Cretan gold

What is the real treasure of this island? An island that seems at peace with the sea that touches it on all sides? I have to think that Crete's treasures must include the olive. And the orange. And the fish off its shores. And the sunshine, of course! And the goats and sheep! And the people!

On this day, the last fully Cretan day, we had an abundance of all the above. So please forgive me if I overdo it here. If I include one too many photos of the princely goat, if I write too much about the beauty of the olive. As the day draws to a close, it's all that I have left -- the memories of Cretan gold. I put them down here, on Ocean, as a testament to the ravishing beauty of this island. So, here are my notes on the day and they're about the ordinary stuff we've done here today and every day -- we eat, walk, eat some more -- but now add the detail: the sunshine, the dazzling waters, the olive on the tree and off the tree and yes, the goats, the sheep, high high in the mountains, a dinner of fish served by a waiter whose hand extends in a warm farewell and you have Cretan gold.


First, a wake up to a gloriously sunny day. I open the window at the Mama Nena. How can waters be this blue?!






Breakfast. Diana scrambles eggs from the farm. We drizzle honey on the sheep's milk yogurt. Ed finishes his week long project of reading one of Matina's beautiful books on Crete.






And I have an errand at the market. So we take a leisurely stroll to it and because I've been a little remiss in posting much about Chenia, I'll include just a couple of photos from our walk.






At the market, we admire the sponges, the oils, the baked goods, but I buy none of those.














What I do pick up (small gifts), I promptly lose in the next store I visit (a knife store that also sells  belts... don't ask). Ah well. Ed tells me that I should learn from this. What? Don't buy anything!

More of Chania:



the trailing plant is called a donkey's tail; the street lamp demonstrates a love of goats




they've been making knives here for generations

Okay, I'm straying too much.

The day is so delightfully warm (60 for sure and very sunny) that we consider going back to Stavros beach for a swim. But it doesn't seem right for our last day here. Too cool, too complicated, too all-encompassing. We want to hike!

Finding a good place for a hike in the mountains has been a challenge, especially since my requirements are rigidly set: an easy drive to it (that's the toughest challenge!). A good view. A lengthy walk.

In the end, I suggest we aim for Voukolies. It's a small town in a valley that's not even 30 minutes from Chania and most of those minutes are on the National Highway. From there I see dirt roads on google maps and they seem to squiggle up in ways that suggest good climbing.

At Voukolies, we need to cross the bridge to the hamlet of Neo Chorio. After that, we should be able to pick up something good for hiking.

But... we can't find the bridge. We pull up to the side of the road. I study the maps. We both admire the view.





At a gas station, we ask about Neo Chorio. The attendant tells us -- I'm from Neo Chorio! 
We want to hike into the mountains from there. Are there good paths?
Yes, yes, after the bridge, turn right and go up to the next village. It's just a few houses. Kafouros. Leave car there.

Okay. We spin back down in the direction of the bridge. Behind a truck loaded down with -- what else... olives.







The directions are helpful. There's the bridge. Hidden around a curve. And just by the bridge, we see the now familiar markings of an olive oil factory.





Should we look inside? We hesitate. So many sacks of olives to crush today! But the man in charge waves us in with a boisterous welcome. It seems to be a two man show here: the young one empties sacks of olives (making sure that those of different families are not mixed together).

















The older man provides the finishing touches.









And so the olives are cleaned, crushed until all that remains is the golden green oil.

We admire the smoothness of the operation. And we thank the big boss for letting us watch.  He grins, takes a small bottle off the shelf and allows oil to flow in. He screws a cap on and hands it to us. A gift. The oil will be cloudy until it has tome to settle. We sample a little -- it will be the freshest olive oil I'll have ever tasted.





We leave, touched as always by the generosity of strangers.

A narrow, twisted road leads up to the hamlet where we will be leaving the car. All around us we see the olives. And we hear the mechanized shakers.





The pace of life quickens here now. But in another month the harvest will be over. Will it feel different then? Olives trees are such an accepted part of the landscape. To me, they're magnificent trees: if treated well, they'll only grow stronger, producing more fruits with age. Here, they're the wallpaper of the island. A place of shade for chickens.





