18 – 27 May 2015
CRETE
IRAKLIO/HERAKLIO &
PHAESTOS/PHAISTOS
Arriving from Santorini early evening off the ferry, my booked
Greco Hotel is right in the centre of Greece’s fifth largest city so it was
easy to wander about the old town along with the crowds enjoying a warm summer evening,
I find St Mark’s Basilica/then mosque/ now art gallery hosting a free concert
of classical guitar – lovely refined music, politely listened to by an
appreciative audience – a world away from Santorini’s photo snapping tourists. Next
day sees an obligatory trip out to Knossos, the Minoan’s huge palace. However
the discovering archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans spent 35 years excavating and
reconstructing parts of the palace, deciding create his own versions of
restoration meaning that most buildings and relics here are not genuine. So I
did find it a little amusing that no one was telling the tourists this as I
watched tour group after tour group from the cruise ships, who were coming in
their hundreds, photographing anything within their line of sight. Busing back
to town I met Brendan from Ireland, who seemed very well informed about our Australian
prime minster as he asked me if our Prime Minister really was a clown?! Visiting
the Heraklion museum was a real highlight with artifacts spanning 5000 years
that were well curated, exhibits were in great shape, great explanations and I
learned a lot about the Minoans who were certainly a very busy civilisation ruling
over Southern Europe 4000 years ago.
Walking the sights of Heraklio, I met up several times with
a Mexican/Canadian (also staying at our hotel) who is planning to go south to
visit another Minoan palace, Phaestos & then on to Matala tomorrow, assuring
me it can be done in a day. So up early the next day, I join him on the 7.30am
bus out of Heraklio to arrive at Phaistos several hours later. This site is
second only in size to Knossos but without Evans’ vivid imagination making it a
lovely, authentic site with very few tourists & great views across the
Mesara Plain. This is where the mysterious Phaestos Disk (that I saw in the
museum yesterday) was excavated http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_9.htm Checking bus schedules, my new friend offers
to shout us a taxi down to Matala where Zeus swam ashore with the kidnapped
Europa on his back. It’s also the site of Neolithic caves originally used as
tombs by the Romans and then used as low cost housing by travellers (read
hippies) in the 60s to be immortalised by Joni Mitchell in the song, Carey. Now
the hippies have gone & the hike over the rocks to wild & windy Red
Beach made it just the spot for a great late lunch with very few tourists
venturing that far from Matala village.
NOTE: don’t ask me about the different spelling of the
cities – it’s the same for most of them on Crete!
21 – 25 May
CHANIA/HANIA
Ho hum, another day,
another Venetian Port!
Heading over to the north west of Crete, to Chania and the Kydonia
Rooms are in the old town and
very close to the waterfront. My window
overlooks a garden of the nearby Archaeological Museum, which of course
deserves a visit – usual mix of artefacts but it does include some Roman mosaic
floors and the building itself is a Venetian monastery. Walking along the sea walls
of the Venetian harbour to the restored
Venetian Lighthouse and at the other
end of town. I am still trying to
find confirmation the Rhodes ferry, asking at various ticket offices but
without much success so we all agree that it might only become visible on online timetables after
the weekend. Making plans to walk the Samaria Gorge on Friday, the pension
owner is more than happy to store bags for 24 hrs and keep ‘our’ room for when
we get back. Chania is lovely with all the perks of a cruise destination, with
some style. Dinner at Portes, a flash laneway restaurant specialising in Cretan
specialities was fab, including complimentary bread and desserts unlike
Santorini, where you were lucky not to be charged to look the olives! So I’m certainly
enjoying the benefits of a popular tourist destination with a gentle and
individual Cretan influence.
