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| Lassithi Plateau, Crete, Greece |
During my last few years of teaching, our Social Studies
curriculum changed from American History (my favorite thing to teach)
to Ancient Civilization. I was
disappointed because beyond Roman Civilization (which I picked up from my years
of taking Latin), I was not very knowledgeable about Ancient Civ. However, I remember commenting to Chuck that
at some time or other in my life, I’d like to go to Greece because when we
would talk about ancient Greece, it not only sounded fascinating, but the
country itself sounded beautiful! Now
we find ourselves in Greece for the third time since my retirement, and this
cruise has visited a wide variety of Greek ports, with a few more to come
yet. I’ve been thoroughly enchanted by
the beauty of the Greek isles and am so glad to have the opportunity to see
several Greek ports I hadn’t seen before. The country is truly enchanting, and
the people seem to be very warm and friendly.
We arrived at Greece’s largest island, Crete, to find
sunshine pouring in our window, an extremely welcome sight after having had
several days of overcast skies and a few that included rain. We were docking in Crete’s largest city of
Iraklion. Iraklion is quite a modern
city, having been rebuilt since World War II, when it had been destroyed by the
Nazis. With about 300,000 inhabitants,
Iraklion makes up just under 1/3 of the population of Crete.
Crete was one of the places where I was scheduled to take a
shore excursion. I was quite
disappointed when Debby, the shore excursion representative who has been working
with me, said that I absolutely could not do the Palace of Knossos. Being interested in Greek Mythology, I had
hoped I’d be able to visit the palace because that’s where the mythical Minotaur
had guarded the labyrinth. Debby did
assure me that I could handle the one and only excursion that did not go to the
palace, and it sounded interesting, so I booked it. Chuck read the description and decided that
he would enjoy it, so he booked it also.
(I wonder if there was an ulterior motive because he announced this
morning, “Oh, good! I don’t have to do
the blog today!”)
We were pleased that Alice was also on the excursion, making
for a very pleasant morning. The
excursion, entitled Lassithi Plateau,
took us into the interior of the island.
As we headed out of the city, our guide George gave us a very
informative running commentary. Crete is
pretty much equidistant among three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia,
making it a very desirable location. As a result it has been taken over by many
different cultures. It was originally
settled by Neolithic men, who lived in the caves in the mountains. Evidence of human inhabitance dates back to
5000 BC. Early in its history, the
Minoans, a seafaring people, lived there.
It has been taken over by the Greeks, Romans, became part of the
Byzantine empire, was controlled by Venice, as well as others, the most recent
being the Nazis before Crete became a part of Greece once again.
In addition to the mythical Minotaur, Crete played an
important role in the mythology of Zeus.
According to myth, Zeus’s father was Kronos and his mother was Rhea. Kronos believed that one of his children would
eventually kill him. So each time a baby
was born, Kronos would kill it. In order
to protect her unborn baby, Rhea came to Crete and hid in a cave up in the
Lassithi Plateau. Zeus was born in that
cave; he later killed his father and became king of the Greek gods.
There are three mountain ranges in Crete, and we were
heading from the northern shore of the island toward Mt. Ditki. Crete has about 35 million olive trees, just
a few more than Corfu’s 4½ million! We
must have seen about half of them! Olive
oil is the main product of the island, and tourism is also very important. Because the main tourist season starts around
the beginning of May, this works out well for those who produce olive oil.
Olives are harvested during the winter, freeing those people up to be involved
with tourists during the summer. Olives
have to be harvested by hand. I can’t
even begin to imagine having to harvest so many trees by hand! They place nets under the trees, and use
devices to shake the branches, allowing the ripe olives to drop into the nets. (At least they don’t have to pick each olive
by hand!)
