21Jun - 28Jun15, Maheri, Crete
It was a short drive from Bali to Maheri, our next week
long stay. On route we detoured to the Holy Monastery of Arkadi. Set
in the hills some 23km southeast of Rethymno, the Arkadi Monastery has deep significance
for Cretans.
Here in 1866 after three days of battle, hundreds of
cornered locals massacred both themselves and invading Turks. Rather than
surrender, the Cretans set fire to their kegs of gunpowder, killing all but one
small girl.
“It’s a stark
and potent symbol of human resistance and considered a spark plug in the
struggle towards freedom from Turkish occupation.”
On entering through an archway we were greeted by the
impressive Renaissance façade of Arkadiou’s Venetian church (1587). It dates
back to the 16th century when this well-fortified monastery was a
place for science and art.
On the left of the church stood a cypress trunk with a
sign indicating the bullet still imbedded in it’s bark. At the end of the left
wing was the old wine cellar where the gunpowder was stored.
This Monastery was littered with stray cats lounging
around. Plenty of bowls of food were left out for these well-tended to cats who
were not quite as tame as they appeared, we left with a scratched little boy as
did another family.
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| Arkadi Monastery |
We reached our accommodation in 'Maheri', a pretty traditional
village in the municipality of Armeni. Here the life of Maheri’s 100 permanent
residents seemed refreshingly calm, mainly farming and agriculture.
No shops or cafes, just one central spot where the locals gathered
to enjoy a drink, company and the lovely views to the north of Souda Bay. A few
times while we were staying a van drove through the tiny village, strapped high
and wide with all manner of things to sell.
Many of the village houses had been renovated with strict heritage
controls. We were staying in one, a lovely stone and wood three-bedroom house. Katerina,
the owner, meet us there. She welcomed us warmly and provided us with a lovely gift
basket of foods.
In the outside courtyard was a spa which the boys enjoyed despite
the many rains. This courtyard seemed to become a haven for all the stray cats
of the area. They might have been rather unused to such attention from the
boys. They were very well feed during our stay.
I wasn’t quite prepared for such isolation, especially considering
Chris returned to London for a few days during our week here. But it was a nice
change, a good opportunity to slow down.
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| Villa Aladanos, Maheri |
So before Chris left there were a couple of must-dos on the list,
visiting Chania was the first. I had heard that it was one of the most
beautiful and picturesque cities in Greece.
After parking we wandered into the old town stopping for a frozen
yogurt, enjoying the criss-cross of narrow lanes, admiring the different
architectural styles.
The culmination was the magnificent Venetian Harbour. Here we
could see the remnants of Venetian and Turkish design, much of it restored into
restaurants and boutique hotels. Prominently sited was the Mosque of the
Janissaries. This is the oldest Ottoman building in Crete.
It was built in 1645 when the Turks captured Chania. It no longer
functions as a mosque and is only used occasionally for exhibitions. As we
walked along the Venetian sea wall we enjoyed magnificent views.
We sat at the ‘Barbarossa’ cafe on the horse-shoe shaped harbour
to enjoy a drink, the sunset and to soak it all in. The lighthouse we looked
across at, sat at one end of the wall and was built over 400 years ago.
Not all the boys were in agreement to try and reach the lighthouse
so we travelled a little further east along the waterfront towards the inner
harbour and along to the Chania Yacht Club.
We turned back and travelled inwards past the excavations in
progress at the site of Ancient Kydonia (ancient Minoan settlement) and finally
to the car (although we got somewhat lost on the way).
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| Venetian Harbour, Chania |
There were a multitude of amazing walks to be experienced. But we
had to choose carefully. It needed to be manageable by the boys, we also didn’t
want to travel too far. So we decided on the Imbro Gorge.
With a walking distance of only 8 km
and an easy descent of around 600m, this 2-hour walk was the second
most popular gorge for walkers in Crete after the Samaria Gorge. Another reason for choosing this walk was its
significance for us as New Zealanders, many New Zealanders travel here on a
pilgrimage.
