounda that John & Lynne had organised to celebrate their 2nd anniversary in the shop, the start of summer season opening hours and Lynne’s birthday. Although we only caught the tail end of the live music, we could tell it had been a lively event. This lovely bookshop sells new and second hand (good condition) books as well as lovely unique gifts so is well worth a visit. This is a pic of the party girl.

The weather at present is ideal for walking so on Saturday we set off with Hilary and Phil. They both drove separate cars and we followed behind. No, we hadn’t all fallen out, it was because we wanted to leave two of the cars at a distant point. Then, on Sunday, we will meet up with some other people and use two cars to drive to the start point of a linear walk. Then, as long as the other two cars are still there, we can then all get back to our start point. Anyway, that’s getting ahead of myself because after abandoning two cars we piled into Hilary’s to get to the start point of Saturday’s walk. Bearing in mind it is several weeks since we last donned our boots we were pleased to have so much downhill...at the start!

At first we kept stopping to take photos of various orchids, but we soon realised we’d never get anywhere at that rate as there were so many to see. Here are two of them.

At the midpoint of the walk, we had to cross a dry riverbed and if you look at the photo below, you will see a residual pool behind Phil and Alan. They both ignored my request that they ‘go back a bit,’ but this could be because Alan had hopped onto a rock to reduce the height differential with Phil.

Sunday morning the church bells chimed out to herald the morning services, and made sure we were up in time to enjoy a breakfast of fresh eggs, a welcome gift from a neighbour before setting off to meet Phil and our fellow walkers, Wendy, Phillipa and Nick.

The weather was overcast and the higher into the mountains we walked the damper it became as we were only just below very dark clouds. Unfortunately this meant the wide reaching spectacular views were not a feature of the day - good walking weather though! And, it didn't stop us spotting more orchids - these are Anatolian Orchids, endemic to this part of Crete.

At the high point where we should see across the Libyan Sea, Phil declared a rest stop where Wendy, Phillipa and Nick tucked into their lunch, but had to take his word for it about the view.

So, one week down already...