We chose to vis­it Myce­nae dur­ing our lim­it­ed time on the main­land. As the Myce­naeans were the suc­ces­sors (and per­haps con­querors) of the Minoans, their most impres­sive ruins of were a fit­ting choice. They are dra­mat­i­cal­ly locat­ed on a steep hill, flanked by a deep canyon, from which you can see the entire­ty of the Argol­id plain, and even a fleet approach­ing by sea would have been vis­i­ble. The “cyclo­pean” walls are extreme­ly impres­sive, many of the blocks weigh­ing over twen­ty tons. I thought the famous “Gate of the Lions” would be one of those icon­ic images that dis­ap­points in real life, but it lives up to its rep­u­ta­tion. It was vis­i­ble in his­toric times with­out exca­va­tion. The exca­va­tions and very cau­tious recon­struc­tions by Greek archae­ol­o­gists have not involved the laisse-majesté prac­ticed by Evans at Knos­sos. What you see is large­ly the citadel as it was in Late Hel­ladic IIIa (cir­ca 1250–1200 BC), open to the pub­lic with only enough recon­struc­tion, path­ways, fenc­ing and edu­ca­tion­al plaquing to make it com­pre­hen­si­ble to the pub­lic and yet keep it from being destroyed by vis­i­tors. Read more »

Pho­tos tak­en in West Crete:

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The Idaean Cave on Mt. Koussanas

… the Gods have placed sweat.
Long is the road there­to and steep and rough at first.
But when the height is won, then is there ease, 
Though griev­ous­ly hard in the winning.

- Hes­iod

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Pho­tos tak­en in south­ern Cen­tral Crete:

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A love­ly Argiope Loba­ta we came across. It’s ven­omous, but not dan­ger­ous. Fil­ip’s fin­gers (I think) show the scale.

We left Aghia Pav­los with only a vague plan to explore West Crete. We set­tled on using a mix­ture of main and back roads. The Cre­tan land­scape is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly com­plex and var­ied. With­in min­utes you can switch from some­thing that looks like Afghanistan to some­thing that looks like Bohemi­an or South­ern Ontario wood­land. Noth­ing can be reached in a straight line. A road between two vil­lages, marked as a few kilo­me­ters long, will be pre­cip­i­tous climb by mul­ti­ple switch­baks, or descend into a maze-like com­plex of canyons, and yet appear on the map in the “plains” region. His­to­ri­ans won­der if the com­plex­i­ty of Knos­sos’ floor plan inspired the myth of The­seus and the Labyrinth. Well, any­thing Cre­tan might have inspired it, because the whole land is a nat­ur­al labyrinth, and any giv­en patch of it is a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth, and every vil­lage is a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth with­in a labyrinth.  Read more »

Pho­tos tak­en at Aghia Triada:

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Pho­tos tak­en at Phaestos:

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The only dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting the rent­ed car was hav­ing to hitch­hike to the near­est town (22 km) to make the arrange­ments, with­out yet being cer­tain that we would get it. But we made the trip in two rides. There was no has­sle. We got a lit­tle Nis­san man­u­al shift.

So we made for the remain­ing planned sites: Aghia Tri­a­da and Phaestos.

View from Phaestos. The val­ley would have been just as pro­duc­tive in Minoan times.

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The Phaestos Disk

We relaxed for a day, catch­ing up on sleep, then engag­ing in noth­ing more stren­u­ous than writ­ing, sip­ping kafe hel­lenikos, and enjoy­ing the beach­es. Aghios Pav­los can only be reached by a wind­ing moun­tain road, and the coast here is rough, with only an occa­sion­al cove. There is per­pet­u­al wind, a bless­ing in the Cre­tan heat, but the hotel must keep bas­kets of rocks even in the office, to hold down papers, and table­cloths are clamped to tables. The beach­es are civ­i­lized (i.e., cloth­ing option­al) and have only a few bathers at a time. Coves are sep­a­rat­ed by geo­log­i­cal­ly inter­est­ing and visu­al­ly pleas­ing rock for­ma­tions. Read more »

pho­tos tak­en in East Crete:

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