When we started researching about possible destinations in Greece, it became clear we were standing on the edge of the rabbit hole – this country has so many beautifula nd interesting places that one doesn’t know where to look first. What to choose? Island hopping? Athens for starters? Continental part? Trying to come back to Thessaloniki?!

Finally, our common decision was Crete. For two reasons:

• we can easily travel around Crete by scooter (our scooter trip around Mallorca was mindblowing!)
• Crete can be visitied in two weeks in a slow travel mode.
• Bonus: those, who share my Greek mythology folly, will agree that Crete is an obvious destination!

We rented our scooter at Eurodriver. Everything went perfect, including prices, communication and the conditions.

Just a little bit of statistics:

Dates of trip: 8 oct – 22 oct 2022 (15 days including the days of arrival and departure)

Weather conditions: 20-24C° except for three lovely days of storm (which caused quite a damage in some parts of the island!)

Scooter: Yamaha Majesty 125cc

Distance: 950 km

Total budget: 2300€ for everything, including the plane tickets

I must admit that even we are determined to leave the classic blogging behind and stop rewriting travel guides in our articles, the moment we set foot in Heraklion, I felt a huge desire to write down, to share, to take pictures of every little detail. Unwanted thoughts like “I HAVE to mention this when I write about Crete” kept springing into my mind. It’s a good sign I guess. Also, this time we decided to challenge our photo skills and took only an analog camera with six film rolls. What an exciting adventure it was. I wonder how it didn’t turn my hair gray! Now, several words about Heraklion.

Religious art Workshop

The highlight of our second day was the visit to Heraklion Archaeological Museum – another compulsory introdction step to understand Crete and its history. Thus, I discovered Minoan civilization. Out of two of us I was the ignorant person who had never heard (or forgotten long time ago) about the first European civilization that existed looong before Zeus, Athens and Co. It is fascinating. Generally, I am easily touched by museums but this was something particular, especially in today’s circumstances (of war, of course), when my father’s hometown was annexed to Russia under the claim that it would “be with Russia forever”*. I wonder, the Minoans, did they also think that their existence would last forever?

*Forever meant fourty days, Kherson was liberated in November.

One thing (probably the only one) that I love about humanity is their desire to search for beauty. We can hardly imagine how exactly the Minoans lived, but they already took time, four thousand years ago, to draw beautiful octopuses on their vases because having a simple amphore was not enough.

After the museum, we made a stop in Arkadi Monastery before continuing up to our final destination of the day – Rethymno.

When we saw Rethymno late night the previous day, we were somewhat taken aback – it looked so touristy as if the whole town was created to feed the crowds of French, German and British tourists (I’m still not sure it’s entirely untrue). After a day of empty mountain roads and fresh air of Mediterrenean wilderness it felt a bit oppressive. However, just like everywhere, it’s just the matter of where you go, and after all, are we not ourselves French and Ukrainian tourists who crave for tzatziki? In a daylight Rethymno seemed like a much more welcoming place, so we could appreciate its beauty. The moment you leave the touristy “Disneyland’ Rethymno reveals its true local life, exactly what we are searching for in our travels.

First time that I saw grenades outside food markets

One of the things that struck as greatly on Crete was the color of the sea. We’ve been to a few places with amazingly tansparent water, like Marseille’s Calanques or Malta but on Crete the sea completely blew our minds. The locals say the sea fauna has drasticly diminished over the past years, but even so swimming in the waters of Crete was a very special and simply wonderful experience.

Swimming in the sea – done, now it was the lake’s turn. Kournas Lake is a picturesque place, which is far from the usual images of Crete. I suspect that in high season it must be crowded as hell, but as we traveled on the final days of the season, the lake belonged to us only. Going to Crete in October is definitely one of our best timing decisions – no crowds, no heat, still possible to swim. Bingo.

If Rethymno resembled a huge labirytnh of food, make it double for Chania. Even if the town is beautiful with a relaxed summer vibe, it was very crowdy even despite the end of the tourist season. The best thing about our stay in Chania was when I saw Pavlos – a CouchSurfer that I met in Kyiv eleven years ago! Also in Chania we realized that six film rolls would never be enough and bought three extra films. As it turned out, we didn’t really have to, but better be safe than sorry.

While searching for the information about Crete, we found out it had not one but two ancient Olive trees. You might have already guessed that I like to rent and reflect about the time flow, so meeting the ancient tree and touching the living history was immediately put on our Cretan to-do list. The Vouves Olive looks like a wise grandfather who has seen some shit in his life. It saw German bombing, it saw the colonel’ dictatorship and it even saw Theseus and Minotaur. 3500 years is the estimated age of this tree. The thought about it makes my heart beat faster.

Olive Tree of Vouves

Ravdoucha Beach

On the fourth day we lived through a true photographer’s horror. In our photographic “career” we have already forgotten the rented lense, deleted pictures before transferring them to the PC, smashed the lense against asphalted road and spent two months of travels with JPG instead of RAW mode. Now we unlocked another achievement – opening the camera back door without rewinding the film first. What a nightmare. This explains, by the way, the leaks on Chania photos, but it was only after developing the film we found out that only four pictures were lost completely – which is nothing in comparison to the entirely lost film we had pictured. DON’T be like us. Rewind your film!