22 -23 May 2015
SAMARIA GORGE
‘a hike through this
stupendous gorge is an experience to remember’ & it’s my birthday
I read that more than 170,000 people walk the Samaria Gorge
each year, averaging out to 1000 per day in high season, only opening a month
ago! We make plans to let all of those keen walkers start ahead of us, get to sleep
in & catch the later bus to Omalos, which was a lovely drive down south
climbing up into the White Mountains. Arriving
at the trail head, Xyloskalo on the Omalos Plateau, everyone on board was quickly
off & away but I tarry, taking loads of fotos of the fab views and find a
walking ‘stick’ (a bamboo stick I had carried back from Red Beach got left
behind in Heraklio) to aid me as the path is very rocky, with step after step
after step all downhill. Meeting an Irishman coming up? the hill who tells me
about a great pension in Agia Roumelo and he is soon followed by gangs of keen
walkers with walking poles clicking against the rocks, as they power UP the
gorge, whilst I step on down & down the 16km of a well maintained trail
with informative markers and notes, potable water & rest stops
strategically placed. Passing reassuring park officers with their first aid
horses I see carry out two injured walkers. All very well organised, even down
to checking off tickets at entry to be matched again at the exit to check that
everyone who starts the walk is accounted for. At 16km, Samaria Gorge is supposedly the
longest in Europe, carved out by the river that flows between the peaks of Mts
Avlimaniko (1858m) and Volakias (2115m), with the span of the gorge varying
from 150m to right down to 3m, the famous ‘Sidiroportes’ or Iron Gates, whose
vertical walls reaching 500m at their highest points and were so hard to
photograph to do any justice to just how fabulous it all was. The trail passes Samaria
village, whose inhabitants were all relocated when the gorge became a national
park, and is the perfect pot for a lunch break. The gorge officially ends at
the 14km mark, and it’s a further 2km to reach the seaside village of Agia
Roumeli with a very pebbly beach on the Libyan Sea that was icy cold but so
restorative for my tired feet.
Walking through Cypress forests, then Calabrian pine
forests, oaks, maples and many endemic flora still in bloom was a real treat
although I missed seeing the endangered Kri Kri goat (I hope that wasn’t one I
saw being butchered when we passed through the village at the end!). After a
night in Agia Roumeli, there was a great ferry trip around the lovely coastline
to Chora Sfakion, from where there is a bus back through the other side of the
mountains and Chania, where our ‘room already has your bags installed’ was
waiting.
FACT: During the Second World War, after Germany invaded
Crete, the Samaria Gorge was used to shelter rebels along with the Allied
forces who retreated from Crete through another nearby gorge to safety.
23-24 May 2015
CHANIA/HANIA
Next day was spent recovering from that gorge walk, with aging
knees & hips feeling jarred from the continual stepping down. A decision is made to stay an extra day here
as the room is great, the town is very peaceful, being large enough to absorb
the cruise crowds without being too annoying and still plenty of interesting
sights (& shops) with that great Venetian
harbour. Walked along the old Venetian city walls, that still enclose the Venetian
quarter of town, visited St Nicholas Church/was a mosque/now a church again that
had great lighting effects to illustrate the architectural changes each
religion made to the building to make it their own. Today there was a street protest
by a very mixed and large crowd, but when I asked our room’s owner what it was
about he replied, “these are foolish people” so I remain ignorant of why they
were protesting. Lots of walking about the smarter parts of the city, coffee, sticky
pastries & games of backgammon in the lovely tree shaded Splanzia Sq. and are
at a fab Cretan restaurant just out of town – my lamb cooked in wine was just
mmmmm. Come the new week and I finally got confirmation and tickets for the
Rhodes ferry that will dock at Sitia, a small town at the far eastern end of
the island, on Wednesday. That makes it easy now to plan the last few days here
on Crete. Squeezed in visits to the archaeological
museum with a Byzantine collection and a great art gallery that had a terrific
photo exhibition of three contemporary Greek photographers given a floor each –
a solo exhibition each! http://www.pinakothiki-chania.gr/pinakothiki-chania.gr/en/exhibitions/sotiris_felios.html
PS Hania has a huge
array of museums – Archaeological, Byzantine & Post Byzantine Collections,
Nautical Museum, Historical Archives, Municipal Art Gallery, Folklore Museum,
Arts & Crafts village, School Life Museum, Typography Museum, Chemistry
Museum AND the Museum of Contemporary Art. Phew!
NOTE: An announcement yesterday by Greece’s Finance minister
that Greece will NOT be making the next loan repayment to the EU, makes talk of
a ‘Grexit’ more likely, if only temporary? Only time, EU manoeuvrings &
Greek Parliament will tell.
25 May 2015
RETHYMNO
With a half day left in lovely Hania, I managed to squeeze
in a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete (MCAC) & what a
lovely space hosting an exhibition titled Flying Over the Abyss, with so many
pieces and installations challenging and considerate of the theme, from artists
all over the world. Loved it! The finally found the Synagogue open where I met
a lovely Australian who has been here for 8 years now, married to a Cretan, who
was really interesting to talk to. There are only 8 jews left here in Hania now,
with this being the only synagogue - a local artist has started an interesting
project http://www.konstantin-fischer-hania.com/i-wish-i-knew-more.html
Also squeezed in a quick trip to the
other side of the city to find an interesting Church (was a church, was a
mosque, now a church) now open & revisit a gallery where I had seen a print
of a lovely woodcut in a gallery window. This morning they are open and the
unframed print was very affordable so now it will soon be posted home with a
few other ‘small ‘purchases. Did I mention the silk weavers from Northern
Greece with a small ‘pop up’ shop on the harbour, with lovely scarves?