We pass groves and more groves. And modest homes with burlap sacks drying, waiting for the next shaking.









Our path up into the mountains is actually a rutted road. A truck can navigate it -- to reach the olives, yes, that...





... but as we climb higher, the olive trees become less of a presence. We are now in the thick of sheep and goat country.









They're beautiful, noble animals -- both of them.









Still, the antics of the goats are more entertaining. Once you spook a sheep, the entire herd moves away. After a while, at some distance, they'll stop, turn, stare. And then they'll run again. It's sort of like having someone hit the pause button over and over.

But the goats! Ah, the goats! I'm restraining myself by offering you just one (only one!) more clip -- it's less than a minute! -- you tell me that you don't find the goats completely entertaining!





We don't really have a hiking goal, except we sort of would like to reach a summit. For the views of course, though there are plenty beautiful vistas all around us, even at lower elevations.







toward Chania


Again, we are mindful of the time. We started the hike late -- at 2. I tell Ed that I refuse to take a step further once we get to 4. I figure two hours of a solid ascent will translate (on this good path) into one and a half going down. We should be by the car before it turns dark.





The summits are elusive. There is always another fold of a mountain and another. after that The skies are turning a little hazy in the way that they do sometimes at the end of the day. Evening is rapidly approaching.

We push our luck a little, but at 4:10 I say -- enough. This is our personal summit. Let's enjoy it and head back.





(From here, we can see the western-most edge of the White Mountains.)





And it's good that we do head back now -- the sun is like your gas gauge: that last quarter tank drains far faster than the first three fourths. So, too, it seems that the sun's last run toward the horizon is faster somehow. Before long, the colors are navy and, when a cloud retreats -- golden.

















Goats and sheep are there to remind us that we are not alone. Apart from their cries to each other, there is quiet. A dog barks in a valley below and after, complete silence.

We haven't the majestic sunset of yesterday. Just a quiet retreat. A goodbye that isn't all fanfare, but nonetheless, one that has its own beauty.









We drive home.


Dinner? At this fish tavern.


 


Matina had suggested it for the seafood. A fantastic last meal! We share a salad and a plateful of their  roasted wild mushrooms...


 






...but we each hog our own red sea bream. These guys, proudly displayed to me before...





...turn into this:





As always, we are given cakes and pastries...





...and the potent Cretan after dinner drink, raki (called tsikoudia here in Crete). These final nibbles are all free and we can never quite take more than a sip of the raki, but the memory of that sip stays with me. It's one of the many sweet images that I take from Crete.

After, the waiter shakes hands and wishes us a good stay here. Sigh... Not very many hours remain. As Ed and I walk along the harbor, the lights throw ribbons of color on the water. Yet another Monet canvas unfolds before us...






We've taken some fish tails from the Taverna for the alley cats, but only one feline creature comes out of hiding when he sees us go by. 

Along the harbor, the houses are shuttered for the night. Not ours. Our top floor room has the shutters thrown open wide, so that we can revel in the view. There, you see the pair of lights? Our exquisite home at the Mama Nena.





Tuesday morning we'll be leaving. Such great images I have of these islands and especially of Crete! A feta slice over a salad, a pitcher of morning orange juice, olive oil cake. Goats, leaping nimble goats. Sunshine over the White Mountains. Olive oil streaming smoothly into a tank. And the warm smiles from all those who have helped us explore their land. Matina and her family: they've  handed us the keys to their grandma's home so that we could look out at the harbor and think about how this planet is quite the beautiful place to explore.

when the sun shines brightly on Crete

To laugh, at the beauty of it, at the splendid sun that pours down at us here, today, at the blue waters of the Aegean, the warm breeze that comes in from the south -- to laugh at it all, the mishaps, the aborted adventures but also the ones that surpassed expectations. Yes, to laugh, or at least smile at this radiant day on the island of Crete.

