The Amari Valley
Lotus Land – The Amari Valley If you drive or take a bus from Rethymnon south through Spili to Agia Galini or the Messara Plain, you will completely miss the Amari Valley. Likewise, if...
Loving Crete Blog
The Fig Tree
Ah the wonderful fig tree. It grows everywhere and the figs appear mostly in October and November, although there are, of course, winter figs, even spring figs, and summer figs I have heard. But...
The Magnificent Cretan Poppy
One of the finest flowers seen in Crete is the wild Cretan poppy. So many people see so many flowers that the poppy is often ignored in favour of the wonderful orchids and the...
My Little Cretan Owl
Owls are lovely creatures. They fly at night and eat up rats and mice. You hardly see them in Crete although they can be heard hooting from time to time. But recently I met...
Recent Memories and Memorials
Deep in the heart of Crete, in the forever wonderful Amari Valley high in the hills south of Rethymno there are five or six villages on the western side of the valley on the...
Sweet Chestnuts
Today is the nutty season in Crete. Perhaps we are all nuts for living on such a beautiful island, but I would live nowhere else. But now nuts are the thing. The lovely chestnut...
Milking Sheep for St George
On Saint George’s day in the village of Asigonia in Crete, the shepherds bring all of the herds down from the mountains to have them milked. Shepherds milking their sheep From the other side,...
Kazantzakis – the grave
Nicos Kazantzakis was probably the greatest author to be born on the island of Crete. His books included Zorba the Greek to Freedom or Death. His book, The Last Temptation, was banned by the...
Zorba’s Dance
I really love this clip from Zorba the Greek. It is the final moments in the film following the enormous disaster that Zorba caused running logs from the monastery on top of the hill...
Panagia Chrisoskalitissa Monastery, Elafonisi
The monastery of Panagia Chrisoskalitissa, Our Lady of the Golden Step in English, is in the remote southwest of Crete just six Kilometres from the lovely lagoon beach of Elafonisi. And it is glorious....