Only took an hour’s travel to reach Rythymno – another
walled Venetian Port on Crete’s North Coast. A park here has a large memorial
to Australian soldiers who fought in WW2 alongside the Cretans, who then
sheltered and aided their evacuation from the island after Germany invaded and occupied
Crete – now I know where Tom Sullivan & Norm Baker were fighting with the
partisans (for those of us who watched The Sullivans many years ago)! Sightseeing
around the Fortress of Fortezza Rethymno (ho hum, another day, another Venetian fort), but this one was built
on top of the ancient Rithimna acropolis, in 1573, with terrific views. Much
was destroyed during WW2 but it is a nice wander in the fading afternoon sun
with a few restored bits and great views over the old city and harbour. Meeting
up with Mal there, he tells me about an installation in the restored Mosque of
Sultan Ibrahim Han (built after the Turks captured the city in 1646) from an
exhibition being staged at the Contemporary Arts Museum, so I collect the
address, open times and a catalogue – yah. There is a busker out front is
playing a great classical guitar and the fort shop had the cheapest postcards
I’ve seen since Samos, so a big buy up on picture cards today for all my
friends. Walking back through the old walled town, I find the Venetian’s popular Rimondi Fountain,
Loggia (Meeting house for nobility, now a shop) and the only vestige of the
original city wall, the Porta Guora. The Ottoman’s Neratzes Mosque was
converted from a Franciscan church & has now been restored and converted
into a music conservatory so tourists are allowed in for a quick look see at
the domed roof in excellent condition. Back at the fort, I read a poster for an
Old City Festival and tonight they are showing the movie, 100 Foot Journey at
the Historical & Folk Art Museum, a Venetian
mansion. I turned up on time to lots of chairs set up, to find out that a) they
showed the movie on Saturday night, b) they have changed the program and it is
now a walking tour of the old city in Greek language only & c) they have
changed the time & the tour started at 7pm! But it was a nice walk back to
scour a 2nd hand shop and find some nice textiles to go home with
that woodcut & scarves…..
PS I read in the
Chania Post about an Australian who built & dedicated an Orthodox chapel to
the Cretans in 1979, as a token of gratitude to the southern Prevelly Beach
monastery who provided shelter and helped him to escape Crete. Named St John
the Theologian, at Prevellly Park in WA, Australia, it was described as a
little piece of Crete on the Western Australian coast. Who knew?
26 May 2015
SITIA, CRETE
A Region rich in
Nature & Culture
Visited the Archaeological Museum housed in a Turkish Era
prison, which was well informed with a highlight being a lovely Aphrodite
sculpture, 1 B.C. along with the usual Minoan, Geometric, Archaic, Classical,
Hellenistic and Roman artefacts! An
express bus to Iraklio allows for a quick stop over that gives me time to post
another 3kgs home while wondering if I am doing the right thing in sending off
my down coat back home so fingers crossed there will be more good weather in
Turkey ;-) Another express bus to Agia Nicholas which seems to be a bit of a
tourist haunt, with nice beaches hereabouts, then onto the next bus. But 20
minutes into the 2hr trip to Sitia we stop for some Germans who had got on the
wrong bus, to her chorus of shizer, shizer which made me laugh thinking of all
the wrong buses I have boarded in my travels. Great countryside again with
amazing mountains full of rocks, oleanders (boy, so I have some respect for the
tough oleander bush now) and very little development. Arrived in Sitia to find the
lovely Hotel Krystal with a lift to the 4th flr – yaah, no stairs to
climb to the cheap rooms. This town that must see a lot of tourists at some
time going by the number of seaside eating establishments here, but certainly not
too many folk about today and very ittle chinese tat for sale. A visit to St
Katerinas finds a mass in progress with 2 men taking turns singing the creed
and only one other man in the congregation but the decorations and paintings in
this church are elaborate & in good condition, a sure sign money is coming
into the community. The Kazarma Castle up the hill was built by the Venetians as a garrison and gives great
views over the town, but apparently the walls are Roman; see how good I getting
with dating my ruins!! Dinner by the seaside with great meze, a few raindrops
about but nothing serious, so all looking well for travel tomorrow, all the way
to Rhodes – my last Greek island for this trip
PS Sitia was an established Minoan city & port, trading
with the Phoenicians & Egyptians since 2500 B.C. It is now Greece’s most
southernmost port.