But first, there is breakfast, prepared by Diana (yes, that is her name!), in the sunny kitchen of the Mama Nena.






We managed to eat our way through the entire marble cake and so she baked us another. With olive oil again. And bits of chocolate throughout.







Always, she encourages us to finish with yogurt. Dribbled with the honey of the thyme covered hills.






And what do we have planned? The clouds have almost completely receded -- sucked in by the mountains. There, they fight their last battle, but we can tell they don't stand a chance: it's going to be a fine day!

We don't want to drive much. Ed is tired of it, I am scared of it (even on this gentle day of a drive equal to maybe 20 kilometers each way, we have two near misses -- one by a passing car and another when a dog runs out in front of us, forcing Ed to slam the brakes hard). So we go to the Akrotiri peninsula. It's the next bit of land jutting out into the sea just to the east of Chania. And though it's close, it feels oceans away.










Oh that blue sky! How fortunate we are to have these last days on Crete be so full of the topaz blue and azure green and all shades in between.

We make our way slowly, leisurely, to the tip of the peninsula. That's Stavros beach -- as viewed from the hills to the side the little bay.





It's nearing sixty right now and though most anyone here would regard this as winter jacket weather, some have a different attitude.





Stavros beach may be familiar to anyone who has seen the movie Zorba the Greek. They filmed the last scene here -- the dance on the beach. Stavros Beach. Not surprisingly, there is a taverna with the name Zorba to the side. Closed now for the season.

We're in Stavros because I read somewhere that you could hike along the edge of hills that jut down to the water and reach the Agia Triada monastery and then, too a gorge -- for additional hiking. All this turns out to be not exactly correct. But, we don't know this yet. We find a path (which looks remarkably like the goat paths that traverse the mountainside) and set out along the coast.

I ask Ed if a goat could send rocks hurling down towards us. It's a pretty steep incline -- enough so that we walk much of it in the shade of the northern slope. He comments that we're seeing more sheep than goats right now.

Indeed.




We continue in this way for an hour, maybe longer.

There are clumps of herbs and brush and quite a number of wild bulbs, threatening a splendid spring showing of flowers.





And old, crumbling shelters, made of the boulders from the hillside.






At what point do we decide to turn back? When we encounter the local foragers, with plastic sacks of herbs and unknown to us plants? I ask them if we can reach the gorge and monastery this way and the old man shakes his head. His hand indicates sharp incline. Dangerous. A word I understand.

Even then, we continue a bit more. But after a while, I stumble, sending rocks down toward the water. It's not really a threatening stumble -- I have plenty of space to catch myself. And I do so by putting my hand down on a shrub. A dozen sharp needles pierce my palm, as if I were smacking down a porcupine with fully extended quills.

Ed tries to remove some of the spikes from my hand, as I stand there wondering how the sheep know to steer clear of the prickly menace.





And still we continue.  But, within a few more steps the path becomes indistinguishable from the treks of animals. It's always tempting to go just a little more, but by now there are too many signs that this hike is not meant to reach a destination.






I am quite happy to be on the retreat. On a credible path, bathed by sunshine...





Smiling at the loveliness of the view before me.





Alright, we could not reach the monastery on foot. Let's try by car. It's the usual guessing game: sometimes there'll be a directional sign, other times not so much. Go this way! No, maybe not. Turn around. Okay, maybe that was right after all... Eventually we do find it and it is really quite enchanting.






Picture yourself cloistered here,  making olive oil for the market, retreating into the quiet of the courtyard scented by jasmine in the evening.














I ask the priest if the church is open. I don't think he understands English, but he does pull out a huge key and manipulates it so that I can go inside. It's quite pretty, with a good bit of delicate ornamentation, but I don't linger. Another priest is engaged in rituals of worship. I am the interloper. I retreat.

I join Ed in the courtyard. He has made the usual friend there.





We're ready to leave, but I'm curious about the gorge and the hike down to it. Ah, the gorge. That's in another monastery. The Gouverneto Monastery.

It's not far. Maybe five kilometers. We follow the winding road (what else is new)...





