We quickly fell into a routine. We'd walk first thing, then I'd jump in the sea. John found the water a bit too cold when he was recovering. Then we'd spend the afternoon chilling. Just thought I'd let you know that, Bee!
While John was still convalescing, I headed out on a walk. As I made my way through our village, I found this noticeboard where announcements of people who have died are posted. These can be found in most villages. This photo doesn't show it well but there were an incredible number of layers of old notices underneath. Obviously they never remove a previous one when putting up a new one. There might be a cultural reason for that. I wonder how many deaths this board has advertised?
We found a local walking book so, using that, I opted for a walk that took in a Minoan site. I got the impression that the site was pretty important but, to my amazement, the track to it was just a rough, rocky path heading up a steep hill! There was no other way in.
I scrambled up the path and found a few remains of stone walls but there wasn't a lot to see. It was in a spectacular location though.
The area around Mirtos is awash with greenhouses. I love the juxtaposition of the old column and the new greenhouses.
There were great views back over Mirtos.
I climbed back down the track I had come up on then followed the walk through olive groves. One thing about all the irrigation needed for the greenhouses is that it's given the Greeks an excuse to take their obsession with poly piping to a whole new level!
This sight made me laugh. We use poly piping at home. It comes in 1 inch or 1.5 inches diameters. It either has a green line along it or a blue one, depending on how strong it is. I couldn't believe it when I found exactly the same pipe here - only it was about 18 inches across!
The walk then led past acres and acres of greenhouses. And they were still building more!
One side effect of John being unwell was that we spent a lot of time in our room which meant that I could get stuck into writing my novel. I started the novel before covid then got sidetracked, so it's time to get back into it again!
I went shopping and found this. I had to laugh. It's chutney but they've called it chutneyaki. "aki" is something you add onto the end of a word in Greek and it means 'small' in a nice way. So it's a blend of English and Greek words.
The street we named 'cat alley'. Every morning, as we headed to the coffee shop, there would be at least 10 cats hanging around in the area of this photo, including one whose pupils were always dilated, a terrible condition in a bright environment with whitewashed buildings! It was impossible for us to go anywhere without sunglasses.
Meanwhile, a cat with diarrhoea managed to shit in the pot plant outside our door for the first few days. Eventually the cleaner filled the pot with tiles and it was a great success. Then, on our second-last morning, I was woken by a cat coughing up a furball outside our window. If you don't like cats, don't come to Greece!
When John felt up to walking again, we headed into the mountains to get some cooler walking weather. As we climbed up into the hills behind Mirtos, the extent of the greenhouse invasion became clear. White plastic rooves covered almost every space along the coast.
We're really enjoying the convertible. The car itself isn't pretentious-looking and it has a bit of clearance. We love driving in the open air. With this being a greener island than most, we even hear birds, a rarity in Greece! We've learned though that we have to wear hats to keep the sun off our faces. As we only have our daggy hiking hats, we only put them on when we're outside towns, haha!
Despite all the apps and books we have, we couldn't find a good walk in the hills so I asked a local restaurant owner. He told us to park at the next village, Christos, and walk to the one after that, Metaxohori, and return. We parked as instructed and asked google to take us to the next village. What we didn't realise was that both villages were almost abandoned. Google seemed to lead us down the tiniest, most overgrown, most rundown lanes in Christos. They were steep, and fig trees and thorny bushes blocked our way. It was fascinating though. Abandoned garden plants escaped onto old walls, throwing a curtain of brightly coloured flowers over the old stones.
I'm not sure what these flowers are but they were everywhere and they were stunning!
We peeped through doorless doorways and wandered past gorgeous ruined houses.
I even found an old iron, complete with its complicated-looking cord!
It was then a long slog downhill then an even longer slog uphill to the next village. There were lovely views on the way though.
Metaxohori was tiny and completely abandoned yet three churches, all close to each other, were meticulously maintained. Their whitewashed walls stood out from the crumbling stone houses nearby.
The walk was pretty hot and tough and we still had to return. We had thought it would be cooler up this high but it was the same temperature as the coast. We agreed that if a vehicle came along we would try to hitch back to Christos. Not surprisingly though, the number of cars travelling between two abandoned villages isn't high. We didn't see a single car on our way over. We were thrilled though when a little car with tourists in it came past on our way back. We flagged them down. Were they going to Christos, the next village? They shook their heads. They just came up here to have a look at the roads and were heading elsewhere. We chatted for a bit then, just as they were about to leave, they mentioned the town they were going to. John and I both knew that to go there, they had to go through Christos, but neither of us said anything. They had been adamant they couldn't take us so maybe they heard our Aussie accents and decided that the risk of us coming from Wolf Creek was too high! We plodded on in the heat and eventually made it back.
Along the way we found quite a few figs but they weren't ripe yet, sadly. We did find an orange tree with oranges that needed eating though.
Fortunately, before we left, one of the managers of our accommodation told us about a taverna near these villages. He said it was the best restaurant in Crete in his opinion. Well it certainly was amazing! As soon as we arrived, we were led to the outdoor kitchen area where a variety of dishes were cooking in pots over fires.
There were more dishes baking in an wood-fired oven and others were being kept warm in a normal oven. There didn't seem to be a menu so this was a great way to go. We shared a chicken and vegetable baked dish and a salad and it was all scrummy!
The pièce de résistance was dessert. At every place we've eaten in Crete so far, the free desert has always been a slice or two of watermelon. Here it was myzithropita, a local cheese pie smothered in honey, cinnamon and sesame seeds. Nom, nom, nom!
