Bicycle touring Crete: a short loop west from Heraklion

The ferry from Santorini arrived in Heraklion at 3am. Charming. Oliver and I pedaled out of the city and slept for a couple hours in the large paved Knossos parking lot. Also charming. In addition, of the month I spent in Greece, the hottest days were my first two days on Crete with high temperatures of 38°C. What a way to start bicycle touring on Crete! Don’t be discouraged, however. I cycled about a week on Crete, and I quite liked it.

Knossos is a Minoan palace. Excavation started in 1900 when archaeologists knew a lot less than they do now. Restoration/reconstruction, apparently conducted largely by a fellow named Evans, was, to put it generously, haphazard. For example, repainted Minoan artwork is not necessarily (ever?) in the room where it was actually discovered. This makes visiting the site kind of strange because I wasn’t sure what to believe. Also, it was too hot and too crowded.

Knossos is perhaps most famous for bull leaping. As described at the Heraklion Archeaology Museum: “The most spectacular Minoan acrobatic sport was bull-leaping, in which young, trained athletes made a dangerous leap over the horns and back of a charging bull. Athletes of both sexes took part.”

That (above) is an on site reproduction. Here is the original (?) at the museum in Heraklion:

But even at the museum I couldn’t be so sure what was original and what was a copy. For example, below are two versions at the museum of what Evans called “La Parisienne”, a Knossos priestess. But how can there be two originals?

Back to the site:

I liked the dolphin fresco.

Perhaps this is a bit of the original, back at the museum:

The museum also had some beautiful vases with sea motifs — pretty amazing for 4000 years ago.

I first saw the Minoan U-shaped symbol at Akrotiri on Santorini where I think the guide said it was a double axe. At Knossos you can read that it is sacred bull horns, but is that really correct? Here’s an example in the museum:

Oliver and I split up at Knossos. He coasted down to a hotel in Heraklion. I pedaled up to a hotel in Choudhetsi where I spent the afternoon and night in blissful air conditioning. I was heading to meet my cousin in a few days, and Oliver didn’t think he could keep up with the requisite cycling schedule (based on our previous experience on the smaller islands, he was probably right).

Crete is big enough that it feels like real bicycle touring — bicycle as long as you feel like and look for a place for the tent — unlike the smaller islands that Oliver and I had been on the week before where we were also constrained by ferry schedules. One of the first things I noticed on Crete is that there are lots of olive trees. Riding through olives:

Lunch and flat tire repair under the olive trees:

Camping under olive trees:

I arrived at the Roman city of Gortyna just as they were closing for a siesta, something they claim to do only when the temperature reaches 40°C. I waited in the shade (of olive trees) at their entrance, sat in my chair, and sweated and read for four hours. I filled my bottles from the tap inside before they locked their gate so I had plenty of water.

First I rode by the agora which is closed to visitors.

Across the way here you can see the theater which is also closed to visitors.

On site is a 10th century Byzantine basilica,

but the most exciting bit is inside the rectangular brick building behind the odeon in this photo:

There we find a legal code written in Doric script (?) in the 5th century BCE.

The next morning I arrived early at Faistos (also spelt Phaistos), my favorite of the archeological sites I visited on this trip. It’s another Minoan palace. They don’t open till 8am, but I was able to sit at the (closed) café and use their unlocked wifi. I didn’t buy a SIM card for Greece since, except for this week, I was with Ferda and/or Oliver and was able to use theirs.

Faistos overlooks the Mesara Plain, supposedly the most fertile in Greece. The dirt road riding through the olive orchards is fun, and it’s easy to find places to put your tent.

No weird reconstruction going on at Faistos. I believe the purpose of these round pits is still a mystery.

A sign explained a little bit about the Faistos Disc from 150 BCE. Hieroglyphics were stamped into clay before firing, making it “the earliest example of ‘typography'”. It’s at the museum in Heraklion, but somehow I missed it.

About 15 minutes of pedaling brought me to the village of Tymbaki with a surprisingly well-stocked bicycle shop. I had broken a derailleur cable the day before and bought another spare. I also filled my chain oil bottle and bought a spare tube to replace one that had a hole right near the valve. But the real surprise was finding a rear light that accepts power from my dynamo hub! Those aren’t always easy to find, and mine had broken a day or two earlier. You wouldn’t think lights would be so important in summer, but ~10 days later Ferda and I were riding around Heraklion at 4am for another inconvenient ferry departure.

I skirted Crete’s south coast at Kokkinos Pyrgos and then the riding got hillier.

Spili is famous for its fountain with lion heads and refreshingly cold water. I didn’t have trouble finding drinking water on Crete, but running water like this wasn’t so common. I soaked my shirt and hat (to keep cool) when I had the chance.

At Spili I also found my favorite Cretan market treat — the unpackaged ice creams that must be delivered daily (?). They come in many shapes and colors. The pink hearts are the best because, well, they’re pink hearts! 🙂

I crossed to the north side of the island and rode up to the village of Emprosneros where I spent about 10 days with my cousin and his family. Ferda came as well by airplane from İzmir to Chania via Athens. When I left there, it was only two more days of riding east back to Heraklion.

The highlight of this section was spending a couple hours walking through the center of Rethymnon. Often I think it’s crowded with tourists, but I suppose I was too early (9am).

Even heading east-west on the crowded north side of the island, I found nice roads with very little traffic.

In Heraklion Ferda and I met up with Oliver to say goodbye and for Oliver to return Ferda’s bicycle. That’s the bicycle that he used for his first ever bicycle tour. It sounded like he ended up having a good tour after we split up at Knossos. He even climbed up to the Lasithi Plateau which is recommended by bicyclists on the internet. Oliver didn’t make it sound so great, however — no shade and difficult camping.

Besides the excellent archaeology museum I can’t say we found much to see in Heraklion. Some Roman marble (which we always compare to the fantastic collection from Perge at the Antalya Museum):

The three of us celebrated the end of our time together with a nice lunch (but I have no photo of Oliver).

And after lunch we were treated to complimentary “raki” (what they call “tsipurou” in northern Greece; not to be confused with Turkish rakı which is called ouzo in Greece) and cheesecake. This complimentary raki is a common post-meal tradition in Crete, always a pleasant surprise.

Γεια μας!