Lassithi Plateau

Coming to the end of our 2 weeks in Apostoli, it is time to rent a car. Our first in 2 months, having relied on public transit to take care of our movement through Florence, Rome, Naples and Heraklion. It is a luxury! We want to see a bit more of the countryside before we leave for Athens and have realized the only way to do so is by car.

We take the bus back into Heraklion on this day, find the car rental no problem, and head out for some sight-seeing. Our AirBnB host has encouraged us to do a day trip east of the village, stopping at points of interest along the way. The next morning we're up and out early, ready to take on the winding mountain roads, 1 wide lane, curvy switch backs, fantastic mountain ranges, and cliff side dropoffs next to the road. We travel like this all day long. Magnificent.

Every corner we turn, every range we climb, spreads Crete's landscape out before us. This water reservoir has been recently built, as a freshwater feed to Heraklion, some 50 Kms north.

After travelling for an hour, we get off the main road, finding the hidden signs for the village of Krasi, home to the largest tree on Crete, the Monumental Plane Tree. Thought to be a few centuries old, it would take about 20 people to wrap their arms around its trunk. Village festivals are held beneath its branches, and cafes and seating areas surround it's girth. On our day, it's pouring rain, but it does not detract from its beauty.

Leaving the village, Marc spies Crete's famous wood ovens, used for BBQs and baking, he's decided one of these would do mighty fine in our next backyard, wherever that may be!

We continue to head up the mountain range, stopping at the oldest monastery. This is the first time I've understood the silence of these places, you can hear the wind, the distant sounds of goat bells carried through the valley, our ears ring with the silence. An active monastery, we are the only visitors on this day, and an elderly black-cloaked woman greets us from across the courtyard in her broken English, asking if we'd like to see inside the church. €2. It is a tiny place, with ancient frescoes, beautiful altar pieces, many silver tin tribute votives placed along the shrine wall. Greek sacred texts, painted icons, lots of candles. She tells us of the story of the Miracle of Mary in Chains, but we don't quite get it. Upon our leaving, she asks us if we're Catholic, and not wanting to disappoint, we both say yes, which gets us a pat each, and a holy, satisfied smile. 

The corner drinking cistern looking out over the valley of vineyards, olive groves, orange and lemon trees and vegetable patches. Our guide disappears as quickly as she arrived. 

Back in the car on this drizzly day, the cloud cover is low, and moving fast. The gorges! And in the bottom photo, the upper road towards which we are driving, taking us to the top of this mountain range as we approach the Lassithi Plateau. 

A stock photo, for sure, and our sky was not blue, but at the top, we reach a break in the mountain, we've summited, and these stone structures are windmill bases and lookouts from long, long, long ago. 

The Lassithi Plateau has been inhabited since 6000 BC, the neolithic age,  and is reputed to be the last dwelling place of the Minoans. The spring run-off from the mountains ranges, and the quality of rock beneath the surfaces ensures that fresh water is just below the soil. We begin the drive completely around the Plateau, passing through 6 different villages. It is home to farmers - sheep, chickens, fruit trees, produce. It is very, very, very far from civilization.

In the mid 1980s, geneticists interested in the population began DNA testing based on DNA sampling  through analyzing the exhumed remains of The Minoans. The citizens who  live here have really been cut off, their first road did not arrive until the 1970s. Those DNA samples have shown extremely close similarities to the Minoans, leading researchers to believe that the population of the Lassithi  Plateau are the only direct descendants of the Minoans on the planet!

The windmills, from wooden to metal structures that have been in use for over 2000 years, to irrigate the fields and send the water to a nearby canal system feeding into a river that exits the plateau. All but a few of the windmills are in disuse now, farmers preferring their gas-generated pumps to do the same job in a fraction of the time.

Upon leaving the Plateau, we reminisce about the 1973 movie, Lost Horizon, and even look it up when we get home. We definitely had the feeling climbing through that mountain range and cresting that last hill, looking down over the verdant plateau in front of us, quiet, raptors soaring close by, that we had indeed come upon a ShangriLa.