Crete

Tuesday was the first day of our school field trip to Crete. I was really excited to visit Crete because I’d heard a lot of interesting things about it. One of the professors gave us a lecture about Crete before we left and said that it is basically the unlawful part of Greece. He said that while Athens and the rest of Greece have low crime rates and hardly anyone owns guns, everyone in Crete has a gun. In 2007, the police on Crete tried to enter one of the mountain villages because of suspected drug activity and they were ambushed by shepherds with AK-47s. Apparently the mountains are still a very dangerous area of Crete and no one goes up there not even the police (the professor said that when the Nazis occupied Crete during WWII even they stayed out of the mountains). Despite, this I had a very nice time on Crete and didn’t think it was a dangerous place at all.

We left Monday night and took an overnight ferry. The ferry was actually nicer than I expected. I think it was about an 8 or 9 hour trip but I slept for most of that time because we all got cabin rooms with beds. We got into to Crete about 7am Tuesday and it was a very busy day. The first city we were in was Heraklion and we had a walking tour of Heraklion and the old Venetian fortress that surrounded the city. At the top of the fortress the author of Zorba the Greek was buried. After the walking tour we went to the National Archaeological Museum in Heraklion and saw artificats from the Minoans and Myceneans. For lunch, we visited a traditional Cretan village that is being restored by the EU so it can be a traditional village yet function in the modern world. Apparently, it was voted one of the best villages in Europe or something like that. The village, Archanes, is also in the process of switching all its agricultural practices so all of the village’s products are organic. In ARchanes we also visited an olive oil refinery, which wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would. We watched a video on the benefits of olive oil and then saw an old oil press that wasn’t used anymore. I thought we would get to see olive oil being made or at least taste it, but we didn’t.

After visiting Archanes, we went to Knossos, which was, I think, the largest Minoan palace. I was excited to visit Knossos because I’ve been learning about the Minoans in my Monuments and Sites class, but I was disappointed when I found that most of the structures were restorations. However, Knossos was huge and still very interesting to visit.

The second day of our field trip we went to see the ancient city of Eleftherna, which I think was a Minoan city. We had to drive up into the mountains (all of Crete is very mountainous and pretty) and hike to see the parts of the city. The city was all spread out among the area we were in so we saw the city’s tower, caves that had been used as storage facilities, and the remnants of the city’s layout. It was a very pretty hike but was also kind of tiring.

For lunch, they drove us to another little village, Margarites, that is known for its pottery. There was literally a ceramics store on every block. In the afternoon we visited the Arkadi Monastery. I didn’t know anything about this monastery before, but I learned that it is Greece’s equivalent of the Alamo. In the 1830s after the rest of Greece had gotten independence, Crete was still under Ottoman rule and there were many uprisings, one of which was at Arkadi. When the Ottomans, surrounded Arkadi in one of the uprisings someone (I can’t remember from which side) blew up the monastery and killed all the people hiding inside and the people attacking it. After this it became a symbol of Cretan uprisings. The monastery was really beautiful and peaceful.

Wednesday night we stayed in the town of Rethymnon and Thursday morning had a walking tour of the town. My favorite part of Rethymnon was visiting the old Venetian fortress of the town. Wednesday afternoon we went to Chania, which is one of the largest cities on Crete. In Chania we visited the last remaining synagogue on the island and walked around the old town and harbour.

Friday the whole school was supposed to go hiking in the Samaria Gorge but something changed with the ferry schedule and we couldn’t go so they said we could either stay in Chania or go to the beach. I decided to go to the beach, which was very nice and relaxing after all of the sites and museums I had to visit the rest of the week.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/Caitlin.A.Foster/Crete#