Lake and Gorge Walks

Near to Ierapetra on the south coast is Brahmia reservoir, created to provide a good water supply for the many greenhouses in the area.  Now the huge wetland provides a home for many different birds and animals, and is a stopping off point for many more migratory birds.

1^st May, is a Bank Holiday here in Crete when it is traditional to collect a posy of wild flowers so we decided to collect ours during a walk around the reservoir, and after so many mountain walks it made a change to enjoy a relatively flat and easy path.

Water has obviously made an important contribution to the local environment to the local area over many years.  The photo below is of an old water mill.  Water ran along the channel to drop down at the end with enough force to turn the grindstones.

At one point we spent ages staring at a rock to identify the creature basking in the sun, and thanks to Alan’s binoculars saw it was a terrapin.  

Shame I don’t have a powerful enough zoom on my camera but you can just abut make out the shape.  We might have gone closer to investigate except a huge Alsatian puppy came bounding along and wanted to lick us to death!

In the event there were less flowers around the lake than we expected but a quick stop on the road between Prina and Kroustas ‘delivered’ and now my May Day posy hangs outside the front door. 

Similar bunches and wreaths are on now houses throughout the village.  By midsummer’s day, they will all be dry, crispy and ready to be burnt as part of an ancient fertility rite where traditionally young women jumped over their burning flowers.  The church has obviously given up the fight against this paganism and embraced the tradition, so each year a different church plays host to the ceremony where children play ‘dare’ and leap the flames.  We'll be in Crete to see this, so I’ll make a note of events.

To develop the theme of walking in different terrain we decided to pay another visit to Kritsa Gorge.  This time we decided to take the path around the hill towards Lato, and then drop into the gorge at the 1^st exit.  When out walking in Cretan countryside it is not unusual to find the path barred by a rusty metal fence, and in the past we thought this meant go no further.  However, it is to control livestock not people, and there is usually a metal ‘tie’ that can be untwisted to gain access.  On this particular path there’s no doubt that it is OK to pass through as there is a helpful sign:

Once in the gorge its high sides protected us from the wind that had been gusting, so we ‘strolled’ downhill enjoying splendid isolation with warm sun, birdsong, and invisible bleating goats.  Often when we walk in the gorge we enter at the same point and walk upwards, so we had forgotten just how narrow it gets towards the bottom.

Here it was like going down a drain created by tonnes of water crashing through over the millennia. 

One of the reasons we had seldom used this part of the gorge was that the huge boulders are hard to clamber over, especially when there is still water lying at the bottom, but now some kind soul has fixed metal rungs into the rock to make things easier.

Last year I shared a description of the Kritsa Gorge with Beryl Derby, (author of the great book about Spinalonga called Yiannis), as she wanted characters in her latest book Tassos to walk up through the gorge. I recently bought a copy of the book and to my surprise, saw a note of thanks to me in her acknowledgements.  If you are interested in finding out more about Beryl's books they are all on sale at the Eklektos bookshop in Elounda or available via www.beryldarbybooks.com.

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...

Heading towards the end

To empathise with those in the UK we had 6 days in a row without sun and needed to get the wellies out - very glam for a night out in Kritsa for a yummy meal at Agadon (AKA Big Tree or Yannies) with Sue and Barrie.

A few weeks before I'd saved a small battered cupboard from a bin so used the dull days to create my new dinky kitchen cupboard - just right for herbs etc. and all it cost me was €1.50 for a new knob.

When the wet weather passed it left clean and crisp air so we took the scenic route to Iereapetra - this photo from the road up to Kroustas clearly shows the 'scorpion' of Kritsa.

Once in Ierapetra we went for a stroll along the prom to choose a place for morning coffee.  The bad weather had flung kelp and sand all along the prom leaving only a couple of places open for business.  A couple of the cafes have parrots that are usually  'free' rather than caged and I'm guessing that this cat knew he'd come off worst if he decided to 'have a go'.

With the bright days continuing we enjoyed a stroll in Elounda, past the windmills and around the rocks where I was almost tempted to have a swim.  It wasn't the lack of a cozzie that stopped me but the lack of plastic shoes as sea urchins were very visible.  This photo is close to where we had our flask of soup and shows the remains of a 16C Christian church, all that is left is the mosaic floor in a remarkable condition considering it is totally open to the elements.