Our first of two stops was at the 13th Century
Monastery of Kera. Back in the late 13th
Century, someone found an icon in that area that looked like the Virgin
Mary. The icon quickly became an
important religious relic, and by 1300, a monastery had been erected with the
relic as its central feature. The icon
was taken to Constantinople, but somehow it miraculously flew back to the
monastery. It was taken once again, and
it flew back to the monastery again. The
third time it was taken, it was chained to a column in Constantinople. The icon managed to fly back to the monastery
a third time, still attached to the column with the chain. It was taken a fourth time, this time by
Venice. For some reason, it did not come
back from Venice; it remains there, and today one can see a replica of the icon
in the small monastery. People can wrap
themselves in the chain and pray to the icon (replica) for relief from some
concern. As our guide described the
monastery, we actually saw a Greek woman enter the tiny monastery, wrap herself
in the chain, kiss the window in front of the icon, and pray. Also inside the monastery are 14th
Century wall paintings, used to depict the story. The monastery is now cared for by several
nuns, who made their presence known as we visited. Their biggest concern was to be sure that we
did not take any pictures inside the monastery.
We did enjoy seeing the altar adorned with hundreds of flowers, put
there in the celebration of Easter.
We continued on our way up to the Lassithi Plateau. Lassithi literally means mountain with a
forest. While there is no forest there
now, there was at one time. The plateau
is high enough not to be able to support olive trees, but there are orchards
that produce a variety of fruits. Lassithi Plateau is known for its
windmills. We saw them everywhere as we
passed through small farm villages.
In the village of Tzermiado, we stopped for a chance to
explore as well as for a snack of traditional local foods. I particularly liked a small pastry that was
filled with cheese of some kind. There
were other pastries filled with spinach, as well as some breads, tomatoes, olives,
and cheese, accompanied by red wine, white wine, or water. Upon finishing the snack, we were given time
to wander through the streets. I didn’t
want to go too far as I didn’t want to walk too much. However, I was delightfully entertained right
next to the restaurant by a man with a staff, his German shepherd dog, and
hundreds of sheep, all with bells tied around their necks. It was quite an idyllic setting. The man controlled the dog and the sheep with
a motion of his staff. The sheep were
well tended under his watchful eye, especially when some sheep wandered too
near the tourists, or worse yet, when some tourists wandered too close to the
sheep in order to snap pictures.
Actually, in most of those cases, it was when the tourists charged toward
the sheep rather than sensibly approaching them very slowly!
Our trip back to Iraklion was over the same road, giving the
opposite side of the bus the opportunity to get pictures they had missed on the
way up. The driver managed to slow down
a little to allow us the opportunity to get a few pictures of some of the ruins
of old windmills. As we drove through
some of the small villages, we noticed several men sitting in the cafes. Our
guide explained that we would never see Greek women in the cafes. They are home working. The men have the time to get out to shoot the
bull with other men. We had also noticed
a few women out and about, dressed entirely in black. The guide told us that it is very typical to
see women dressed in black, and when a woman is widowed, it is tradition that
she never marries again and wears black for the rest of her life. It would certainly simplify the wardrobe, but
I think I would find it quite boring!
Despite missing the main attraction, the Palace of Knossos,
we thoroughly enjoyed being able to see some of the scenic countryside of
Crete. It was a very pleasant excursion!
As we headed toward our next port of call, Cyprus, we
welcomed a day at sea after five days in port.
Twice on our cruise, the captain has reported interesting and unique
wildlife sightings during his midday announcements. One day he told us that they had varnished
the railings on one deck only to later discover that a seagull had landed on
the rail and gotten stuck. They had to somehow rescue the terrified seagull
from the rail and then try to clean up his feet before he could escape to
freedom. Then of course they had to re-varnish the railing. And the morning after
leaving Crete, the captain informed us that they had noticed a couple of
pigeons who were taking a rest on the bow, but suddenly took flight, to the
surprise of the officers. Then they
discovered that a barn owl had somehow ended up on the ship and was resting on
a railing. (Fortunately this railing
wasn’t varnished.) Since owls are
nocturnal, they can’t quite figure out why this owl joined the ship, but we’re
hoping that he will survive, along with the little wagtail that we discovered
on the sky deck, till we get to Cyprus.
BT
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