2 days walking across Crete from north to south

At 6.30 am shops in Georgioupolis are just opening. From the square I walked south and took the left-hand fork in the road. This leads to the bridge over the main highway (the E75 along the north coast). Over the bridge the narrow road continued, first running parallel to the E75 and then turning to the right. The mountains were on my right as I walked east and south. There is a sign showing the turning to Lake Kournas. I walked past the lake and then looked back to see the lake below me and the sea in the distance. The village of Kournas is some distance further on. Villagers were making their way to church. I paused to take a photograph of a settlement on a hill top. picture Kournas is the prettiest of the villages that I saw on my journey.

After Kournas the road surprisingly goes downhill a while, running along a pleasant river valley. At Kastellos I made a right turn off the main road and along a very steep narrow road. After a while it becomes less steep, and there is a beautiful view from just before Patima of the sea and another picturesque settlement on a hill top (perhaps the same one?).

After Patima the road becomes a dirt road and I was surrounded by a rocky landscape. In the distance I could see Argiroupolis ( Argyroupolis or Arghyroupolis ) on top of a ridge. Eventually the dirt road joined a main road near the Giparis ( Gyparis or Gipari ) Bridge below Argiroupolis. I felt pleased with myself when I saw that it was only 11 am and it looked on the map as if I was already almost halfway across the island. The river Mousselas is dry at this point and time of year, the riverbed full of boulders.

The road rises gently as it goes along the Giparis Gorge. It is a genuine gorge and not just a valley, even though it is far from the sea. picture On each side are walls of rock, sometimes continuous and sometimes forming pinnacles. picture The bottom of the valley is shaded with trees and later there is a small flow of water between the boulders. When I felt like a rest I left the road and scrambled down the bank. It felt cool in the shade of the trees. I sat on a boulder and watched the little waterfalls.

This was the best part of the journey but from now on it became more difficult. The Giparis Gorge opens out into a wide valley, and it is a hard hot slog to the next village, Asigonia ( Asi Gonia ). I had run out of water at this point but below an orange tree were several oranges lying in the gutter. The juice was hot but refreshing. I encountered the first hairpin bend of my journey before entering the village. I was tired and it was lunchtime. There seem to be three places that look like tavernas but none of them could provide me with a meal. However at one of them I bought soft drinks and a bag of something made out of dried slices of bread and flavoured with tahini, cinnamon and clove.

On the map a track is marked as an alternative to the main road to the next village of Kallikratis. This was the first mistake I made. The track starts very steeply as a narrow concrete road but levels off into a dirt road. Here are good examples of olive terraces with the trees growing among wild flowers. One of the trees could well be over 1,000 years old considering its girth. I congratulated myself on making the right decision to follow this track after its unpromising start. If only I knew what was to come.

The track becomes concrete and much steeper. It seemed to be going up into the gap between two mountains. However, I assumed that it would level out eventually. I was wrong. I struggled up and the track ended in a big sheep pen. I could see two goatherds moving their flock further up. I went up to ask them if this was the way to Kallikratis and they said yes. There was no path as such, I just had to clamber over the rocks at the bottom of the ravine. The route is certainly not obvious, and at one point they whistled to me and indicated that I was going in the wrong direction.

I scrambled on for a long time against common sense. What stopped me was a fork in the route. I could either go left or right and I had no idea which way to go. I was exhausted at this point and decided to stay here the night. With my sleeping bag, two fleeces and a fleece hat it was a comfortable night. The stars came out one by one.

UPDATE: The map that I had was simply wrong. THERE IS NO TRACK BETWEEN ASIGONIA AND KALLIKRATIS. Only the main road. I have just seen (Feb 2005) an accurate map in Stanfords Map & Travel Books, 12-14 Long Acre, London. It is called 'Western Crete' Road Editions. This map shows the dry stream bed and the fork, but no connection to Kallikratis. Don't trust most maps!

