Ups and Downs and in the Air

We hiked the Zakros gorge on our most recent trip to Crete, in May 2015. Although our home away from home in Crete is situated near Chania, in Western Crete we usually drive around the island while there. This time we decided to explore more of the Eastern end of the island. On our previous trip we'd only been as far East as the Dikteon cave which is quite close to the infamous holiday village of Malia. On our first day we drove all the way to Agios Nikolaos, stopping at Heraklion on the way. It was a long day of driving but it got us pretty far to the east so we didn't have to drive that much on the following day. At Ag. Nikolaos we stayed in a small hotel outside the city. Faedra Beach hotel is okay if you get a good deal. Staff was very nice and the location good for guests arriving by car as car park was good. On the next day we drove through Sitia to Palekastro, Hiona beach to be precise Now we were in the "deep east". Palekastro was a nice low-key village ...

We did Agia Irini Gorge in May 2015 as part of a bicycling tour. Agia Irini is located in Western Crete, about 45km south of Chania. The gorge ends to a little fishing village of Sougia. Although Agia Irini is not as grandstanding as Samaria, it is also less crowded.  The trees and bushes, cuts on the White Mountains, narrow parts of the (partly) rocky path and ups and downs during the hike were all very similar to Samaria. Agia Irini was really like a little sister of Samaria, except that Agia Irini is open all year when Samaria is only open from May to October. Agia Irini is (only) 7,5km long and thus it takes about 2-2,5 hours to walk. It is easier than Samaria also because there's only about 500m of descent. Therefore it was very suitable hike as part of our cycling tour. I will tell more about the two biking tours we did with Hellas Tours on our recent trip to Crete on another post. During high season there's a small entrance fee of 2 euros to the gorge. This helps the...