CRETE OCT 2015 - PT 1

We flew to Crete on 2nd Oct for 10 days. I had sailed into Heraklion in 1980 and visited Knossos, but knew little more about the island. I learnt a little Greek, but the whole tourist industry speaks English more or less competently, so I seldom had a real conversation where I had to communicate in Greek! Crete’s history has been one of foreign occupation for most of the past 2000 years. It was the cradle of the first known major civilization on European soil, the Minoan, between approximately 3000 BC and 1450 BC. It was then incorporated into first Dorian and then Hellenistic Greece until conquered by the Romans in 67 BC. On the fall of the Western Empire in the C5th it passed into the hands of the Byzantine Empire (with a century in Arab hands 824-961 AD) until conquered by the Venetians in 1204. They held the island until it was wrested from them by the Turks in the mid C17th. The rest of Greece threw off Turkish rule in 1821, but in Crete the occupiers hung on until 1898, when the island became independent for a few years before it was united with the rest of Greece in 1908. It was held by the German army from 1941 until 1944 when most of the island was liberated. The German garrison in Chaniá held out until May 1945. We started with a couple of days in Chaniá in the NW corner. It was an important Venetian fortified harbour as the city’s fabric bears witness, although a few mosques and other vestiges of Turkish rule remain. There is a Venetian mole with a lighthouse, a big “bastion”, city walls, the governor’s palace, monastery, shipyards, etc. We stayed in a little hotel with a view over the harbour and found the Greeks charming and friendly almost without exception. The city boasts a fine orthodox cathedral, an architectural museum (in part of an old Franciscan monastery) with a fascinating collection of coins, and a naval museum with a model of the Battle of Salamis, inter alia. Naturally we looked for places to dance, although on the whole our stay was disappointing in that respect. On the first evening we set out for a long and fruitless walk round the town looking for places where we were assured there would be dancing. On our return, by mere chance we found a bar immediately opposite our hotel (across a street less than 3 metres wide) with live music – a laouto (Greek lute) and a guitar. The building had no roof, but with the warm weather that did not matter. A group of about 15 people, apparently an end-of-season office party, came in and before long they were on their feet. Magda joined in one dance, but we were so tired (having got up at 3 a.m. for our flight) that we did not stay for more. The next day we explored Souda, the modern port in the outskirts. As we were having lunch the guitar player from the previous evening came past so we stopped him for a chat. He said that they were playing again that evening, which was the bar’s closing night of the season. So we went. This time there were three musicians: our friend, now playing the laouta, another playing the oud (a similar but older lute-like instrument) and a third the lira – a sort of three-stringed viella or treble viola played on the knee. It is a typical instrument of Greek folk-music. No one danced! Our next visit was to Elos, a tiny village in the mountains of western Crete famed for its chestnut festival. There was not much going on but we walked up into the hills among the chestnut trees and found 3 or 4 delightful, tiny country churches. As we came out of the tiniest of the three, a local farmer appeared with basket of little ripe figs and offered us a couple each. Here my Greek was put to its first serious test! In the village there was a wood-carver with a Mexican flag outside his shop; he explained that there were so many imported Chinese products in Greece that he refused to be Greek until Greece recovered its self-respect. On Monday we left Chaniá on the 9 a.m. bus for Plakias on the south coast to meet up with Nicholas, an English friend from Chile. He lived in Crete many years ago, owning a sailing boat and a donkey! I went for a couple of good walks in the mountains while Magda spent time on the beach. We had supper in a little place looking over the bay and ate snails as we watched the sun set. In restaurants you only order the starters and/or main dish (a couple of starters are often sufficient) and wine or beer. Clean tap-water is almost always available and when you order your bill they bring you a small portion of sweet pastry or fruit and yoghurt, and a little decanter of rakis – like Italian grappa. It is advisable not to finish the decanter, even between two of you! From there we headed east, changing buses in the old-established tourist resort of Agia Galini with its big, smart hotels. We arrived for the night in the commercial city of Mirés, hoping to find a B&B and a hire car. We found neither! Magda went exploring and entered a little restaurant where she explained our problem. Of course – said Ireni behind the counter – we have a friend with a little apartment to let, my sister will drive you there! And so it was all fixed up in a trice. As soon as we had settled in we took the bus a few miles east to the archaeological site of Gortys, which was the Roman capital of Crete and an important city. There was a 6th century church of St Titus (undergoing restoration) and a fairly well-preserved theatre. The rest was pretty much heaps of loose stones which reminded me of Easter Island! There was another theatre more or less excavated and recognizable, a forum and some temples, but nothing very easy to visualise. The most evocative sight was an olive tree, estimated to be over 1,600 years old, embracing a piece of Roman pillar! We returned for dinner – the only customers – at our friendly restaurant where Ireni’s mother Margarita did the cooking. She was one of the last 10 on the Masterchef competition for Greece and in the past has worked as a cook for various VIPs. We ate very well, then Ireni put on some music and the four of us did a couple of dances. It was a delightful evening.