CRETE
CRETE
After teaching intensive courses for two months in the summer, Colleen and I decided to get away to a warm climate. We decided on Greece, a country neither of us had visited, and found a somewhat inexpensive package deal to Crete. There are tons of packages to Greece originating in the Prague and it was difficult to find one that was not already sold out. We ended up in a small tow/village on the north coast called Analipsis. It’s about 20 kilometers from the capital city of Heraklio or Iraklion depending on which map or street sign you were reading. I think Heraklio is the English spelling and Iraklion is the Greek.
Analipsis is in an area of the island that is growing rapidly based on expansion of the tourist trade. Lots of construction and new building surrounded by the older, somewhat rundown little town. There was a brand new, fancy, modern, very expensive resort right on the beach near the modest place where we stayed. But most of the buildings in the area, even the new ones were simple and plain. Even in the little town there were vacant lots overgrown with weeds and a hundred meters up the road was an olive orchard. Our apartment was simple but nice. No air conditioning and no fan but we were able to get the breeze from the ocean about 200 meters away and had a good view of the sea.
Crete is an island in the eastern Mediterranean some distance from the mainland of Greece. It has an ancient history which blends into Greek Mythology. According to Greek Mythology, the Goddess Rhea fled to Crete to protect her unborn child from his father, Cronos, who swallowed his children because he feared that one of his offspring would usurp his power. That child was Zeus. Later, Zeus transformed himself into a bull and seduced Europa by whom he had Minos, the future ruler of Crete. Minos married Periphae whom the Gods tricked into falling in love with bull and she conceived the Minotaur, the fierce creature with the body of a human and the head of a bull. The Minotaur inhabited the labyrinth in Knossos and each year young boys and girls were placed in the labyrinth as sacrificial victims. Theseus, the son of the king of Athens ultimately killed the Minotaur. Angry that the Minotaur had been killed, the King of Crete imprisoned Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth, and his son, Icarus, in the labyrinth. Daedalus built wings out of feathers and wax and they tried to escape. Unfortunately Icarus flew too near the sun, against his father’s warning, the wax melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. So, as you can see Crete figures largely in the stories you have heard and read about Greek Mythology.
There is evidence that Crete may have been inhabited as early as 6500BC. We know that the Minoans, one of the early civilizations, existed in 2600BC and reached it’s zenith in 1900BC when the palace at Knossos was built. (More about that later.) After prospering for 1500 years, the Minoan civilization was destroyed by the Greeks in 1100BC and the Greeks ruled the island until the Romans took control in 67BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Crete became part of the Byzantine Empire from 330AD to 1204AD with a brief interlude from 813 to 961 when the Saracens controlled the island. In 1204, the Crusaders, rather than making that long trip to Jerusalem and fight the Infidels, decided to sack the Christian city of Constantinople instead. They dismembered the Byzantine Empire and sold the island of Crete to the Venetians. The Turks and the Ottoman Empire took control of Constantinople in 1453 and after many attempts, finally conquered Crete in 1669 and ruled until 1898. The Cretans rebelled with the help of the Greeks and were declared an independent state in 1898. Crete was united with Greece in 1913 The island was occupied by the Germans from 1941 to 1945. And so ends the History lesson for today. No tests.
The first few days were spent going from the beach to the pool. Nothing strenuous and no desire to do much more. The beach was nice and deep, lined with chairs and umbrellas you could rent. The beach was sandy but the water was clear, even at the shoreline. Crete is a huge rock and at water’s edge there were flat, slippery rock shelves you had to get across to get into deep water. It was very windy and the breakers would shove you back. The water was cold but not unbearable after you got in. I wanted to get a tan so I was careful about how much time I spent in the sun. The little village of Analipsis struck me as more “poor” than “quaint” or “fancy” as you would expect of a village on the sea which depended primarily on the tourist trade.
It was active at night but mostly only people going to restaurants to eat or wandering in and out of tourist shops. Very little night life, which was fine as we had a kitchen and ate most of our meals in the apartment.
