Crafty Crete: Volume Two – Voyage and Discover

Thanks for tuning in to read more about Crafty Crete! Here we have Volume Two: full of tales from my travels around the island of Crete and slightly beyond. Come with me around some of the beautiful places in East Crete.

As much as I love relaxing by the pool and soaking up the sun, I can’t stop my itchy feet. They want to step into new and exciting locations, destinations and situations.

Crete is the largest of the Greek Islands and is home to some marvellous mythological stories. We stayed in Malia, in the north-eastern part of the island. From Malia, there were a wide range of excursions on offer. These ranged from trips to close-by sites like Lasithi Plateau and Heraklion, to further away trips to Balos, Chania or even Santorini. Being the kind of place it is, Malia offered many a drinking booze cruise-type trip. We booked two excursions from local tour companies: Cretan Life plus Zeus Cave and Spinalonga Tour, and took ourselves to Knossos Palace and Heraklion.

The main Malia strip is one long road leading from the Malia Main Church (ironic, I know) down to the beach. It’s approximately a 10-minute walk from Yiannis Manos Hotel. Along here you will find bars, tourist shops and clubs in varying sizes with snappy, punchy, modern names. During the early evening, it’s fairly calm but after 11pm, the gears are cranked up and you have touts trying to get you into bars with special drinks deals (2 spirits and mixers for 5€ or so I believe).

Speaking to some party girls, they said they felt quite safe in the clubs and really enjoyed them.  In Malia, balloons seem popular among party-goers. I discovered that Malia balloons are actually filled with some narcotic or other, designed to inhale for ‘more party’. They sell them everywhere: in shops, bars and also in clubs. The prices of drinks inside the clubs were apparently not that expensive but if you don’t fancy the clubs, there are plenty of bars playing Latin and pop music.

The clubs shut at 6pm, and unlike in most countries, McDonald’s is not open early for breakfast. That being said, the streets are surprisingly clean and I saw only a few empty balloons littering the ground (terrible for the environment 😠).

For children, there are some arcades and fairground-type games and further towards the beach, there is a Mini Golf. This looks very mini.

For more information about the places and food we tried, you can find it in Volume Three – Bites and Beverages. To hear about the local craft beer owned by a bar on the strip, you’ll have to wait for the Crafty Crete: Volume Beer 😉

More authentic, more laid-back and darn cute. The old town lies to the south of the strip. Characterised by narrow, cobbled streets and traditional-looking places, the old town offers a more Greek vibe. To tell the truth, some parts do look like back alleys and lanes rather than public areas, but there are some sweet routes with little signs and foliage. There are a couple of old churches dotted about. We looked inside the church close to several tavernas in a square. It was beautiful, full of painted icons and divider.

This author certainly recommends checking out the Old Town and getting away from the hubbub of the strip. I wish I’d had time to try more of the places here and to explore a little more. Let me know in the comments if you’ve got a favourite place here!

In my eyes, the main attraction is the little islet further research told me is called Afentis Christos. This sits just off the shore and is home to a teensy church which is locked. It’s close enough to swim out to. Did I do it? Abso-blooming-lutely! The view from the sea-facing side of the islet is incredible. For just a second, you can pretend you’re back to a time before booming music and dodgy lip jobs reigned supreme. Practically and personally speaking, the distance isn’t too taxing nor the current too strong. However, please always follow beach warning flags and only attempt if you’re a good swimmer who’s confident in deep water with waves.

More natural, fewer humans and no sports. This quieter beach is ideal for snorkel enthusiasts. It’s a wee trek away: about 20 minutes from Yiannis Manos. I saw a sign saying offering two sunbeds and parasol for 9€ but once again, we choose the bare sand. We weren’t planning on sunbathing anyway.

It must be noted that the sand on either of the two beaches is not the nicest and this author did not enjoy its almost sticky nature. It did not brush off easily and seemed quite… thick?

The water is warm and pleasant although when we were there, pretty darn choppy. We stayed on the left-hand side of the beach, whereas the cove bit is on the right. There is a large decorative amphora (big pot with handles) on the rocks for an unknown reason but it’s quite iconic.

Under the sea… it’s ‘a whole new world’ 🎵down there. Seriously, it’s so cool. You can see fish feeding off the rocks below, fish larger than your hands, silvery fish and teensy-weensy ones. They move with the waves and do not seem scared of humans. They get so close they’re almost touching you. I even saw a couple projectile poop brown missiles… and then some others try to eat that… In sum, great place to snorkel. Just be careful that with the strong waves and current, you don’t become fish food on the rocks.

