Crete
This island - the largest in Greece - separates the Aegean from the
Libyan Sea, marks the boundary between Europe and Africa. Majestic
mountains rise in its center - the White Mountains, Psiloritis, and
Dikti.
Its plateaus are split by deep gorges and end up in fertile valleys.
The scenery is constantly changing. In one place harsh and barren,
in another wooded and gentle. Its villages smothered in greenery.
Olive trees, orange groves, vineyards, and early vegetable market
gardens. Old stone farmhouses, monasteries and villages perched on
mountain ridges, castles and chapels forgotten on steep slopes.
Shores lined with forbidding rocks, often inaccessible, but also lots
of endless sandy or pebbly beaches. Crete is renowned for the variety
of its vegetation and the wildlife in its chestnut, oak and cypress
forests. Not to mention its palm forests (at Vai and Preveli) and
its cedar forests (at Gavdos and Hrissi).
Medicinal herbs and fragrant shrubs grow in rocky areas and the mountaintops
are home to the "kri-kri" or Cretan goat. The main cities-ports on
Crete - Hania, Rethimno, Iraklio, Agios Nikolaos, Sitia - all grew
up on the north side, which is more benign topographically. Ierapetra
is the only port on the south coast, on the shores of the Libyan Sea,
facing Africa. |
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The harbor in Iraklion |