During WWII, 20,000 soldiers escaped through the gorge to the
coast to then be picked up by boat and taken to Egypt. Of these 20,000 (New
Zealanders, Australians and Brits) some 7,000 where New Zealanders and of
these 7000 New Zealanders 5000 made it.
The rest were taken prisoner, some fled into the mountains or lost
their life.
The path of the gorge started just
below the village of Imbros. We had packed lunch but stopped for a pre-hike snack
in one of the cafes in Imbros. From here the gorge’s
path gently descended south. What started as a slightly dull walk evolved
into one of beauty and drama, combined with so much history too.
It was never steep nor difficult but was stony. We
had to concentrate as to where to put our feet, to avoid twisting an ankle on
the rocky path. The gentle descent, gentle breeze and generosity of shade from
the trees and high narrow cliffs (under 2m wide at one point), all made for a
‘perfect’ walk.
The lack of people helped too, I was quite
surprised, we only came across half a dozen other walkers. The walk was probably not quite such a ‘perfect’
experience for Chris. I felt sorry for Chris having to carry Lachlan
again after we had only really got Lachlan back on his feet after his injury in
Barcelona.
But after about half a dozen falls, Lachlan called it quits with a
sore twisted ankle. Despite having to be carried, Lachlan still managed to be
cute. He questioned "Isn't there a quicker way". "No" Chris
responded, "There are cliffs all around us". "Well can't we just
dig a hole" Lachlan replied.
The cliffs were so high and treacherous. It was hard to imagine during
the evacuation soldiers fled over them into the mountains.
We walked past caves. “Caves?”. I asked Lachlan what might live in
them. He replied "Guns, ammo, maybe shotguns". I wondered if we might
have overdone the war stories. But then he finally added in "Ah, maybe a
bear".
We came across a curious goat not too much higher above us. It
walked over tumbling rocks with ease. We were swift moving to avoid the
damage of such rocks falling on us. We moved through several very dramatic
narrow passages where you envisaged currents once eroded their passages
through.
As we came out of the final and most narrow 'curved' passage it
opened wide to the skies and we saw what we assume were the vultures I had read
of high in the blue sky flying amongst the white clouds blowing at a freakishly
impressive speed, creating a rather surreal sight.
Now at the end of the walk we reached village of
Komitades. We stopped here for a drink and were soon chatting with the owner.
She was very insightful into the current economic hardships in Greece.
She had just taken in a stray puppy they had found on the
road a day earlier, Jarvis was very dotting. Here we waited for our ride, which
ended up being in the back of a pickup truck, back up to Imbro. I
was fortunate enough to be one of the four inside, while another eight sat in
the open back, the boys included.
The older couple beside me looked quite astounded by the
adventurous nature of the trip as the truck raced the winding hill back to the
top. From out of the back window I could see and hear the boys experiencing
what seemed more like an adventure theme-park ride.
The boys looked pretty wide-eyed as they climbed out of
the truck and then into our very tame Land Rover.
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| Imbro Gorge |
Returning back to Maheri we stopped by a winery, 'Dourakis'. As one would expect
the dearest wine was the nicest but came at a price tag of only 15 euros, a
grape I hadn't heard of, 'mandilari'. The other wines only 10 and 7 euros
and were all good too.
The tastings where so generous in quantity we had to
signal for smaller ones. It wasn’t really a ‘tasting’ at all, more like
drinking. Hungry
cats were waiting on our return. They were pleased that we were restocked with pet
food cans from the supermarket.
The following day Jarvis had to do a school journal entry. Much to
my disbelief he chose New Zealand as his subject. Ah, he had just been running
through the Imbro Gorge tracing out the evacuation!
While Chris was back in London (24th – 27th
June), I managed a few walks with the boys. One was with Ollie around the
village and up the hill to the historic chapel, a cave in the cliff face. For the
village, this natural amphitheatre provided a perfect place for a few
traditional music events during the summer months.
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| Cave Chapel, Maheri |
Katerina returned to wish us farewell. She came with a lovely
thoughtful gift of homemade raki (alcohol with Cretan honey and herbs) and
chocolates (orange peel in choc) made by her Mum, Olga.