After a few days, we got bored with just lying n the sun, so we took a day trip to Heraklio and Knossos. Knossos is the Minoan Palace built in 1900BC, destroyed by an earthquake, rebuilt, and destroyed again about 1300BC. Knossos is big and consists of many building which comprise the palace. Mostly just ruins, there are several columns and frescoes which are brightly colored as they would have been originally. This was done by a British archaeologist named Evans who began the excavation of Knossos in 1900. From paint chips still on the walls and small fragments of the frescoes, he restored the color on certain columns and reconstructed frescoes as he thought they would have been. Thus we have several bright colored frescoes including the famous one depicting “bull jumping” in which the young man runs toward a charging bull, grabs him by the horns and vaults over his back. Evidently a pastime enjoyed by young Minoans who had nothing better to do. The construction was amazing for something built at that time. There were stairs, columns that were larger at the top than the bottom, archways, and colorful frescoes. We marvel at Machu Picchu in Peru but that is a city made of stones. Stones that are so precisely carved that they fit together so well you cannot slid a piece of paper between them. But Knossos predates that by 3500 years. ( The Incas thrived between 1400 and 1500AD.) Knossos reveals a culture that seemed much more advanced than the Incas. Advanced construction techniques, art, and religious symbolism are all there. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because my camera battery was dead and I had not checked it before. Dummy me.
Crete is a barren land. It reminds me of Provence with even less vegetation. Rugged, rocky terrain. And I think most of Greece is the same, beautiful but austere. According to something I read, ancient Greece was lush and green. However, because the olive oil trade was so lucrative, one of the rulers long ago declared that all the land would be cultivated in olive trees. The natural vegetation was stripped away and olive trees were planted everywhere. Unfortunately, olive trees don’t have an elaborate root system. They depend on the tap root which grows deep into the ground. Thus the olive tree can survive in a land of little rainfall because it finds water underground. But without a root system, there was nothing to hold the land and the rich topsoil eroded away and with it the lush vegetation. Another example of the misuse of natural resources.
Back in Heraklio (Knossos is just outside of town), we strolled though town. Saw the major sites including the Morosini Fountain built in 1628 to bring water to the city. The harbor, Venetian Harbor, is protected by a jetty and defended by a huge Venetian fortress at the end of the jetty. Didn’t go into the fortress (not sure it was open) but went out on the jetty, an exciting excursion as waves were crashing over the seawall and we had to run between waves to keep from getting drenched. All in all it was a good day trip. Easy to get around by bus.
Crete is not a huge island, only about 200 miles by 50 miles and we were in the middle. So, after a couple more days on the beach we got restless and we decided to take a road trip. We rented a car and headed for Hania. It was easy to find, just follow the “New National Road”, which was equivalent to a state road in the USA, certainly not similar to the interstate system. The interesting part was that the road signs were in three different languages, each language on it’s own sign. Hania, which I think is English, Chania, which might be Russian with the “ch” as one letter sounding like the “ch” in the Scottish “loch”, and, or course, the Greek, Xania. X being the initial sound in Chi Omega, for all you fraternity and sorority members.
We stopped in Rethimno, one of the major towns on the sea, wandered the narrow streets and had lunch. Rethimno has a beautiful protected harbor and a lighthouse which dates from the Turkish period. Narrow, crowded, winding streets and lots of tourist shops. Visited the Venetian fortress which sits on a hill and dominates the city and the harbor. The fortress has thick walls, ramparts, round guard towers on each corner, all of gray stone. You enter the fortress through an arched tunnel. There are several buildings inside including a mosque.
In Hania, we found a room near the old harbor. Spartan would be a good description. We payed the man because he would not be around the next morning. He had to work. We walked away from the water into the town. Not particularly interesting til we got back down to the harbor area. Kirk told me he had been stationed in Hania when he was in the navy. His main base was Rhoda, Spain but he spent a week in Xania from time to time. The harbor, protected as usual by a jetty with a lighthouse at the end, is really pretty. Lined with cafes and packed with strolling tourists. Each cafe has someone out front inviting you to dine with them and showing you their menu, but they are not aggressive. If you say no they say, “have a nice evening.”
Stopped in one of the cafes and had a couple of beers and watched the world go by. Very pleasant, very nice. The waiters were very playful and gregarious, calling back and forth to the waiters in the cafe next door. Only a rope separated the cafes along the waterfront. When we asked for the check, the waiter acted surprised. “You’re leaving us?” He conferred with another waiter and then, when he came back to the table, he brought two small beers and three shots of Raki, the local firewater. We toasted each other and threw down the shots of Raki, obviously, the third shot was for him. We drank the third beer slowly, too much alcohol for me, and then had to ask for the bill again, insisting that he not bring more drinks.
The room that night was near the harbor and just above an outdoor cafe. Since here was no AC and no fan, we had to keep the windows open. Unfortunately, the little cafe below us was very popular and had live music, two guitars and a singer, and a noisy clientele. It was difficult to get to sleep until the wee hours.
