Caves, Calderas & Cruise Ship Crowds
The Full Spectrum of Tourist Experience
One of the major tourist attractions on Crete is the Cave of Zeus.
I am not going there.
I have found a cave nearby that the reviews describe as “absolutely gorgeous”, “almost no tourists” and “free”. That is ticking all my boxes. Ok, so there was no god born there, but hey, it is within walking distance of my accommodation (at least I thought so - any Greek I mentioned it to thought walking there was a crazy idea).
So thanks, but no thanks Zeus, I’m off to Skotino Cave.
It’s a climb up into the hills, and the day is fairly warm but I have plenty of water and no need to hurry. The views along the way are great
and the gradual fade into larger, more distant mountains reminds me of the Great Smoky Mountains in the USA.
Google maps has found a route which turns out not to be the quickest ( as evidenced by the several miles shaved off the return journey) and seemed to go a little off-piste, but non the worse for that.
The reviews were not wrong, the cave is indeed spectacular and though there are a few other people there, most of them seem to have driven, so I don’t feel that they had the full experience.
I am particularly taken with this stalagmite which I have dubbed Shroomamite
There are also a couple of small chapels near the cave, if such is your thing. A fine discovery and well worth the hike.
Second discovery of the day is how Cretans pronounce Cretan. English people (myself included) tend to pronounce it Creetan, with a long ‘e’ as the alternative sounds wrong to the English ear. Of course this is not an issue for the locals, who pronounce it with a short ‘e’. Even knowing that, I still find it hard to pronounce it the correct way without feeling rude.
My last full day in Crete and I am off to Santorini. I am quite excited as I have wanted to see this close up for a while and it hadn’t occurred to me that you can do it as a day trip from Crete.
Santorini is the archipelago of islands of islands around the caldera created by the massive volcanic explosion on the island of Thera (Thera is still the main island, but somewhat reduced!) around 1600BC.
It is often hypothesized that this was the location of Atlantis that Plato described. The basis for this seems to be that (a) it was roughly circular and (b) it was destroyed in a natural disaster. That is a fairly weak hypothesis as Plato also claimed that Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar), placing it in the Atlantic Ocean.
Others have associated the Canary Islands with the Blessed Isles of Greek legend and opted to see those as Atlantis. Of course a more obvious option would be the Azores, much more of which was above water in the past. Also, I notice that if you extend the Michael/Mary Ley line out into the Atlantic, it passes right through the Azores. Just saying.
Another strike against Santorini as Atlantis is that Plato claimed that it was destroyed in 9800BC, not in 1600BC.
Many people also believe that Plato was just using Atlantis as an allegorical device to describe the cyclical nature of civilisations and how they collapse when overtaken by hubris and corruption (a tale for our times maybe?). In this interpretation he added dates and claims of Egyptian origin of the knowledge to add some weight and give it the appearance of fact (everyone knew that the Egyptians kept great records).
Of course the date used also corresponds to the end of the Younger Dryas period when there was cataclysmic, rapid climate change and sea level rise, probably triggered by the impact of a comet on the Columbia ice sheet in Canada.
Hmmm.
Anyway, I seem to be visiting all of these locations this year which is fun, ano das ilhas turns into ano da Atlantida.
Meanwhile, back at the day trip…
The ferry from Heraklion to Santorini takes about 2 hours. These are no nonsense boats which do not hang a about!
The day on Santorini is in 2 parts. First a wander around Oia (generally considered the most beautiful town on Santorini) and then some time in the capital, Fira.
I can’t really argue with the characterisation of Oia
but it is chuffin’ busy
Much like at Knossos, we are reduced to an Ikea shuffle.
Okay, the streets are narrow and it is a popular place. Then again, there are also 3 cruise ships here today (apparently 5 is more normal!). It must be a nightmare for these small communities when cruise ships turn up and disgorge thousands of people at a time. I’m sure they make lots of money, but I felt for the people trying to deliver supplies to restaurants and fighting their way through the crowds.
