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A week after visiting the Verdon I went walking in Crete - principally to walk the Samaria Gorge. Cretans don't walk so paths are few and often overgrown former goatherds tracks (Goatherds now drive everywhere!). Our leader Kat had led here for many years so at least we weren't searching desparately for somewhere to go - and failing as we undoubtedly would without her - so a big thanks to Kat.
On our first day we went to Polyrhinia an ancient town fortified by the Romans then walked back to Kissamos. Two pictures of the ancient ruins and then a "modern" raki still.
Next a picture of the Acropolois of Polyrhinia and the remains of the Roman walls
The next day we walked from Platanos to the ancient harbour of Fallasarna. Some 2,000 years ago an earthquake tilted Crete from West to East raising the western coast some 3 metres and making the harbour useless. We start with two pics on the way there and then one of the recently excavated harbour wall with two mooring stanchions showing and then one of the former harbour entry tower ruins.
Next day we sailed to Gramvousa Island with its Venetian occupancy ruins. On the way you can clearly see the line of the old sea level before the earthuake - on the return trip a family of goats were walking along it.
On landing its about a 150 metre ascent up to the ruins
A couple of pictures of the walls and the church
We then sailed on to Balos Bay where I swam ashore to the wonderful beach - and looked back at Gramvousa
Then it was on to the Sirikari Gorge - the first of our big ones. Kat led the way down to the ancient (but I suspect modernised) bridge at the bottom.
My last set of pictures starts with the functioning Monastery of Gourveneto and goes on to the ruins of Katoliko Monastery - in the second pic you should be able to make out the ruins of two small hermits built on caves.
The previous pic shows the bridge across the gorge to Katoliko ruins - its main function however was not to span the gorge but to provide the only large flat ceremonial area! Here it is from below followed by one of us reaching a well once we'd climbed through the gorge (the ancient plastic bucket is bottom left) and, finally, the very welcome sight of Stavros Bay where we finished with an incredibly refreshing swim.
I've put the pictures (well a few of them!) of the Samaria Gorge on another page so please move on to them via the Home Page