In terms of the worst experience of the trip, it would unfortunately be the boat tour to the Gramvoussa island and Bamos Lagoon. No, the natural sites are absolutely gorgeous – there is no doubt about that. In different circumstances they would make it to our Cretan favourites list. The trouble is that we were not the only people who wanted to see those natural wonders, and all at the same time (the drawbacks of organizedd tours – no way around it). There is a land road leading to Balos Lagoon but we didn’t feel that subjecting our scooter to this torture would please the rental company. The boat tour it was then.

It’s been long time since we realized that “not like the others” is quite an absurd concept. Everybody is like the others thinking they are not like the others. Still, I wish we had chosen another moment or another way to visit the Balos lagoon without a giant hoard of tourists, us among them, who sailed by the stunning sceneries of Crete while listening to the old Ed Sheeran’s hits. No joking, I had to plug my ears because I wanted to listen to the sounds of Greece and not to my Newcastle flashbacks from five years ago. Am I a grumpy snob? Yeah, might be.

I can’t stress enough that it’s not Balos’s fault, because the sea, the nature and colors are amazingly beautiful. Nature is the best artist and I wish, us, humans, were more careful with it.

Coming back to Kissamos was a relief – we could finally be alone and enjoy the quiet road until Phalasarna without “I’m in love with the shape of you” screaming in my ear.

In Phalasarna we stayed in a little hotel Hotel Sun Set Kampouraki Maria which is also a tavern with the same name and it’s a place we would wholeheartedly recommend to any visitor of the area. The biggest Greek salad award goes to Sunset Tavern! I’m afraid to count how many kilograms of the Greek salad we consumed over these days, so the judgment is fair, I promise.

Golden Sunset Tavern in Phalasarna

By daylight Phalasarna was as beautiful and welcoming as in the evening – just look at this water!

It appears that back in the days of the Minoan civilisation Phalasarna was a harbour, though time, climat and land changes moved the ancient port far from the coastline. Unfortunately, the archeological site was closed for visitors but even from the outside it was enough to launch the pleasant flow of thoughts about the history.

Agios Georgios church

We had a nasty suspicion that Elafonissi beach – another place that is featured on every second postcard sold in souvenir shops, would be as crowded as Balos Lagoon. Yes and no. Certainely we were not the only ones who came to swim in a gorgeous lagoon with pink sand – it was obvious from the flow of the rental cars in the same direction. However, being autonomous without depending on the boat schedule made it less painful. We really enjoyed the Elafonissi beach. The people-watching there was also great – just imagine all those instagirls posing with the flexed leg! Not to worry, I also had my share of such photos. :)

Our room in Paleochora

Another perfect thing about this trip was the total liberty in terms of accomodation. Unlike Iceland or even Mallorca, where we had to book well in advance if we wanted a descent price-quality ration, in Crete we could take care of the place we’d spend the night couple hours before the night fell – it is a rare thing, especially in such touristy places like Crete.

The morning of the seventh day started with a cat in our bed. Greece revealed some new sides of me – one that loves cats and another who wants to learn how to draw, but I’ll probably tell about this a bit later. That day had a tight schedule – taking a ferry to Agía Rouméli for a hike in Samarian Gorges, then another ferry to Chora Sfakion. The ferry crossing was so beautiful that it made my heart ache.

Samarian Gorges is a natural site that proposes several trails of different distances. As we were not in much of a sporty mood, we decided on 14 km round trail, and it was a good solution to satisfy our desire of hiking but without tiring us more than necessary for a good sleep. In one word, the hike was awesome. Coming back to the town, having lunch and then stretching our legs on the beach with dark black sand was probably the best part of it.

A rooster standing on his trophey

Perfect place to wait for the ferry

Loutró

The villages we passed looked like classic Greek postcards, clear water, neat white houses. Taking the ferry was also a good solution because this way we could see several of such villages, albeist from the distance. By scooter it would have been impossible.

Chóra Sfakíon 

Even if the eighth day was the most difficult for us in terms of weather conditions (to be more precise, it was a horrible, wet, windy, did I mention horrible? day), I felt so good that I actually cried from happiness. We were sitting in a Chóra Sfakíon bakery, eating some feta & spinach pie, drinking the best latte of Crete and watching the heavy raindrops fall, and I felt so happy that I cried. There is a war in my country, the planet is dying and I’m crying because I feel happy.

Wet, cold and soaked – this is how we finished the first part of our trip around Crete. Another week was ahead, very different in terms of atmoshpere from the first one, but we enjoyed it just as much, if not more! The article about the East Crete is on its way!

As there is no more “useful blogger’s information”, feel free to write us on instagram – it might look abandoned, but it’s not. If you have any questions concerning the trip – we will be happy to share our experience. :)

Stay tuned!