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On the way to Samaria Gorge.
One of the "nice" views along the winding uphill trip to Samaria Gorge...not for the faint-hearted. Being our 34th anniversary, we wanted things to go well. I'd kept Manoli from knowing about my special Taste of Crete cooking class until today, just telling her that we were going to be busy Tuesday. While we waited for the 7:15am bus to Hania, I filled her in. More on that tomorrow. We needed to catch this bus to Hania and hope it wasn't too late to catch the 8:30 bus from Hania to Omalos and the Samaria Gorge. Well, when the bus finally arrived at 7:45am, I was doubtful. Happily, we made it to the Hania bus station by 8:20am, bought our tickets to Omalos/Samaria @7.50 Euros each and were on our way, finally. After a very harrowing trip up (2,000 meters I think), which I wouldn't recommend to the faint-hearted, we arrived at the Samaria Gorge National Park. Beautiful! After a quick run thru the gift shop/cafeteria, we entered the top. The entry fee was 5 Euros each, and make sure you keep your ticket since they check it at the end to make sure everyone is out of the gorge by nightfall. First of all, we climbed down a steep series of switchbacks on the trail to
On our way down.
J.C. starting the 13kms. trek into the Samaria Gorge. get closer to the gorge. Already, the views along the way were awesome! They have rest areas quite frequently along the way, with restrooms, fresh water springs, and smoking area. The trail was rough, but well maintained and usually well marked, with occasional fences or heavy scrren roofs where falling rocks are more common. We didn't see any animals, but they had a type of flower that was awesome. We found out later it was called the Dragon Lily. Check the photo! We started the hike at 10am and reached the end by 3pm. Along the way we saw awesome rock formations on the cliff walls (which got quite close sometimes), crossed the creek numerous times, and observed man battling nature and fatigue. At about 12:30 we stopped at the old abandoned Samaria settlement to eat our sandwiches and rest. It was almost disappointing to reach the exit, but our feet and legs said otherwise. After the 13 kilometer hike, most of it downhill on rough terrain, we hiked the extra 3 kms down to the isolated beach town of Agia Rumelli to get the boat to another town where the buses would take us back to Hania. The only
Rock Castles
We found groupling of rocks at numerous places along the way, and had to make a couple of our own. way into or out of Agia Rumelli is by boat... or the 13km gorge. Because of the rough seas, they only had one boat that day, at 6pm. We got the town by 3:30pm, so we had a long wait, with A LOT of other folks. We were hoping they had a BIG boat. We had drinks and filter coffee while we waited.. not that expensive considering the location. The boat cost 7.50 Euros each, and turned out to be a small ferry, with plenty of room for passengers. Now, if we could just catch a bus in time to get back to Kalives before the last bus... The boat ride was uneventful, except for a small boat following us most of the way. This boat was small, designed to hold 4 or 5 people, but had at least 10 Greeks, several of them rather... robust! We pulled into Chora Sfakion, and as I'd hoped, most of the people were with tours, so they had their own buses and there were two public busses (KTEL) waiting for the rest of us. We got onboard and away we went, back up and over the White Mountains, another harrowing ride. It was
Dragon Lily
One of the weird flowers we found a several places in the gorge. getting so late by now that I was afraid we'd be paying for a taxi from Hania to Kalives,,, 17 kms or so. I asked the bus driver about Kalives, after we'd gotten off the winding road, and he said ok. Phew! He left us on the main road above Kalives, so we walked down to our apartment. There was a note on the door marked "URGENT", that said the travel agency I'd booked our Taste of Crete cooking class with had a small change of plans so please call. Well, with great temerity, I called and found out they'd changed the location and was it ok to pick us up in Kalives instead? Nice small change! We ate a nice dinner of fried cheese and pork Souvlaki at a tavern on the beach, then off to bed.
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DIONISIOS ANDROUTSOS
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SOMARIA
Its actually Somaria Gorge but most people say samaria. I am form Kalives, Just thought id comment YA SOU KEY HADA SOU!!