Western Crete, Tuesday March 11th

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Our Couchsurfing host, Greg, escorted us to the bus stop and saw us off to Chania. We had enjoyed our time in their beautiful part of the country and their company was a real delight. From Chania we took the bus westward to Kolymbari, where Greg and Anne’s friends, Lily and Andre, were to meet us. This section of north western coastline was concrete all the way, with many large hotels. As we left the bus a couple approached us tentatively and it was our hosts.

Lily and Andre built a house in the village of Kalidonia twenty years ago. At first they could only visit Crete while their daughter was still being educated in Belgium, their homeland, but now they spend the summer in Crete and the winter in Belgium. We sat down to coffee in a restaurant and started to chat. Lilly speaks French, English, German and Greek and Andre speaks French and some English and Greek. Quite often we practised our French but it was handy to have a backup translation when our vocabulary or grammar hit a glitch. The big thing was their, and our, willingness not to be concerned about perfection and correct form, because we were so intent on communicating meaning.

They drove us around the area close to their home, stopping every ten minutes or so for us all to search for flowers, fossils and views. They have a botanist friend and are very knowledgeable themselves. They knew where to find unusual and interesting plants and were obviously tied to Crete by their love and knowledge of it. We stopped at a tiny church called Ayia Marina which, like all the tiny chapels, is dedicated to a saint who has special meaning for a family or a community. A stone table and benches was provided outside for the feast that the worshippers would share when they visited.

Just below, stone wash troughs with built in stone scrubbing boards were fed by a spring. I could imagine women washing and laughing together is this spot, the sacred and the daily life side by side.

As we drove along we discovered that we had lots to talk about and that we all approached life with a sense of humour. It felt as if we had known Lily and Andre for a long time when we finally started the climb through their village streets to their home.

Lily and Andre had been very lucky in the help they received from an agent in Kolymbari, and from the local mayor who sold them their land. Many foreigners have bought properties in Crete, sending the real estate prices soaring and out of the reach of many locals, but not all of them have fared well in their building or renovating deals. They found only honesty and resourceful suggestions that helped them to save money. Since the main house was built, they added a studio underneath, and a garage and workshop above, with their own hands.

We took many photos of plants and, after cooking a meal together and sitting over it for more chat, we looked at maps and books on the geology and flowers of Crete. Crete has had an amazing number of geological major happenings. The book we had was too technical for me but I gather that after the break up of the European and African land masses into smaller sections, there were a couple of episodes of tectonic plate movement, earthquakes and other slipping and sliding, all of which pushed and folded, lifted and lowered parts of Crete. The fossil record shows that there were elephants and hippopotamuses, and that the current Cretan land mass was once distinct islands that joined after land was pushed up.