On our last full day, just as John started to come good, I felt a little worse, so we did more driving than walking. First stop was Kalami, a village that, according to our hiking book, was forcibly abandoned when the government wanted to build a dam above it. In the end, the dam was never built, and now the village sits on the side of a hill, slowly decaying. I went online to find out when it was abandoned, however I got a number of different reasons for the abandonment, none of which involved a dam, so who knows why, or when, it was abandoned!
A dozen or so people live there now but we only saw one, a middle-aged man sitting in a laneway engrossed in his phone with ferocious-sounding dogs locked in his house behind him.
We wandered through the overgrown laneways of what was obviously once a beautiful village. Brightly-coloured bougainvillea plants ran rampant, smothering everything around them. Old climbers completely obscured old steps. This collection of pots on a staircase were all broken but some of the plants survived, bursting out of their containers.
Open doors invited us into houses where we peeked into rooms full of rubbish and discarded furniture. Old beds stood rusting in corners and large wooden chests remained while the treasures they originally held had long gone.
Someone likes stating the obvious........
In a room next to a church, old books lay open, some sort of attendance record on display.
Every now and then there were signs that someone owned a property - a door that was locked or grills over windows. At one point, we climbed up an enticing side alley. Suddenly the booming bark of big dogs rang out from somewhere very close to us. With hearts pounding we turned around and ran back to the main road. At the bottom we looked around and were relieved to find no dogs following us. Then we heard a bark above us and a dog glared at us ferociously from a roof. Yep - that'll keep people out!
Back on the road, I couldn't resist a photo of Mr Cool Guy driving the convertible. It really is a lovely car!
We twisted our way up a long hill to Kato Symi Sanctuary and the ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite and Hermes. The temple complex was inhabited for an incredible 26 centuries, from around 2000BC, before being abandoned. An old ticket booth now sat at the entrance, similarly abandoned. Surprisingly, a high mesh fence surrounded the complex. After scrambling around a bit, we found the entrance gate, which was locked, however a person-sized gap in the fence beside it had been nicely cut and folded back so we wouldn't scratch ourselves as we climbed through. Only in Greece!
There wasn't a lot left of the ruins, but it was fun to explore them.
A type of spearmint groundcover grew all through the place. It smelled wonderful when we walked on it and my boots gave a subtle minty waft for hours afterwards!
An enormous plane tree still spread healthy branches, despite having only half a trunk remaining! It was probably old enough to have witnessed the temple complex when it was still operating.
All through the hills we have seen these vultures. They're wonderful fliers, soaring without flapping for ages.
Our last walk was the best one. We parked on a dirt road near what's called The Old Turkish Bridge. Actually built by Greeks, but during the Turkish occupation (in 1883), it's clearly an old Ottoman design with its stone arches. The surface was still cobblestoned. We could have driven over it if we wanted to but it was pretty rough.
Beside the track we found more irrigation piping works of art!
The edges of the villages are often the prettiest part of any walk. Here, the gardens merge with the orchards and farmland and often are beautiful to walk through.
Gourds in a window in the pretty village of Mithi.
Wildflowers were everywhere on our walks. Even some thorny or semi-desert plants were attractive in their prickliness. The dandelion-type plant on the top right was huge! My hand is in the photo for scale.
Back in the car, we drove past hundreds of greenhouses. Ahead of us, we saw a perfect green capsicum lying on a bumpy stretch of road. A few hundred metres later was a perfect red capsicum, again on a bumpy part of the road. It wasn't long before we caught the source. He really needed to tie down his load better!
There was a small museum in Mirtos that was open one day. We saw a few artifacts from the Minoan sites but most had been moved to the larges cities. There was a small section on the World Wars. The Cretans strongly resisted the Germans in WW2. In one village, some locals killed two German men. The Germans retaliated by killing over 400 men, women and children in the village. This happened all over Crete. Ironically, it's now mostly Germans that come to holiday in this idyllic village.
I swam in the sea each day. At first, the water felt freezing but I'm sure it got a degree or two warmer every day. The water was crystal clear but the beach was stony, making it hard to get in and out. Still, it was wonderfully refreshing after a hot walk.
Restaurants lined the stony beach. They looked lovely in the evening light.
A lovely evening sky over the beach,
On our last night we had a final meal at our favourite restaurant. My rooster in wine sauce with local hand-made pasta was amazing! I also had my first ouzo of the trip. Ahhhhh! Zachos (Zach), Lefteris and Yorgos, the three waiters, were all working, Yorgos, on the right of this photo, with his amazingly deep, booming voice was friendly, but Zach and Terry (our nickname for Lefteris) were great fun. Both younger, they were full of mischief and life. They were always joking around. It's guys like these that we love to meet.
On our way home we walked back along the restaurant-lined waterfront.
We then turned up the road to our place and passed the wonderful old lady with the incredible smiling face that we've seen a few times. We always say hello to her and her face lights up with the best smile ever when she answers. Tonight she was outside tending to her small potted garden. As we walked past I got a waft of her lemon-scented geraniums. I made a comment and soon she was plucking off pieces of basil, mint and another plant that I didn't know, to give us. She was amazing!
After previously being fairly keen to leave here to get away from the tourists and the hard bed, I suddenly felt sad to be leaving. We hadn't had enough meals at the great small very Greek restaurant that I found on the waterfront with the wonderful family that owned it. We hadn't chatted enough to Zach and Lefteris. We hadn't done all the walks there were to do. I know I'm romanticising but, despite the tourists, there is a genuine Greek village here. We will miss it.
Heather and John :)
