Kythira and Crete
Kythira turned out to be a surprising little gem. It is a very small island, with a green
interior and fresh water springs.
We anchored in the little port of Kapsali
which is a sleepy little fishing village.
We walked the hairpin bends to get to the town of Kythira.
The steep climb was worth it as the view from the top was magnificent. In ancient times, they were always defending
themselves from pirates, the Saracens and their neighbours and I guess that is
why there are so many churches there.
Although the town is very small,
we gave up our church count when we got to 27.
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| Churches below the Kythira castle |
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| Port of Kastelli from Kythira castle |
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| Kythira castle |
We decided to take the bush track up to the town on the
following day. This winds around the
base of the large defensive fort built at the top of the hill and approaches
the town steeply from the sea. It is
amazing to think that soldiers of old would scale these forts and castles
dressed in heavy armor and carrying weapons, while at the same time being shot
at with arrows and cannons! The scary
bit of the track for us was an area where we had large hairy spiders actually
jump on us. I was happy when we got
through that area. Even though we had to contend with spiders, the view from
the track was worth it.
Our first stop in Crete was on the northwestern corner of
the island in the small port
of Kissamos. From here, a ferry leaves for the round trip
to Athens and Corfu
and there are also two day tripper boats which leave in the morning and return
in the afternoon. Besides this, there is
no other boat movement in the port. We
were the only sailboat there and were warmly welcomed. We decided to stay for a few days and do some
necessary maintenance on the boat. There was a delightful family running a
taverna in the port, serving pretty good food and the town of Kasteli
was just a short bike ride away.
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| Chania |
Our next stop was Chania. This is the most popular tourist
town in Crete being on the cruise ship route. Chania has small winding stone streets and
many tavernas have been built inside the skeleton of old ruins.
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| Chania street |
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| Artemis V alongside the quay in Chania |
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| Irakleon museum |
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| Irakleon museum |
There is a lot
of evidence of previous Venetian and
later Turkish occupation. The harbour
entrance is dominated by a beautiful Venetian lighthouse. Here we met a lovely
Italian couple and we toured the island with them for three days. We went to the ancient sites of Phaestos and Knossos and to the wonderful Iraklion museum of archaeology.
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| Knossos archaological site |
A section of the town of Chania has archaeological excavations,
evidence of the Minoan civilization which thrived here 7,000 years ago. It has an excellent, albeit small, museum
with Minoan artifacts found in the town.
We left Artemis V in Rethymnon marina where she stayed for
the next ten days while we met family and toured Crete
by car. Crete
has some high mountains (highest approx 2,500m), some still snowcapped and the
scenery is beautiful.
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| Venetian Harbour, Rethymnon |
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| Village of Spilia |
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| Imbros Gorge |
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| Imbros Gorge |
Crete is the last part (320km) of the transEuropean E4
walking trail which starts in Portugal. We walked the 8km. through the Imbros gorge
through which our Anzac troups were evacuated in WWII
and did a 40km. bike ride, all downhill from the top of a
mountain down to the sea.
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Bike riding in Crete
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| Spinalonga Island, old leper colony |
We are now in Spinalonga
Bay, in which lies the little island of Spinalonga. This used to be a Turkish village before WWII
and later a leper colony. It is
interesting to wander around the little village there and it is a popular trip for
the tourists.
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| Elounda, Spinalonga bay |
July has arrived and we are experiencing our first of the strong
blows of the summer. The wind has been
howling for the past two days, gusting to 35kn. so we are waiting here for it
to ease before we make the hop to Karpathos, across the Kassos and Karpathos straits which are known for strong wind and
confused seas. The Meltemi in July and
August blows very strongly in this part of the Aegean
and has been known to get up to hurricane force.
That’s all for now folks.
Artemis & Dimitri.