I got up at dawn and decided to leave most of my stuff and try climbing a little more to see if I could find the way. I had been carrying quite a heavy weight in my backpack. After a quarter of an hour without any end in sight I decided I could not do this any more, especially as I had run out of water the previous day. Also my shadow was pointing in the same direction that I was climbing, indicating that I was going west, not south, as I should have been. Once the decision was made I felt happy about it and in a little over an hour I was back at the main road near Asigonia. I hid my backpack and walked into the village, and at 8.40 am I was sitting outside the shop waiting for it to open.

With my provisions I relocated my backpack and set off along the tarmac road. Seven sheep or goats followed me for a while and I passed a stone wall from which came a stream of water. I have seen several of these fountains in Crete.

I got a surprise when I saw that the road goes up the side of a mountain in a series of hairpin bends. Now I understood that between Asigonia and Kallikratis there is an enormous increase in altitude. No wonder the track did not level out the previous day. There is one bend in the road before the hairpin bends and I rested here under a tree and looked back over the valley. The climb up the mountain was not as hard as I thought it would be, especially as I got higher it became breezier. I did try to thumb a lift half way up from a Cretan in a pick-up truck who shouted something but did not stop.

Every time I thought I had come to the top there was yet another hairpin bend. Eventually the road levelled out. On the other side of the valley I could see a dirt road, it must have been the road from Miriokefala ( Myriokefala ) to Kallikratis. As the valley narrowed, the road became closer. I was pleased to see from the map that where the two roads meet is Kallikratis. However, the map is wrong.

The two roads meet at a pass that looks as if it is the highest point on the entire journey. Walls of rock rose on either side of me where the route had been cut. The wind here was very strong, funnelled through the pass. From here on is a good new-looking tarmac road. It runs downhill through a bleak landscape with no sign of cultivation. A cyclist passed me and another one a few minutes later. I kept a look out for the other end of the track that I had followed the previous day but could find no obvious route.

Eventually I came to Kallikratis. There is no sign saying the name; most villages have the name in Greek and Latin alphabets. A taverna opposite a meadow with olive and other trees seemed completely deserted. In the village I found a cafe. It was lunchtime, I went in. A television was on, but despite my shouts it seemed deserted too. I looked at the makeshift menu on the wall in Greek, German and English. I went round the side and saw a garden with hens. A woman appeared who was old, but looked the picture of health and happiness. We could converse easily despite not understanding each other's language.

I asked her for omelette, and she asked me if I wanted potato (patata) with it. She asked me if I wanted salad (salata) and said it was a speciality of hers. I said I wanted coffee, and she had two alternatives, Greek and frappe. I didn't fancy a tiny cup of strong coffee so I asked for frappe. It took her a while to make everything and I sat at a table under a walnut tree and drank lemonade. Then the meal arrived. On one plate an omelette with fried diced potato and on another the Greek salad topped with two slices of cheese sprinkled with herbs. The bill was six and a half Euro, which is about £4. I wanted to buy a bottle of water from her, but when I showed her an empty bottle she went over to a hosepipe and held it up. There was a continuous stream from the pipe to the base of a tree. She told me it is good water and comes from the mountains.

The map says that from the middle of Kallikratis there is a road running south to Katapori at the head of the Kallikratis ( Kallikratiano or Kalikratiano ) Gorge. The map is wrong. I walked through the village and out the other side without seeing this road. I was now going uphill away from the village and I looked back but could not see this road. Two German walkers approached me and I asked them if they had seen the road to Katapori, but they could not help.

I decided that I should continue on the road, to Asfendos and the gorge there, but then I realised that the road goes uphill much if not all of the way and may have a number of hairpin bends. I was now tired and only wanted to go downhill and get to the sea as quickly as possible. I saw a track leading down and decided to follow it. I soon regretted going against the decision I had made to stick to main roads. The track was taking me nowhere and so I walked all the way back to Kallikratis.

Eventually I worked out that the road to Katapori comes off the main road before Kallikratis. I had not needed to go into Kallikratis at all. There is one of the yellow E4 route signs, but I either had not seen it or had misinterpreted it. Soon I was at the beginning of the gorge.

