One of the interesting things about Crete is that they have a different accent (John can hear it, I can't) and have some words that are different to the rest of Greece. I suppose it's a big place - it's the largest of the Greek islands - and the inhabitants have probably been doing their own thing for a very long time.
We left the beach and headed up into the hills. Crete is a very mountainous island. It was also the first Greek island we ever visited, 15 years ago. Again, we were pleasantly surprised at how green it was. This is the earliest we have ever been in Greece and it's clearly a greener time.
As we drove into villages, we were met by a barrage of colourful flowers.
Anogia seems to have grown quite a bit since then and it feels more touristy, although we didn't see a lot of other tourists. It was beautiful though. Many people took great pride is their flowering plants.
A heavily-pruned mulberry tree, potted geraniums and lace - all so typical of this area. There are lots of textiles made here.
We were looking forward to our apartment but it turned out to be smaller than we expected. The bed was wonderfully soft though! The owner told us about traditional items in the apartment - some very old weavings in frames and his grandmother's curtains that were 100 years old. I must say, I had noticed the curtains - they didn't cover all the window and they stunk! The man also raved about the traditional coverings on the cushions. We ended up using those cushions a lot as the hard wooden chairs were tough going, however we still got sore bums. John said he got grandma's designs imprinted on his! We have this sort of thing happen all the time. Just because something might seem to be a lovely idea, if it isn't practical then it shouldn't be there.
The place had a huge deck which overlooked a few small sheep paddocks. From the deck we looked straight at a church. I made the comment to John that I hope it doesn't have bells. The next morning, it proved to us that it certainly does have bells!. Thankfully, it only happened at 7am on Sunday and we were awake then anyway.
We had heard there would be a wedding on the next day. We didn't see it, but the wedding guests all did the Greek thing and drove through the town with horns blaring.
We went looking for a supermarket. That's when we discovered that we were staying in the part of town that's at the bottom of a big hill, while the main restaurants and supermarkets were all at the top. It took us an hour to walk to the supermarket and back, although we also had a look around on the way.
After a great sleep, we headed to the nearby village of Axos to do a walk. We parked at a beautiful church perched on the edge of a small cliff. The gorgeous belltower was only a metre or two from the edge.
We had great views over the fertile valley from the church.
We were disappointed to find ourselves climbing down as we knew we had to do a lot of climbing later in the walk. That bell tower tormented us by getting higher and higher above us.
We walked along dusty tracks lined with food-bearing trees. We saw oranges, plums, apples, pears, walnuts, figs and, of course, olives. Most of the trees either weren't fruiting yet or the fruit wasn't ripe but John managed to score a delicious orange from a tree using a stick. Yum!
There are supposedly 100,000 sheep in the Anogia area in summer. (John's comment when he heard that was, "That's just a good night out in New Zealand!") In winter, most of the sheep are moved to lower pastures. Winters in Anogia are very cold.
We knew a mob of sheep were coming towards us when a teenage boy with a shepherd's crook came up the road. Sure enough, the mob soon passed us while the boy's younger brother brought up the rear.
They were all ewes in milk but there were only two lambs, so we guessed they were a milking mob. This area is renowned for producing sheep milk. Sure enough, a bit further up, we found the yard and milking machine where the mob had come from. It seems the ewes go up the ramp, eat grain from the overhead feeder while they get milked then they go down a ramp on the other side.
We later met some men at a local cafe. One of them milked 150 sheep a day - by hand! Plus he did it with only him and his dog. When we asked how long it took, he said two hours but it seemed to be a bit of a guess. That's fast going!
Again, flowers continued to flourish along the walk.
The walk was fairly hard and we were starving when we finished. We found a taverna in the village of Axos and had a lovely lunch under the shade of a huge plane tree with this sign on it....
The owner here was a bit grumpy when we asked for a menu, apparently before he was ready. He said, "You are on holidays. You can relax. I am working. I am stressed. When I go on holidays, then I can relax!" The weird thing was, there was only one other couple and one man in the restaurant, and they all seem to have already got their food!
We spent a bit of time here in the coming days. It was a lovely place to hang out, just enjoying the comings and goings of village life. People stopped cars to talk to their friends who were drinking coffee or raki in the cafe. Old men sat alone or with friends, the clack, clack of their rosary beads acting like background music. Like nearly every Greek cafe we go to, the owner, nearly always a man, sat inside surveying his kingdom while his wife ran around and did all the work.