The tour picked us up from McDonald’s on the strip at 9:20am. Loads of buses pick up from the same location at a similar time, so be patient for the right bus for your trip. We had a great tour guide Maria who spoke several languages and gave all information in both English and Italian.

The first stop is an olive oil factory where they rather quickly explain the process from branch to bottle. The earlier the olives are harvested, the better quality the oil with long-lasting flavour and very high levels of antioxidants. You can use some oils for cooking and some not. Then you get to taste the goods. They also throw some flavoured balsamic ‘sauces’ into the oil.

Not an olive fan, nor a balsamic fan, nor an individual who uses oil or vinegar as a dressing, I was not very excited about the tasting. BUT much to my surprise, the pomegranate balsamic ‘cream’ they put into one of the oils was delicious on the bread. Of course, there’s a shop.

The beach was mostly pebbly and pretty small. No matter; we weren’t there for that. We took the coastal road back towards the bus and admired the beautiful views across Mirabello Bay to the mountains of further eastern Crete.

Mythology Moment: There’s a statue in the port of a girl riding a bull. The story goes that Zeus falls in love with a girl named Europa. One day, while she was playing with her friends, he transformed into a white bull and approached them. They started to play with this magnificent creature and Europa got onto his back. He then abducted her and carried her away to Crete. She went on to have three sons, as the legend goes. One of which being Minos, ruler of Crete.

This island has had a long history for one so small. Rumour is it that the Venetians made the island, built a fortress on it, then the Ottomans got hold of it in the 1700s. Then from 1903 it became a leper colony until 1957. As many as 1000 leper victims were kept on the island, guarded by high walls and armed guards. Conditions were dire and no one really cared until Epaminondas Remoundakis, a law student with leprosy, came and shook things up. Thanks to him, the island grew into a community with better healthcare and infrastructure.

Today, you are advised that swimming and smoking is not appropriate on the island as it is the final resting place of many who had the disease. It’s a 5–10-minute boat crossing from Plaka to the island and from the sea, you can already see part of the old wall and buildings.

Once into the historical site, there is a small map showing you the routes you can go. I URGE you to take a photo of this, or at least take better stock of where to go than we did…

To the left, there are several old houses, buildings and somewhere there is an old hospital. Whilst we saw a couple of buildings, we ashamedly did not see all due to our getting lost-ness. We made our way to the top part of the island, to what looks like a castle turret. The view on the way up is absolutely unbelievably incredible. This is absolutely not suitable for persons with reduced mobility. Even on the ‘official’ paths and structures, your footing is not assured and you are clambering over rocks with precarious footholds. No health and safety here.

Once in the castle bit, there’s nothing there. Quite anticlimactic. You can’t even see over the walls.

We carried on to the right and thought we were on the ‘normal’ path. Spoiler: we were not. We managed to get to the topmost part of the island, behind the castle bit: more mountain-goat powers required. It was absolutely worth it. The views were absolutely remarkable. No other words. The photos don’t do it justice but it’s just an almost 365-degree view of the bay, Crete and out to sea. Just incredible.

Coming down, was not easy. We quickly discovered we were absolutely, categorically, most emphatically not on the correct path. Indescribable in any way but treacherous, we clambered down rocky hillsides and sadly ended up missing and bypassing the rest of the buildings and streets. This author would say we took the very ‘scenic’ route. And boy did our muscles feel it later… We managed to get back onto the ‘normal’ route by squeezing through a broken fence with ‘Danger’ written on the other side. Bit late for the warning…

We followed this route right the way around, which also yielded some stunning sea-nic views (get it?). We’d had approximately one hour on the island and made it back to the boat just in time. Disembarked as humans, re-embarked as mountain goats.

The last stop of the day and we were knackered. The harbour here is very pretty and you can walk alongside it or cross over to the town. Here, it’s restaurant after restaurant, with some shops thrown in, all along the shorefront. Further inland, there are more shops although we didn’t explore too much. Nevertheless, we did stop by a really charming church. Inside was really a sight to see: every inch was painted ceiling to floor. It caused me to think how wonderful that there are all these small churches everywhere and many have just as much beauty as some famous ones, but you’d never know!