With our imminent return to the UK we decided to do 'jobs' for three mornings and then have the rest of the days out and about.  Sat in sunshine by one of the Agios Nikolaos beaches we watched a child enjoy the opportunity to build sandcastles without the fear that anyone would knock them over.

The wet days followed by the sun brought the almond blossom out.

Almond trees are interspersed among the olive trees - also notice the carpets of yellow oxalysis.

For our last picnic lunch we went to the sea side - several of them along the Istron coast.  The photo below was taken beyond Pachia Amos - yes that's snow on the left hand peak with Kritsa just visible on the right.

On the way back we stopped to view this lovely cove - a summer favourite.

Loath to go home as that really would have meant it was all over we had a final coffee in Agios Nikolaos.

For much of the time we'd been in Crete Alan had been nurturing some mini daffs that eventually bloomed.  A couple of days earlier and Hilary might have had them for her birthday!

The cats came for a last snack - hopefully they'll do their Rentokil duties!

Now back in the UK and looking forward to seeing friends and family during our UK holiday....

Sunny Days, Cosy Nights and Rain!

On any trip to Crete a visit to the Lassithi Plateau is a must, so on a clear blue sky we set off.  We used the route up from Neapoli and only passed two trucks heading down.  However, on two separate occasions we did have to wait for large flocks of sheep to pass by – we love these types of traffic jams!

Very few people were about on the plateau and we saw no one as we strolled across the flat lanes collecting fresh fennel from the trackside.  

 On our decent down on the Heraklion road, we stopped at the main tourist viewpoint for a picnic lunch and saw that the dam project far below is now complete.

It seems that a complete village will be lost when the reservoir fills, so I’ve taken a photo to compare how much gets ‘consumed’ in future.

January days continued bright, despite an ill-founded evil forecast for the last weekend.  Whatever the daytime weather, we are always pleased to have a cosy fire in the evenings and have already replaced wood supplies for ‘next time’.

Saturday 1^st February was dull and overcast so with flasks and cagoules packed we set off, with Hilary acting as tour guide, to complete the three hour walk up to Oxa, 563 metres above Elounda that we’d cancelled the previous weekend because we’d believed the forecast.  Thanks to Hilary and Phil's research, we know that Oxa is named after Naxos, son of Minos.  On the way, we passed through a deserted village, which apparently was the boundary between Olous (where Elounda is now) and Lato (near Kritsa).  

Here’s Hilary and Alan pointing the peak we needed to climb – it looks like a fortress even without any buildings.

Despite the building clouds, looking down on Elounda was magical and gave us a rest before the final slog up to the crest.

                                     

On reaching the summit, we saw many stone remains that had been adapted over the years and a modern church that provided dry seats for our coffee break.  Building clouds meant the photos of Agios Nikolaos below are hard to see – we’ll just have to go back on a sunny day!

John - If you look carefully through the gloom you'll see your hotel

Here’s our ‘team photo’.

Later that afternoon we still had enough energy to walk up to Barrie and Sue to watch Southampton beat Fulham 3 – 0.  Alan was happy with that result and, thanks to Sue, I was pleased to gain a jar of preserved lemons and the knowledge of how to make similar in future. 

Sunday 2^nd February brought continuous rain...no sympathy from those in the UK who've had weeks of it.  In the evening, there was the grand opening of Kritsa’s new cultural centre, sited within a renovated mechanical olive oil mill near to the car park.  I wondered if anyone would brave such a foul night but went anyway and I’m pleased I did as the venue was packed.  

After a blessing from x4 Pappas (Alan uses the plural term Papai but I’m sure that’s not right), and a relatively brief speech from the Mayor of Agios Nikolaos, two local musicians played a twenty minute ‘set’.  After this we all piled out to the free buffet and booze and, despite the large gathering, there was plenty to go around.  I think I was the only ‘foreigner’ there so I decided to go home where my plate of snacks acted as a tasty starter to our evening meal, although I’d fed the titbits of liver to a dog that followed me up the street.