After a good sleep, we got up and did it all again! First we found the geopark information centre in Anogia, however the man that served us there didn't know much. Apparently, the usual staff had just finished a three-day conference where there was a lot of raki drunk, so they were all still asleep! There were heaps of expensively-printed, full-colour glossy photo booklets we could take plus I grabbed some walking maps. The man then insisted that we take a couple of geopark caps as well, which we didn't need but didn't want to offend him. We walked out of there with armfuls of printed literature, most of which turned out to be pretty useless. So much EU money goes into these places and it so often seems to be directed in the wrong ways.
Sticking to the plan we had made before we found the info centre was open, we headed up into the mountains above us, to an area called the Nida Plateau. Situated at an altitude of 1360 metres it's one of the features of the Psiloritis Geopark. We had read how it's a unique plain surrounded by mountains. We thought it would be a huge but it was surprisingly small and not that spectacular really. It's just the green part in the photo below.
There were plenty of other things to see though. This area is know for its mitata, traditional round, dry stone huts for shepherds to live in temporarily when they bring their sheep up to the high pastures. Some were also used for cheese-making. Strangely, even through the whole structure in the photo below was maybe five metres across, the walls were over a metre thick, making the interior quite small. Plus, the entrance was tiny. I really had to stoop right down to get inside.
Nearby there is always a stone yard for keeping the sheep in overnight. There are many of these stone houses and yards scattered across the area.
Even though shepherding is still done in a very similar way today, the modern buildings and yards somehow lack the glamour of the old ones. We saw plenty of these!
Just nearby is Idaion Cave. This is a hugely important cave in the mythology of the island as it's supposed to be the place where Zeus was raised. The Minoans, in particular, revered Zeus and traveled great distances to attend ceremonies in the cave. Even though the cave isn't that large, many artefacts were found here.
Zeus' mother, Rea, apparently hid him here to protect him from his father, Kronos. Zeus was raised on the milk of goats. The descendants of those goats were clearly hanging around in case they would be called on to raise another god.......
They have a lot of sinkholes here that drain water away when it rains. Some were much deeper than this. John's doing his best explorer pose, haha.
All along our drive and walk we could see the Skinakas Observatory on a high peak, towering over everything except Mt Psiloritis. There was a made road going up to it so off we went. The drive up was spectacular. The arid, rugged mountains looked really wild.
At the top, we could see all the way to the sea. John said I won't be taking any narrator jobs away from David Attenborough in this video!
To our surprise, there were four different observatories.
Driving back down, we saw what seemed to be an ancient site and it was open. We stopped and got chatting to the lovely lady manning a ticket office. Strangely, there was no fee and no tickets - just free booklets and free cakes and would we like some raki with that? Maybe a beer? No? Then you must have a cold water! The cakes were delicious!
Zominthos was a Minoan site but in better condition that previous ones we'd seen. It was discovered in the 80's when archaeologists who were working on the Idaion Cave heard a shepherd mention the name. The "-inthos" ending denotes a name that goes back to prehistoric times. They checked it out and found a Minoan palace!
By the time we got back to our village it was mid-afternoon and we were starving! We found a restaurant with great views (and accompanying stink from the sheep yards nearby) and had a delicious lunch which included saganaki made from home-made sheep's' cheese, grilled then served with tomato chutney plus a local spaghetti that is cooked in stock and served with local home-made myzithra cheese. Yum!
There are always cats at restaurants but this one was striking with its blue and green eyes!
Every second car in Anogia seems to be a ute and every second one of those seems to have sheep milk containers in the back!
We were too tired to do much in the afternoon so we took it easy. We were still full from lunch so we didn't venture out of our room for the rest of the day. We were ready to go the next day though and headed out to do one of the walks we found at the info centre. The hardest part was starting - the map of the walk didn't accurately show the starting point! By cross-checking with google maps, I thought I found it so we headed off. We did find it, plus there was a sign at the end of a dirt road showing the track. We headed down the dirt road and found another wonderful mitata.
Soon afterwards, we were stopped by a guard dog blocking our way. By now I felt like we weren't on the track so we returned to the start. 20 minutes after we had started, we found markers directing us away from the road where the sign was and up the hill over a rocky section with no path. We followed this along for a while until we came to a farmer's rusty reo fence. Usually, there is a gate that you can walk through in these situations, but this fence was well and truly designed to keep all creatures out, despite John's best attempts to undo the rusty wire ties and force his way in. That's called breaking and entering, John! We gave up and returned to our car, disillusioned.
