Crete

Several years ago, I read The Island, by Victoria Hislop. Although her writing isn’t really to my taste, I find her books interesting, and The Island described a leper colony, off the coast of Crete. I thought it would be interesting to visit.

We’re staying in Ierapetra, on the south coast (which is sunnier in October) so I shoved a jumper in my bag, and we headed North. It’s possible to catch a ferry from Plaka, which has free parking, so we drove there. The parking was free, the ferry cost €12 for a return ticket, which seemed reasonable, and the ferry ran every 45 minutes. We had just missed one, so we bought a ticket and then wandered up a pretty street while we waited. I needed a coffee and a washroom, so we bought some coffee (very good coffee) from The Pine Tree tavern. The washrooms were very clean (I think everywhere in Crete is very clean) and an espresso and an Americano both cost €2.50–which is as cheap as we have found.

The ferry arrived, we found seats, there was a short wait while it filled with passengers. The ride was very short. We came to a small harbour, with ferries from several other places. There was a ticket office. I don’t know why, but I had assumed the ferry included entrance to the island. Rookie error. It cost a further €20 each to go onto the island. I felt slightly cheated, which makes no sense because I would probably have paid €30 for a ticket on the mainland, but somehow the 2-stage payment felt like a trick. Next time I will do better research. A very vigilant woman was checking tickets at the entrance, and insisted on tearing them in half (even though I had wanted to keep mine—it cost me €20!)

Spinalonga is a popular tourist destination, and it was busy. This didn’t especially spoil it—it was still just about possible to imagine the patients who were taken there in the early 1900s, who managed to survive until their illness defeated them. It was originally a fort, and they destroyed parts of the structure (to the horror of archeologists!) to build a settlement. I read that it became a community, and people even married and had children while living there. The novel I read was not, apparently, overly factual (I think it muddled some events, which happened in different times) but it’s fiction—it’s not meant to be a travel guide. I think Hislop describes places better than she describes people, and I recognised some of the buildings described in the book.

I cannot imagine how it would feel to live so close to the mainland, yet be unable to ever visit. If you were a strong swimmer, you could probably swim across, it’s not far. To be forced to live in isolation, to have to restart you life amongst strangers, must have been unbearably hard. As I read the signs (most were about the fort, but there were a few facts about the leper colony) I began to realise how strong those who made the island better must have been. Some of the people made a community, improving buildings, seeking to enforce a structure to life. As I wandered through their tiny houses, and looked at the uncompromising blue of the sea, I realised that there is a lesson for all of us. Life will always have tough, nasty, times. We choose whether we will fold into ourselves and wait to die, or pick up the pieces that are left and try to make something positive.

We caught the ferry back to Plaka and ended up at the wrong harbour! It was fine, as the town is very small, and we wandered along the main road and decided to find some lunch. We chose The Carob Tree because it had a table of old men drinking coffee and staring at the world, and I firmly believe that local old men know the best places to visit. We were not disappointed.

We chose a selection from the appetisers menu, with more coffee and a bottle of water. The Cretan Cheesecake turned out to be bread and carob bark, mushed into a sort of cake, with a local cheese and chopped tomatoes on top. It looked very pretty, tasted rather sour, and is definitely worth trying. My favourite was Graviera kantaifi, which was goat’s cheese baked in crispy shredded pastry, served with olive jam (which did not taste like olives—I don’t like olives). It was rich, and hot, and delicious.

We sat inside (near the old men) and watched the world drive past. At various points a van stopped outside, blocking the view, delivering fresh fish, or vegetables, or bottles of gas. It all felt very real and interesting.

I hope you have a good morning too. Thanks for reading.

Take care.

Love, Anne x

We are a short walk from the supermarket, which means we can buy things as we need them and don’t need to do a major shopping trip. It’s difficult to find some items, as we know no useful Greek (although I do recognise the letters). Some packets have several languages, which helps (but finding dishwasher salt was a challenge).

The toilets are like the one in Turkey—you can’t flush paper. Which makes for an unpleasant bin-emptying job each day. Today all the water also stopped, which wasn’t great (not so much because we needed water at the time, more because we wanted to know it would be restored before too long).

We went for a walk around the old town. This was, from what I could see, not very old, other than a church which at some point had been changed into a mosque. There were some lanes, and lots of houses had pots of plants outside, which was pretty, but the buildings themselves are all very ‘rectangles-of-concrete-painted-white’ in style. Which is not so much to my taste.

The people are friendly. We walked past a little church with three old ladies sitting on a bench outside. They called us over, and tried to guess which country we were from, chatting to us in Greek (which we didn’t understand). They smiled a lot.

We then passed a cafe full of old men drinking espressos. My kind of cafe. We stopped, and ordered two espressos (which was good of Husband, who doesn’t like espressos but does like joining in).

Friday

After a couple of days in the villa (Husband had interviews and I was tired, so it suited both of us) we decided to venture beyond the town. We drove along the south coast, to Monastiri Kapsa. The road was empty, only occasional cars passed us, it was very easy driving—even I could have managed it. The towns we drove through were all similar: concrete blocks painted white, the odd tree struggling in the rocky soil, a few shops, kids on bikes. Mainly lots of concrete, but lots of houses have big terracotta urns outside, filled with plants, which contrasts with the general ugliness of the place and makes it almost pretty. I realise this is very subjective, and many people would find Crete beautiful. But I like trees, and there are very few— mainly rocks and scrub. It is a very brown island.

At one point we passed a herd of goats, being shepherded by two men—no shirts, long grey beards, tanned bodies, fat tummies. The goats were sheltered in a cave on the hillside. I don’t know what they managed to eat, there wasn’t much growing, but they seemed happy. (I think goats are like ducks, they always look cheerful and slightly naughty. Maybe I should keep a couple.)

The monastery, when we reached it, was set on a high rock next to a gorge. I don’t think it was open for visitors. There was a little beach, with people swimming (not much in the way of costumes) and a few tired trees. The gorge was deep, and there was a goat track through the middle, but we didn’t walk it (too lazy). We drove back to the apartment for lunch.

We strolled back to the ‘old man cafe’ this afternoon. They have the best coffee, and they bring it with a bottle of water, which is a nice touch. As we sat there, looking at the beach, I wondered what the twisty trees growing on the beach are. If you open the camera on the Google search bar, it will photograph things and then suggest what they might be (I have never used ‘Google search’ before—it’s rather helpful). The search results suggested they were olive trees, which they are clearly not. It also suggested they were tamarisk trees, which matched exactly. I found this very interesting.

Tamarisk trees are mentioned in the Old Testament. They are able to survive in salty soil, and they deposit the salt in their leaves, which then fall and make the surrounding ground salty—so other plants never grow near them. They are therefore used metaphorically for Israel, which was called to be a nation separate from other nations in the ancient world. It was fun to see them, with their twisty branches and bubbly cork-like bark and delicate foliage.

It often takes me a day or two to properly see a new place, and I like Ierapetra. It has a nice mix of tourists and real life. It’s not (to my eyes) pretty, but it has some interesting plants, and lots of friendly people. The pace is relaxed. It’s also very clean—there is no litter, the streets are cleaned regularly, and whenever I have used public toilets they have been spotless. If it wasn’t for the dodgy drains, it would be perfect.

I hope you see the good things around you today. Thanks for reading.

Take care.

Love, Anne x