We stopped at ‘Babel Bar’ for some rest and refreshment. While perusing the menu for a beer I hadn’t tried, the host points to Mythos (common Greek beer) saying: “Everyone likes this”. I reply: “I’m not everyone”. We explain that I ‘collect’ and try different local beers and he then suggests a beer not on the outside menu. His opinion is: “It’s unique”. I reply: “Now, that’s me!”. More information on this craft beer, for those interested, will be in the Crafty Crete: Volume Beer.

Price guide: 5.50€ Craft Bottle, 3€ Fanta Lemon, 6€ Milkshake.

Unfortunately, we were rather underwhelmed with Knossos Palace. Advertised as Crete’s best archaeological site, there was not too much still standing and we found the information about the actual palace and orientation rather lacking. There are some signs but these mostly describe the guys who located and attempted to retore the palace – or bits of it. A lot of the information is guess-work and it’s kind of impossible to tell what is restoration and what is original. A lot of rocks and no real direction of how to visit/which bit is which.

I noticed some parts of the site were wheelchair accessible, others most decidedly not. Definitely seek further advice if needed r.e. reduced mobility access. We were stood for a while in a two-lined queue that eventually fed into one lane and only two out of three ticket counters were open.

The queue to enter the ‘Throne Room’ seemed to stretch across the entire site. Considering it’s not a throne room as we understand it, and that’s just an expert’s guess anyway, we didn’t think it worth waiting in the heat (no shade). And the heat was quite severe. Water is a must. There is a place to buy fresh juice etc. at the entrance, along with toilets.

We took a walk into the city centre afterwards and found a maze of streets and shops. We came to a very pretty fountain surrounded by cafés and shops and we saw a Venetian city hall built in the 1600s. I could have spent longer in this city as I found it quite charming. I read there was a Venetian port here too, but we did not head in that direction.

We found the Central Market, which is one street with close-knit market with white overhanging rooves. It looks traditional from a distance but upon further inspection, is filled with the same souvenir shops as anywhere, and a comic/fandom-style shop.

On this street lies a quaint little local beer pub selling a local beer Charma. I’ll spare the details for the Volume Beer, but with interesting local decor and a Cretan beer, this place was a winner for me.

Nico showed us an antique hand mill they still use to grind flour. I tried to turn it but it was incredibly heavy. The next stop was the milking goat: Samantha. She was very calm, patient and this clearly wasn’t her first rodeo. Trying not to hurt her, I squeezed gently on her teats. Did you know a goat only has two? It turns out you need to squeeze them fairly hard to get the milk out and it doesn’t hurt them. I managed to get most of it in the bucket I was aiming for, so I counted it as a win.

We were moving between ‘activity stations’ almost like a school trip, with other Safari Experts groups and their guides at each of the other stations. It was fairly busy and all the guides/farm workers were related or neighbours.

Before moving to see the rest of the goats destined for the BBQ, we stopped to try some very fresh, homemade cheese. This was using Samantha’s goat milk, as we were led to believe, and was still warm. It tasted pretty salty but pretty good: I’d have it on toast. This was before it was refined into actual goats cheese or made into another type of cheese. Then we fed the goats in the enclosure a dry food mix. They do not bite your fingers, but lick rather enthusiastically.

Time for the cooking lessons. I was looking forward to this bit and imagined to be a sort of workshop where we had wee benches and all copied teacher to make our dishes. I was incorrect. We gathered around a single bench where Nico’s childhood friend’s mother showed us two simple Greek recipes. She spoke mostly in Greek but Nico was explaining in English. We watched her hollow out some vegetables and then she handed me the knife, so I murdered one tomato. She stuffed them with a Carolina rice and vegetable mix.

We were then each handed a wine leaf, into which she spooned a bit of rice mixture. She instructed us how to roll them. My boyfriend somehow parcelled his into a square, so she redid his. Then we moved onto Tzatziki. I love Tzatziki and this cook’s tasted incredible. She whipped it up very quickly in front of us and produced some bread to eat it with. Not really the hands-on cooking lesson I’d imagined but hey ho, I made some notes anyway. Happy to share said notes, ask in the comments if you want!

We stopped at another stunning viewpoint; this time overlooking the Gorge of Embassa. Very camera-worthy. The roads were getting decidedly more off-road and while Nico joked about getting ‘massaged’, we were actually thrown about the vehicle like beans in a toddler’s rattle. An excellent driver, he navigated over boulders and ‘roads’ I wouldn’t attempt for all the olives in Crete. I felt the jeep also wants its mountain goat certificate.