It’s also a bit self-defeating for the people on cruises. The very nature of the cruise means that wherever you land you will not have the opportunity to experience a peaceful visit to a beautiful location. I gather that some places are now looking to ban cruise ships. Of course this may be more related to them being floating leper colonies!
I take my mind off the crowds by making a poor attempt at my signature Potter hat selfie.
I think that natural features are more amenable to this than churches though.
Onwards to Fira.
The capital is equally busy. [Side note: the bus drivers have mad skills. Each of the locations have fairly small car parks for buses and some of the manoeuvres to get into spaces are unbelievable. Cretan drivers may be crazy, but they know what they are about!]
Here, I walk up towards the cable car but can’t really be bothered queueing (and there is also a howling gale blowing which does not incentivise me). But I find some great views of the Caldera and this is , of course, what I have come for.
I also find another entry for my “Relaxing Benches of the World” series. I’m honestly not sure how relaxing it would be sitting on one of these benches knowing that there is a queue behind you, but can’t fault the view.
And much like Oia, Fira is beautiful
After climbing up for the views, and having no interest in overpriced boutiques and restaurants (although slightly tempted by the restaurant advertising a Beyond Burger - Crete being not particularly big on veggie food, salads notwithstanding), I toy briefly with the idea of a boat trip to the still active volcano in the centre of the Caldera, but it seems this will take too long and the bus has already left someone behind at Oia when they didn’t get back at the allotted time.
Instead I head for the Museum of Prehistoric Thera. This is interesting, if quite small and has many artefacts from Akrotiri (essentially the new Pompeii, being the main town destroyed by the eruption). This is somewhere I would like to visit but it is on the other side of the island. Maybe on a future trip…
Anyway, seems that pizza ovens have not really come on in 4000 years.
Fun fact: apparently Santorini has more churches than private residences. This seem unfeasible at first but then Santorini does have quite a small population but has to handle 3 million visitors every summer, so I guess most of the buildings are tourist accommodation.
Fun fact 2: The guide tells us that volcanic rocks from Santorini were used in the construction of the Suez canal and that it is named Suez because that is Zeus spelled backwards. I assume he is just having some fun, but I did fact check the rock use and that, at least, is correct, so who knows?
The last day and it is the typical package holiday check out at lunch time, flight late at night deal. Luckily, I have some family staying nearby and so can while away the time reading and listening to music on their nice shaded (and elevated!) balcony before heading off for a final meal while waiting for the airport transfer.
The trip home is something of a nightmare.
As I got back latish from Santorini, I went straight to meet my parents to eat. It was the only night that I went out in shorts and a short sleeve shirt and no insect repellent and the mosquitos had clearly just been waiting for their chance to savage me.
So, back to the airport and the plane was ready early and they had us boarded about an hour before our scheduled take off. But then the pilot tells us that they can’t leave early as they will get fined. So we sit sweltering and grumbling on the plane when we could be in a cool(ish) terminal.
In addition to this, he informs us that we will be flying into a head wind and so the flight will take 45 minutes longer than expected. Aaarrrrgh!
I try to sit as still as possibly to avoid sweating too profusely, but the mosquito bites push me into a frenzy of scratching.
When we finally take off, the woman across the aisle decides to twist sideways and cross her legs into the aisle. All well and good - she is a large lady and I understand legroom issues. What I wasn’t ready for was the spasms every few seconds after she fell asleep which made her leg twitch and kick me on several occasions. I could perhaps have forgiven that, but I felt that the farting was unnecessary.
Ah well, its an experience I suppose. Back at East Midlands at around 1am (3am to me) and I shiver my way back to the car through 8C and rain. A full 17 degrees cooler than when I left Crete.
It has been a great trip, if not my usual freestyle approach. If I go back, I think I will need to get to some of the more remote, mountainous regions and also to some of the palaces less touristy than Knossos.
Well worth another trip though I think. There is much to see on Crete and the welcome is warm.