We had another lovely lunch in Anogia. The free desert was delicious - it was some kind of candied fruit peel. We asked what it was and learned it was watermelon rinds!
I found a walk that took in both our village and some area around it. We set out early one morning. "Our" cafe was just waking up when we went for coffee at 7am. Unlike on many islands, locals here consider that to be very early.
We passed men working with sheep and a few ferocious guard dogs who were tied up, fortunately. Then we spied a mulberry tree that was laden with berries. They were incredible! They were one of the sweetest-tasting fruits either of us have ever eaten. I wish you could have tasted them!
Mulberry fingers.
The hills were awash with wild flowers. There was such an amazing variety.
I'm sure this yellow flower is a weed but it was pretty spectacular en-masse!
This plant had me stumped. What on earth is it?
Our walk then led us back through the town. We saw quite a few milk vats for sheep milk at random places on the footpaths.
We timed this one beautifully. A ute had backed up to a vat and was filling it with sheep's milk that had just been milked. As soon as they poured it all in, a milk tanker pulled up, took a sample of the milk for testing, then pumped the milk into the tanker. The bit we can't figure out is how they cool the milk quickly enough. They must have it sorted though as all the sheep milk products we've had here are delicious!
What a better way to break the walk than with a galaktoboureko, a type of custard pie in philo, complete with sheep's milk ice cream!
We had a quick shower, got changed then headed out to a winery for a tasting. It was an hour's drive away but the drive was lovely. As we approached the wine-growing area, the valley was really pretty with grapevines and olive trees.
We had chosen a tasting that was set in the vineyard itself. They gave us a spiel at the winery rooms then were loaded up onto the back of a ute to be taken to the vineyard. Only in Greece!
We got on really well with a young English couple who were on their honeymoon. The 90-minute tasting somehow stretched out to nearly three hours! We chatted, we tasted some very good wines and all the while a dog slept under John's feet. It was a really lovely afternoon.
We saw a number of these signs advertising a "Snail Farm and Fun"! Snails are eaten here. I simply can't imagine how a snail farm could be fun!
The next day was our last day in Anogia. We decided to attempt another walk promoted by the geopark. Surely there wouldn't be a fence across the path stopping us from going on again. Incredibly, we were wrong!!!
The walk started well. We found our way to an old windmill. There used to be thousands of these across Crete and now there are only a handful left.
We were a bit over halfway through the walk when we hit a fence. Our walk map told us to go through the 'gate'. We had to untie some tie wire but it was ok. We then hit another fence that wasn't mentioned on our map. And we couldn't get through it or over it! The fences aren't strong enough to hold our weight for us to climb over them. We tried a number of different ways, all to no avail. Meanwhile, I got stung by something and we were getting scratched by all the thistles. Finally we found a way out that involved dismantling two sections of the fence. We tied it back up again behind us. We're starting to really not like Greek reo fences! The fence was quite tall - I held the camera over my head to take this photo.
We then squeezed in a quick visit to the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology which, handily, was on the next block from where we were staying. It was fascinating! The ancient Greeks invented so many amazing things, reaching a peak in the 3rd century BC. Due to all sorts of reasons (political strife, poor rulers, etc), knowledge and technology declined and this level wasn't then reached again until the 13th century.
We were a bit over halfway through the walk when we hit a fence. Our walk map told us to go through the 'gate'. We had to untie some tie wire but it was ok. We then hit another fence that wasn't mentioned on our map. And we couldn't get through it or over it! The fences aren't strong enough to hold our weight for us to climb over them. We tried a number of different ways, all to no avail. Meanwhile, I got stung by something and we were getting scratched by all the thistles. Finally we found a way out that involved dismantling two sections of the fence. We tied it back up again behind us. We're starting to really not like Greek reo fences! The fence was quite tall - I held the camera over my head to take this photo.
The track forward hadn't been used for a long time and it was a rough scramble to the village of Gonies, but we got there. The village was gorgeous. Mostly abandoned, it had a great mix of old stone houses and colourful flowers. We got talking to a couple of ladies. We told them we were staying at Anogia and they told us that Anogia is too busy for them. Anogia has a population of 4,000 people. Gonies has around 300 so I guess that's a fair comment!
It was surprising how many abandoned houses were decorated with flowers.
It was a gorgeous village to walk through.
The few people we saw all stopped to stare at us. They all said hello and gave a friendly smile. If you look closely in the photo below you can see a little old lady on a balcony watching us.