One of the most entertaining parts, it must be said, was Nico’s music playlist. He matched it perfectly to the parts of the day. King Julian’s ‘I Like To Move It, Move It’ for all the off-road rocking, Mission Impossible for stealing fruit from the farmer’s patch in the Plateau (I’m getting to it, patience) and others that had us chortling in amusement.

Nico told us that in Minoan times, they used fire signals atop the bigger mountains to warn others of ships approaching etc. This is apparently meant to be the earliest form of morse code-type communication. Tantalising Titbit: When goats bite, the enzymes in their mouth causes the tree to wither and die. This is why goat owners must get permission to leave their goats roaming wild because goats climb and eat everything. There are metallic fences everywhere to protect olive trees and similar groves and I believe it’s up to the owner to construct these barriers.

The cave itself is gorgeous. The journey to it, less gorgeous. Nico dropped us at the bottom, next to the cafés and facilities and gave us 1.5 hours. It turned out this was just ample time to get there and back without bursting an internal organ.

The climb begins and it’s about 20 minutes to the top. 75% of the way is good footing/pavement and the rest is akin to scrambling up a rocky cliffside. There are clever Cretans offering ‘taxis’ some way up and these ‘taxis’ leave donkey droppings all over the path you’re struggling up. I don’t know the price as God gave me legs and I wanted to burn off the night before’s Wasabi and beer tastings (find out more in later volumes!)

Finally at the top, the view of the Lasithi Plateau is impressive. I was absolutely delighted to find out that after this exhausting climb, we had about 200 steps to climb down. Down is fine, back up was not. This was to enter the cave. Like any tourist attraction, there is a drink and snack stand outside the path to the cave steps.

The cool air is so very welcome as you descend into the cave. There is nowhere to really stop and admire the cave; it’s just a one-way system to walk down, round and back up. The stalactites and stalagmites are super cool and the micro plant life gives the rocks an eerie green colour on the photos. In real life, it did not look coloured. The way I remember the difference, is that you pull your TIGHTS UP and therefore stalactites are up: they grow from the ceiling, towards the ground.

Mythology Moment: It was in this cave that Zeus’ mother Rhea birthed and hid him from his titan father who wanted to eat him to stop him rising up and killing him in turn (as he did to his father, the guy had issues). The locals would make noise outside the cave to hide the baby’s crying and a she-goat Amalthea fed Zeus her milk. Grown up, Zeus thanks the Cretans by draining the large lake close by and this became the fertile ground known as Lasithi Plateau.

This ‘lesson’ was in a similar style to the cooking class. Nico introduced us to a rather bored-looking gent at a pottery wheel in the cellar of a ceramic shop and explained he had been making pottery for something like 30 years. I too may be bored of sweaty tourists after that long. The clay comes from Crete and has been used like this for thousands of years.

Our ‘lesson’ consisted of us going one by one up to the wheel and with a small amount of clay, the gent starts making a tiny pot. He wets our hands and places them on the spinning vase. It is him, however, that moulds the piece and does it all. Your fingers are just touching it for the sake of it. The gent says nothing to you.

Two days in the sun you are advised to leave it, and then you can paint if preferred. No water can touch them or they’ll disintegrate (having not been in a kiln). I did like the fact my boyfriend and I ‘made’ differently-shaped tiny pots. We added our finger prints, on purpose, just to feel we did a bit more in the crafting of our pots.

Earlier in the day, we had given Nico our food choice for the lunch: pork, chicken or vegetarian. My pork was divine. Full of flavour, great texture and the potatoes on the side? My golly gosh, they were so good! I almost reached over for Nico’s uneaten food – it was that good. But I contained myself… just. My boyfriend was also extremely satisfied with the food. The simplest is always the best. Reminded me of Montenegro’s simple Veal and Potatoes.

After our lunch, there was a definitely more relaxed vibe. Nico took us on a short walk through the village of Krasi to an ancient Plane tree reportedly more than 2000 years old. Man, this thing was large. It’s a protected monument and stands opposite an old venetian laundrette. This comprised of some natural springs with a structure built around to facilitate the clothes washing. The story goes, the young ladies’ one occasion to leave the house was to wash the clothes here and the boys would be relaxing under the tree and drinking raki (of course, what else?) watching the girls at work.