The next morning, we headed down to Elaphonisis, a tiny village with a beautiful beach. The beach was wrapped around a narrow peninsula. The sand was fine as sugar and almost as white except for a slight tinge of pink, for which there was a scientific explanation which I never discovered. The was was as clear as that in a swimming poll. It’s one of the top beaches in Greece, deservedly so. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it’s very isolated and you have to want to get there to go there. No casual, “Oh, there’s a nice beach. Let’s stop here.” It’s definitely out of the way, but tourist buses from Hania and other locations kept arriving all day long and the beach was crowded. The water was very shallow and you walked out a long way before you could actually swim. We rented lounge chairs and a beach umbrella and spent our time in and out of the sun and in and out of the water. It was a great day.
On the way home, I was stopped for speeding in an open stretch of country between Hania and Rethimno.. I was doing 93 kilometers per hour, about 55 miles per hour and the officer told me the speed limit was 60 KPH. That’s 36 miles per hour!!!! On the NEW National Road. I was astounded! 36 mph on the best road in the country, in the countryside???? It cost me 40 Euros if I paid within ten days, which I did. From then on I watched the speed limit carefully and watched it vary from 80 KPH to 30 KPH in the city. 18 Miles per hour? The Cretans certainly want to live a slow-paced, laid-back lifestyle.
As we drove through the larger towns, it was interesting to see the architecture. Nothing interesting. Nothing exotic. Most of the building appear to be built of square sections but not stacked evenly on top of each other. They look like a three year old child has tried to stack his blocks but doesn’t have the coordination to do a good job. A vertical tower with square segments sticking out at different levels and on different sides. We didn’t see any of the classic white houses with blue roofs.
After a couple more days on the beach and at the pool, we rented a car again and headed south to Matala in the Libyan Sea (The part of the Mediterranean north of Crete is the Cretan Sea). We crossed the island south of Heraklio and drove through the mountains and dropped into a broad, valley that was heavily cultivated. The greenest part of the the island I had seen. Matala is a small village which depends on tourists visiting the beach. The beach is a wide, sandy crescent with cliffs at each end. Cafes line the beach offering food and drink to the sunbathers. One of the cliffs is riddled with caves which were carved out of the wall and used as tombs by the Romans. I went into several but didn’t find any skeletons or Roman coins.
Matala has a pebble beach, rather large pebbles and rocks that made it hard to walk on. It was also hard to get into the water. There were large, slippery boulders just under the water and you had to be very careful of your footing. It was windy that day and waves were crashing in but the water was clear and refreshing. Spent all the time in the water or getting sun and a good time was had by all. Drove back to Analipsis, very carefully.
The next day we headed east, planning to avoid the sun and preserve what tan we had. We went to Agios Nicholaus, a small town with a lake in the center where, legend has it, Aphrodite used to come here to bathe. Lots of those old Greek stories center around Crete. From Agios Nicholaus, we took a boat trip out to Spinalonga, a small island off the coast that used to be a leper colony. Along the way, we stopped for a swim. They just anchored up and let us jump in. Water was clear and refreshing but too deep to see anything. Spinalonga is a small, barren island protecting a large harbor. It was fortified by the Venetians in the 15th century. In the early 1900’s it became a leper colony. There was no cure for leprosy and consequently, they were isolated. The former residents of the island were moved and the lepers occupied the existing homes. We landed and, since the island was fortified, entered the island the same way the lepers had, through a long, dark tunnel. The was one other entry to the island and it was used by the doctors and nurses who came out periodically. The lepers were treated very well because the government did not want them to try to escape to the mainland. They had electric lighting when the city on the mainland was still using gas lamps. Even during the German occupation, the lepers didn’t suffer any hardships for the same reason. No one wanted them to leave the island. A cure for leprosy was found in the 1950’s and the residents of Spinlonga were treated and ultimately allowed to go back to their families. Our guide pointed out that 3 million people have leprosy today even though there is a cure which is relatively inexpensive. And then, of course, she made a plea for contributions.
Our last day was spent at the beach and around the pool soaking up those last rays of sunshine. Our plane didn’t leave til 11:30 at night but the hotel told use we could keep our towels for the day and they had showers and changing rooms available. It was a good trip. I didn’t delve into the history as much as I usually do and that’s a shame because Crete is certainly unique and has a storied history.
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