The CIC trip away to Anogia by coach was very successful and we met lots of new people from around Crete – many living further west near Georgopolis and some even into the ‘Wild West’ on the way to Kissimos who have their own TV channel. [It looks for all the world like a web cam left on the side of someone’s taverna where bands of people arrive at various times of day to play the local musical instruments – guitar, mandolin and lyra – to sing long laments or for troupes of dancers or sometimes a man with his reluctant child to dance in front of the camera. Once we tuned in to three empty garden chairs!] However, I digress and I am also being a little unfair to the other very talented young dancers who give a very good show in local national costume.
When we saw the programme lined up for Anogia, a lot of us were a little underwhelmed and thought that a wood museum, some caves and a wax works would not be very interesting although a visit to a new winery seemed a good idea! We visited the new winery first and took a tour of a large warehouse containing huge stainless steel vats and various crushing equipment and the filtering and process was explained in Greek and translated into English. After this the family who ran the business set up large trestle tables with olives and cheeses, rusks and keftedes (meat balls) to accompany the three different types of wine we sampled. May be it was my imagination, but after lunch everything seemed heaps more upbeat and enjoyable (!)
I had seen photos of the sculptures made by a young man which did not indicate the scale of his work, nor did I have any inkling of how interesting the visit to Axos would be. Georgios Koutantos was totally inspiring not only by the display of his work, the description of the woods and why he chose them but by his explanation about the relationship he had with the landscape, the family and the folk history of Crete. See www.woodenmuseum.gr for more info.
Later when we arrived at Anogia, we were immediately aware of the difference in temperature and weather up near the peaks of the highest mountains in Crete. The owner of our hotel was an endearing and enchanting grandmother who took the visit of 30 foreigners in her stride by sorting out all the room requirements, turning on the heating and making lovely cups of greek coffee and lighting the open fire for those of us who had worn ourselves out by walking down about 500 steps to the lower part of the town and then mountaineering up again! They must all keep so fit living there! The lower part of the town is nearly all newish buildings and very little remains of the original village. During the Second World War, British special forces, with the help of the locals, managed to capture the Nazi Chief of Staff which was a huge coup in terms of morale but, of course, this Cretan town in common with a number of others was completely burned to the ground and one in ten of the inhabitants were killed in retribution. The film “Ill met by Moonlight” starring Dirk Bogarde tells a Hollywood version of the story (- and K’s Dad, Vrassi had a ‘bit’ part in it).
Fortunately this was all many moons ago, and without forgetting their history, the local people seemed to welcome tourists from everywhere these days. In the evening a meal had been arranged at a lovely local taverna with panoramic view. K and I enjoyed our meal, caught up with old friends and tottered back to the hotel, which was very warm by this time.
Next day, we sat down to an enchanting breakfast – refectory style around two long school dinner-type tables – the breakfast menu (all by grandmother on her own) – hard boiled eggs, bread, local creamy cheese, honey, home-made apricot jam, cheese toasties and cheese & honey pies freshly made washed down with delicious coffee or mountain tea (some wild flower herb with cinnamon added). Thus set up for the day (=absolutely stuffed) we boarded the coach and set off for some caves in the mountains at .
Having visited the Glow worm Caves in New Zealand, we thought that once you had seen a cave, you had more or less seen them all – but it was well organised, well lit and this time we saw varieties of bats instead of glow worms. Also lots of mountain plants within the Wild Life Park that were well worth stopping to have a second look at. We were amazed to learn the baby stalactites – no bigger than a pencil tip were 100 years old and so the huge columns were so many thousands of years in the making.
Kimon’s knee and foot were playing up, so we sat in the café there while the rest of the party walked down to the nearest village for the waxworks museum. K and I had the excitement of being on the coach when it went down to the centre of the very tiny village and negotiated double parked cars, overhanging balconies and innumerable hazards to pick up the rest of the party. How the coach driver got through without so much as a scratch was a complete wonder. (We had easily the better side of the bargain because the rest of the group said that the wax works were a bit strange!) and off we set for the next stop which turned out to be a ethnic Cretan village with all the different workshops, restaurant, little places to stay and rather sweet – except it had been entirely built about 3 years ago on a mountain side and getting from A to B was by lots of hard ascents or stony steps. So the project was interesting but not exactly the real thing. However, the lunch was convivial and I was amazed to see one waitress serve us all without a hitch or a hint of a problem in an astonishing short space of time.
By this time, the coach was up in the mountains overlooking Heraklion and we were all nodding a bit as we made our way along the main highway to our drop off points. It had been a lovely day or two away but boy, was it good to be home!
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