... up to the Monastery and there we find a sign. Winter hours: 16 - 19. Well now, that's twenty minutes from now. We nap in the car waiting for permission to enter.

And when it is in fact 4 pm, we walk through the gate and bypass the chapels and courtyards altogether. (No photos for you: they're not allowed here.) The goal is to find the gorge and the relics of an older monastery within in it. I read on someone's Internet site that it's a hefty descent (and therefore also ascent on the return).

Ah, to be a goat... How do they do it? How do they keep from tumbling down into the ravine?





We find the path. It's a well kept path, but it is steep. It makes its way down, between the hills and then, after another bend and twist, you see it -- the gorge.





... and within the cliffs, there are caves, and sweeping stone walls arch the hills, and really, the place is hauntingly beautiful.









It's 4:30 now and we have a bit of a concern about daylight. The sun sets sometime after five. We still haven't reached the relics of the older monastery. (I want to have a conversation with the monks or priests who set the winter hours to be so late -- why give us permission to enter the gorge so late,  when there isn't enough light to climb out of it afterwards?)

Finally. We are between cliffs of copper stone. And there it is -- Greece's oldest monastery (or relics of one). Dating to the 11th century.





I tell Ed we must hurry back up.  Just a minute more, to walk among walls of stone that have seen centuries roll by - one after another, and another and then a handful more.





In the end, we have plenty of daylight to help guide us up again. The sun sets just as we begin our trip home, to Chania, to the Mama Nena.





Dinner? Yes, well, we'd promised the affable Steolis -- the owner, cook, waiter of Chania's vegetarian (and vegan if you're so inclined) restaurant that we'd stop by there on this night. (We encountered him in front of his place the other day and he enticed us with breads and cakes and we said okay okay okay, we'll eat here Sunday!)

(On the way to dinner, we meet again the cat with the mustache. This time he is willing to pose for a photo.)






We are the only diners at Steolis' place this evening (his business picks up in the summer season), unless you count his daughter and her friend.





Steolis tells us we are here on a good day because he has just baked many loaves of bread.





And prepared an eggplant dish with garlic, raisins and pomegranate seeds. In fact, he sort of takes over picking dishes for us -- half a portion of the chestnuts and onions, some wilted greens from the hills, a pie stuffed with dock leaves, yogurt with honey. And a mystery tea made from herbs that only Steolis could possibly name.













Eating here is sort of like eating at your parent's place again: you don't dare voice objections and you have to be prepared for stories that are not only about the food but also have a bit of a philosophy of life component to them. Ed and I meekly eat and listen and the food is actually quite good, so it is a fine experience. Though we breathe a sigh of relief when we're out. Sort of like getting permission to leave the table after you've finished.

The walk back to Mama Nena is lovely: the stars are out tonight. We're hoping for good weather for the next and final day on the island.

E4, where are you?

You could look at this day and think --  ah, well, an aborted adventure. Maybe I have a rose tint to my glasses because for me, it was a superb day. Despite the aborted adventure.


First, the wake up. That's always great. For the countless times that I ask for rooms with views, I am sometimes successful, sometimes not so much. But I think it will be a long, long time before I again have a view as good as this:



sunrise over the Venetian harbor


And the breakfast? Fantastic! Matina's assistant prepares a huge platter of scrambled eggs with bits of ham and it is so good that Ed, who does not in the normal run of things eat ham, consumes every last scrap of it.

And if you think that was it for breakfast -- not so! The assistant (she does have a name: I resolve to figure out how to ask about it tomorrow) then whips up these lovely blintz-like flatcakes. With honey and (goat) cheese! -- she shows us how Cretons eat it.





Utterly delicious. With a large pitcher of fresh juice at the side and the usual array of breads, cheeses, olives, cakes...

We day dream about taking Matina's assistant back home with us. We wonder if she'd mind living in the farmhouse. Whether she'd come up with something new for breakfast every day of the year, just as she so effortlessly does here. In the alternative, understanding that she would probably prefer to remain in Crete, we could maybe settle in at the Mama Nena permanently and come down for breakfast like this every day, at 9:45, as seems to be our style, following the scent of coffee, cake and bread, warming in the oven...