We returned to our room and got ready to leave. John had some leftovers from dinner the night before for lunch but I needed something so I wandered up to "our" cafe. To my amazement, what must have been a bus loads of tourists were milling around, presumably getting sheep's milk ice creams. It was going to take too long to get served so I thought I'd try the simple taverna directly across the road from our accommodation. Maria, the owner of our accommodation, hadn't recommended it to us so we hadn't been there. It looked empty most of the time anyway. But I thought I'd try it as I didn't have time to go elsewhere.
Just as I was struggling to get the taverna lady to understand me, I saw Maria. I ran over to her and asked if she could translate for me. "No," she said, surprisingly gruffly. "I have a problem that that lady." We have come across this before. Everything in the village seems idyllic on the outside but there are always undercurrents weaving through. Anyway, my omelette and bread were delicious!
We drove back down the hills to the coast with the roof down for the last time. As soon as we got to the outskirts of Heraklion, the traffic was crazy! We finally made it to a car park at the port where we had to return our lovely car. We simply left the key under the mat and the car unlocked as directed. I love the way there is such trust in other people! It took 15 minutes to walk to our apartment then we had a four-flight slog up stairs in the heat with all our bags. We were ever so grateful to get to the top!
Our apartment is wonderful! It's compact but has a comfy bed and a washing machine!
The best thing though was the great views over the old port. The old building on the water is a Venetian castle, built in the 1500's.
We had to eat at a famous local restaurant which specialises in Cretan farm-to-plate food that night. It was lovely, but I had hoped for a bit more variety of options. I suppose traditional is exactly that though!
The next morning, we walked early to avoid the heat. It turned out to be quite a windy day though so it didn't feel too hot. We walked along the harbour wall. It was 2.3kms long! A huge German cruise ship was pulled in. It seemed to take us ages just to walk the length of it.
We watched a guy fishing for a bit. His bike and fishing setup looked photogenic against the backdrop of the old castle.
The thing not to miss in Heraklion is the archaeological museum. The sheer volume of really old items in great condition was mind-blowing! The Minoan culture was strongly represented.
This is the famous bull-leaping painting from the Minoan palace of Knossos. Athletes leapt over the horns and backs of bulls as the bulls charged them! Both women and men competed in this sport. There are lots of things I'd try but this isn't one of them!
Bulls featured strongly in Minoan art. This piece was amazing!
Remember that underwhelming Idaeon Cave that we visited earlier? The pieces of art that came out of it, particularly bronze figures and shields, were a real eye-opener. Many items dated from the 9th to 7th centuries BC.
I was quite shocked at how touristy the area around the museum was. Block after block was full of tourist shops and restaurants. Not our cup of tea at all. We found a vegan place for lunch (ok, I dragged John along kicking and screaming!) and we had the best falafels ever! The agreement was that we would then eat at his choice for dinner, which was a seafood place. It turned out to have great salads, thankfully.
We started our last morning in Crete early with a quick walk around part of the old Venetian city walls. Some parts have disappeared and some are incorporated into other structures but there was still plenty to see.
The church of St Titus has an interesting history. It was first built in 961 AD. During Ottoman times, it was repurposed as a mosque and, after being levelled by the great earthquake of 1856, was rebuilt as a mosque before being turned back into a church in 1925 after Crete’s liberation. I don't think there are too many buildings that have a Muslim dome with a cross on top!
Technology was deployed for all sorts of reasons. Religious leaders had temple doors that automatically opened when a sacrifice was made and holy water that was dispensed when someone dropped a coin in a slot - the world's first vending machine! In war times, there were some very clever methods of communication, including one that used a system of torches and water levels to send specific messages. There was even a humanoid robot is the 3rd century BC! Ok, so it could only pour wine but still, it's pretty impressive! There were copies of cranes built of wood and rope, of the type that built the Parthenon. There was a water-powered clock that ran all year round and an alarm clock invented by Plato in the 5th to 4th centuries BC. The alarm clock worked by dripping measured amounts of water in urns.
Probably the most amazing thing was the fact they invented a simple machine that operated on steam but, due to the socio-economic and political situations at the time, this never advanced any further. If it had, the industrial revolution could have happened 2,000 years earlier. Imagine what the world would be like today if that happened then!
I'd like to explore more of Crete one day. It's such a big place - surely there's a beautiful beach without too many tourists somewhere!
Heather and John