There is a dirt road running at the bottom of the beginning of the gorge. This made it very easy to walk, but did not make me feel close to nature. At this stage I was so tired that I was happy to walk along a dirt road. As the gorge deepened the road moved up the side of the valley, further away from the bottom. This did not perturb me to begin with, because along many gorges the path does not always follow the lowest part. The road had been going downhill gently, but now started going uphill gently, moving further away from the bottom of the gorge. It disappeared over a crest.

I couldn't work out what was going on. I thought maybe I was on the road between Kallikratis and the coast, but it did not seem likely as this was only a dirt road barely wide enough for two vehicles and the map seemed to indicate it was something more substantial. There did not seem to be any pathway along the bottom of the gorge as there is at other gorges, just rocks and boulders. There was another E4 sign, but I took it to mean I was on the E4 path. I suspected but was not sure that these signs are directional. They are curiously designed; why they can't use an arrow to indicate direction like anyone else I don't know.

It seems that walkers are meant to depart from the dirt road and follow the bottom of the gorge at a certain point. However, I missed this, and in any case I wanted to get to the coast as quickly as possible. The dirt road seemed the best bet for this, but I was completely wrong. After rising for some distance, it leaves the gorge altogether. I got my first glimpse of the sea and soon the road began to descend a mountain in a series of hairpin bends. I was on those bends for over an hour, and I could not stop because I did not want to be on the mountain when night fell, even though my legs were aching and my left knee was painful.

Eventually I reached the bottom, and here the road comes up to the end of the gorge. A few bends remained, one took me past many beehives perched on the edge of the gorge and the next past another E4 sign. picture Above the sign was a tree growing out of the side of the rock with a goat happily nibbling away in it. This sign seems to be indicating that walkers that should leave the road here to walk up the gorge. Again I could see no path, but it did look beautiful.

The dirt road joins the main road near the village of Patsianos. There is a coastal plain that needs to be crossed before one reaches the sea. A tarmac road runs south and west, and when it reaches the sea it turns east towards Frangokastello. It was a hard slog for me, and I did not know if there would be anywhere for me to sleep that night, or if I would have another night under the stars (but this time with the sound of surf). I passed a Dutch couple and I asked them if there was anywhere good to stay here. He suggested a place called Vraskas or something. It was now getting dark.

It was a beautiful taverna next to the sea. I asked if they had any rooms, and they did, at 17 Euro. The room was small, but had a balcony that looked over a vine-covered pergola to the sea. I had a shower and then rested. The water was still warm despite the late hour. At 8.30 pm I went down to the taverna. There was a choice of food already prepared, and I chose spinach pie and a salad that was cooked courgette in olive oil flavoured with garlic. I asked for beer, and the woman asked if I wanted the usual stuff or Greek beer. The Greek beer is much better than the stuff most people seem to drink in Crete. At 9 pm a few Greek people drifted in.

So ended my walk across Crete. I was feeling pleased with myself, despite missing out on the gorge. The next day I could hardly walk, but I stayed several days on the south coast and everything went wonderfully, including a visit to two gorges.

Of course, if I did it again, I would avoid all the mistakes that I made. And if you decide to do it, you can avoid them too, which is part of the reason I am writing this. But also I would probable choose a different route. Perhaps if I had gone to Argiroupolis and Miriokefala before going on the Kallikratis then I could have avoided the hairpin bends. From the Giparis Bridge to Argiroupolis is a steep climb, but it might have been easier going from Episkopi. There also seems to be a road from the end of the Giparis gorge to Maroulou and then Miriokefala.

After a few days on the south coast I took the coach to Vrysses and then back to Georgioupolis. There is a main road between Chora Sfakion on the south coast and Vrysses. This is probably a better bet if you want to walk across the island. Even better would be the much shorter route between Pachia Ammos and Ierapetra in the east of Crete.

The Chora Sfakion/Vrysses route does not seem to have the large number of hairpin bends that I encountered on my journey, apart from the ones near Chora Sfakion that you would avoid if you went down the Imbros Gorge. The plain of Askifou seems to lead into the Imbros Gorge, which is lovely. Alternatively, you could walk from Askifou to Goni and then there is a track to Asfendos and the gorge there. The route is walk 26 in 'Western Crete' by Jonnie Godfrey and Elizabeth Karslake.