Alright. Piggish thoughts. Time to move on with the day. And it is a lovely beginning of a week-end.





People are out and about. Many with sun glasses against the strong sun that is promising temperatures near sixty.





We have been mulling over the possibility of hiking on the south shore of the island, but each day, I put it off for the next day, or the one after. It's the drive that holds me back. We'd have to cross the mountains to get there and truly, even the most careful driving here makes my heart race. The turns are treacherous, the surfaces slick, potted, narrow. And there is plenty of evidence that I am not just my usual difficult passenger self. All along the roads you see small chapels -- memorials to those who did not survive a deep bend in the road. A reminder that others before you have tried and failed.

It is possible to take the bus to the south (if you cling to the belief that a young Creton driver will fare better on the twists and turns), but to return the same day, you would have to leave at 5 and come back long after sunset. So now you're in a bus, navigating said roads in the dark. And you miss out on a Mama Nena breakfast. I just can't get myself to make that kind of a committment.

So I suggest a compromise -- drive just to the northern tip of the island and pick up the beginning of the great E4 -- a trail that has one end in southern Spain, then crosses all of Europe and ends right here in Greece.

Two things about that plan: it ignores the threat of rain that I keep reading about on my trusted weather site. And it ignores that this is Greece, after all and trail markings here -- well, I wrote about that already: they're scant.

We spend quite a while driving on narrow roads in search of postings. We interrupt olive pickers.





We disturb sheep herds (this herd seems as if it's part of some eery still life: gnarled trunk and sheep, frozen into eternity).





And finally, as a result of nothing more than dumb luck, we find it: a marker for the E4.

The problem is that we cannot find the next one. Roads and paths spin off this way and that way and we try to follow each in the hope that there will be a confirmation that we are on the right path...





...but inevitably we will find ourselves on a scraggy hill, or in the midst of someone's olive grove (and btw, the green of the undergrowth is that intense -- a bed of clover-like flora that is just as radiant as the photo above indicates)...

And now the skies are showing some serious turmoil up there.





Who will win -- the gentle whites or the rain-soaked grays?

The grays have it! The rain comes down. I have a rain jacket. Back at the Mama Nena. (Ed doesn't even have that: he threw his little pouch into his backpack. Turned out it was a pack cover, not a jacket.) We're getting soaked. We run back to the car, laughing at ourselves and at the ill fated walk. (It's easy to laugh in a warm dry shelter.)

We return to Chania where the rains are more intermittent.





And the children ride their sailboats in the harbor, oblivious to it all.






In the evening Ed asks me to search out some interesting eateries. Greek seafood (where the seafood isn't just octopus) would be nice...

I pick out three beloved by reviewers suggestions. We visit all three. They're closed for the season.

But it's not as if Chania lacks restaurants. There are dozens of places, big and small. And still,  they avoid fish as if somehow that was for the the everyday home meal. Grilled fish -- ho hum. Tell us another!

Never mind, we'll load up on fish in Istanbul. We stop at a place that has an inviting counter. You can watch the cooks do their thing right on the other side. It's not really a taverna. More of a modern Greek place with other Mediterranean twists to it. And we're thrilled with the food. A sumptuous salad, a Mediterranean pasta dish and a wonderful grilled chicken with hunks of grilled cheese accompanying it. (We share each of those three dishes.)





It's a satisfying and inexpensive meal and as we finish (at around 9:30), we notice that people are only now starting to come in. Crete is like Spain in this regard. You don't even think of food until the last hours of the day. Though they share this with the rest of Greece -- the restaurants here, once they open (at around 1 pm), they stay open. For twelve hours. If you're hungry at 4, you eat then. If you want to wait until 11, that's fine too.

It's a lively evening at the cafes of the old harbor. We know that the sounds of laughter will reverberate across the old harbor all the way until 3 or 4 in the morning. A comforting sound of youthful joy, out there, under the now starlit Cretan skies.