{"id":3639,"date":"2011-09-08T17:55:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T21:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3639"},"modified":"2018-08-04T21:53:01","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T01:53:01","slug":"wednesday-september-8-2011-sleeping-in-graveyards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3639","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, September 8, 2011 \u2014 Sleeping in Graveyards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A love\u00adly Argiope Loba\u00adta we came across. It\u2019s ven\u00adomous, but not dan\u00adger\u00adous. Fil\u00adip\u2019s fin\u00adgers (I think) show the scale.<\/p><\/div>\n

We left Aghia Pav\u00adlos with only a vague plan to explore West Crete. We set\u00adtled on using a mix\u00adture of main and back roads. The Cre\u00adtan land\u00adscape is extra\u00ador\u00addi\u00adnar\u00adi\u00adly com\u00adplex and var\u00adied. With\u00adin min\u00adutes you can switch from some\u00adthing that looks like Afghanistan to some\u00adthing that looks like Bohemi\u00adan or South\u00adern Ontario wood\u00adland. Noth\u00ading can be reached in a straight line. A road between two vil\u00adlages, marked as a few kilo\u00adme\u00adters long, will be pre\u00adcip\u00adi\u00adtous climb by mul\u00adti\u00adple switch\u00adbaks, or descend into a maze-like com\u00adplex of canyons, and yet appear on the map in the \u201cplains\u201d region. His\u00adto\u00adri\u00adans won\u00adder if the com\u00adplex\u00adi\u00adty of Knos\u00adsos\u2019 floor plan inspired the myth of The\u00adseus and the Labyrinth. Well, any\u00adthing Cre\u00adtan might have inspired it, because the whole land is a nat\u00adur\u00adal labyrinth, and any giv\u00aden patch of it is a labyrinth with\u00adin a labyrinth, and every vil\u00adlage is a labyrinth with\u00adin a labyrinth with\u00adin a labyrinth. <\/p>\n

We began by going west\u00adward by an inland road, through Spili, turn\u00ading south at the begin\u00adning of Not\u00adsi\u00adfou Gorge. This we fol\u00adlowed to the sea coast at Plakias. Pro\u00adceed\u00ading west\u00adward along the nar\u00adrow coastal plain, we passed by sev\u00ader\u00adal oth\u00ader immense gorges. At Akrotiri Fran\u00adgokastel\u00adlo, there was a Venet\u00adian fortress, beside which we pic\u00adniced. A lit\u00adtle fur\u00adther west, we turned inland again, fol\u00adlow\u00ading Imbros Gorge through a gap in the Lef\u00adka Ori ranges and descend\u00ading the Kare Gorge to the north\u00adern main road at Vris\u00ades. From there, it was easy dri\u00adving to Hania, Crete\u2019s sec\u00adond city and port.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

South\u00adwest coast.<\/p><\/div>\n

Pok\u00ading around near\u00adby Sou\u00adda, we found the metic\u00adu\u00adlous\u00adly main\u00adtained Com\u00admon\u00adwealth War Ceme\u00adtery. Crete played a strate\u00adgic role in the Mediter\u00adranean the\u00adatre of World War II<\/span>. Com\u00admon\u00adwealth forces tried to defend it against a mas\u00adsive Germn assault, but where forced out with heavy casu\u00adal\u00adties. After the war, bod\u00adies were care\u00adful\u00adly hunt\u00aded out, and re-buried in this spot, over\u00adlook\u00ading Sou\u00adda Bay. About a third of the graves are uniden\u00adti\u00adfied. Of the remain\u00adder, the largest num\u00adber are New Zealan\u00adders. I found a few Cana\u00addi\u00adans, all RCAF<\/span> airmen.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

A Turk\u00adish cas\u00adtle con\u00adtrol\u00adling a pass in the West Crete interior.<\/p><\/div>\n

Hania pre\u00adserves most of the Venet\u00adian her\u00aditage of the island. The old har\u00adbour has exten\u00adsive Venet\u00adian-built for\u00adti\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtions and a lot of Ital\u00adianate archi\u00adtec\u00adture. There\u2019s also crum\u00adbling mosque from the Ottoman peri\u00adod, and minaret from a large one no longer extant. The cen\u00adtral mar\u00adket place pro\u00advid\u00aded us with a stock\u00adpile of food. The taste in Crete is for sweet things \u2014- there\u2019s superb ice cream every\u00adwhere. But bread is anoth\u00ader mat\u00adter. Some\u00adtime in the Neolith\u00adic, I sur\u00admise, a boat-load of hard, stale bread must have reached Crete from Lebanon, and ever since then, that\u2019s how Cre\u00adtans have assumed bread should be. There\u2019s a bak\u00adery in every vil\u00adlage pro\u00adduc\u00ading a hun\u00addred vari\u00adeties of hard, crunchy bread, but soft bread is impos\u00adsi\u00adble to find. How\u00adev\u00ader, the same bak\u00aders pro\u00adduce won\u00adder\u00adful flaky spinach, sweet cream, veg\u00adetable, and cheese pies, as well as excel\u00adlent pas\u00adtries. At a remote moun\u00adtain stop, we had a mar\u00advel\u00adlous orange pie.<\/p>\n

Leav\u00ading Hania, our plan was to dri\u00adve through the back\u00adroads until sun\u00adset approached, and find some\u00adplace to sleep. In this cli\u00admate, a flat space and a sleep\u00ading bag is all you need to kip down. But find\u00ading a flat space is no small achieve\u00adment. This must be the bump\u00adi\u00adest, gorgi\u00adest, crag\u00adgi\u00adest, most irreg\u00adu\u00adlar place on the plan\u00adet. Anoth\u00ader chal\u00adlenge is find\u00ading any place that isn\u2019t overun with sheep and goats. But every vil\u00adlage seems to have a lit\u00adtle chapel, neat\u00adly main\u00adtained, sur\u00adround\u00aded by graves, and walled off to keep out the live\u00adstock. There are also many such chapels along unin\u00adhab\u00adit\u00aded roads, on remote crags, and on moun\u00adtain peaks. Each has its icons and votive can\u00addles. The chapels have no human pres\u00adence most of the time. We found an unob\u00adtrussive out\u00adside the vil\u00adlage of Gre\u00adgo\u00adrio, and slept through the night with\u00adin its precinct, sur\u00adrouned by the dead.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The labyrinthine land\u00adscape of West Crete.<\/p><\/div>\n

But this was only after wind\u00ading through a land\u00adscape yet more com\u00adplex than all we had seen before. My lit\u00adtle cam\u00ader\u00ada\u2019s bat\u00adtery was exhaust\u00aded by this point, and there are, at most, two or three more snaps possible.<\/p>\n

The moon is full and bright. The dead here are not buried, but encased in above-ground sar\u00adcopha\u00adgi, with pho\u00adtos attached. The faces of the elders stare at us as we sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left Aghia Pav\u00adlos with only a vague plan to explore West Crete. We set\u00adtled on using a mix\u00adture of main and back roads. The Cre\u00adtan land\u00adscape is extra\u00ador\u00addi\u00adnar\u00adi\u00adly com\u00adplex and var\u00adied. With\u00adin min\u00adutes you can switch from some\u00adthing that looks like Afghanistan \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ap-blog-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3639"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7678,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3639\/revisions\/7678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}