Travelling Drapanias to Agia Galini
On the road again!
Today we departed Camping Mithimna and headed east along the northern coastline of Crete almost as far as Rethymnon, then turned inland. We stopped for lunch in the village of Vryses, where Saul and I remember spending an hour or two waiting for bus connections, in years gone by.
After lunch, we travelled further south over the mountains once more, but this time in a more central part of Crete. We stopped for a wander an an ice-cream/espresso (depending on who you were) in Spili, a spectacular mountain village, before the final somewhat hair-raising leg of the journey south to see the sea once more at Agia Galini. We’ll be based here now for a week. Ahh…
Βρύσες/Vryses
So, Vryses was our first stop today. This is quite a busy little village, with a surprising number of trucks and coaches passing down its narrow main street. We were there in the early afternoon and so we saw children being walked home from school and teenagers gathering for chats and coffee. Vryses is situated on a river and, as such, has tall plane trees for which it is famed. These trees allow for plenty of shade which is welcome on a hot day like today. We picked a riverside café at random and sat down for lunch.
this gorgeous little kitten was keen to help us out with our lunch 
an old windmill which would have been used to get water up from the river 
statue of a mountain goat
We then took a little wander down to the river bed and watched some geese settle a ferocious battle. It looks peaceful here, but trust us, there was quite a racket!
Photos don’t do justice to how dramatic the surrounding mountains look in real life.
This is a common sight in Cretan villages: memorial notices for the anniversaries of loved ones.
This idiosyncrasy reminds me of the ‘death notices’ read out on regional radio stations in Ireland, and how we all find ways to honour and remember our dead 🖤
A couple of kilometers outside Vryses, we stopped at this tiny little church, Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Γεωργίου / Church of St George. Beside it is a Roman-built bridge. It is terribly picturesque.
As is always the case in the grounds of churches in Greece, even tiny ones like this, there is a source of fresh water available. This is certainly handy for those of us in vans.
From here, we took the main E75 road as far as the outskirts of Rethymnon and then headed inland and up, up, up into the mountains. Even though we have been here for months, we are still astounded as to how green Crete is, given the heat. The roads of the E75 are edged with oleander and there is greenery as far as the eye can see. We saw eagles flying overhead too, an awesome sight.
We then spotted this lone church on the top of a hill, with no road leading up to it, and we remembered what Manolis had explained to us about this phenomenon: every one of these tiny, hill-top churches is dedicated to Profitis Ilias, the prophet Elijah. The feast day of this saint is celebrated on 20th July each year, around the same time as Zeus was celebrated each year and it is though that there is an overlap between these two venerated beings, i.e., that Ilias took on the properties and characteristics of Zeus when Greece moved into Christianity.
And, of course, there is the July 20 feast day. The Great Vespers begin one day prior, and the Divine Liturgy starts early in the morning of the feast day. The evening feast gathers a lot of people who often stay up until dawn. Often, it ends with a “kourbani,” a festive meal cooked for everyone, including foreign visitors, providing the opportunity for all to experience the local popular tradition.
Why All Greek Churches on Mountaintops Are Called Profitis Ilias – Greece Is (greece-is.com)
Σπήλι / Spili
And so to our next stop. Spili is a mountain village below Mount Voriza at a height of 430m above sea level. We had read that it was a striking looking place so we stopped for an hour’s rest and took a walk around. Saul’s first comment was that it reminded him of Blaenau Ffestiniog which may come as a surprise to anyone else who knows Blaenau! I fail to see the similarities myself…
‘Spili’ means ‘caves’ and it is from this that the village got its current name. It has had this name since Venetian times, but was inhabited prior to this era for certain as there are Byzantine frescoes from the 14th century in some of the churches in the village. There are many, many churches in this village. The population is around 800, but there are 21 churches!
In the centre of the village is a lovely little square with two huge plane trees offering welcome shade, and 25 Venetian-era lion-faced fountains of cool spring water, named the Kefalovrysi. It is said that the temperature of this water remains a constant 13°C.
We visited the fountain, marvelled at the gushing water, got ourselves sorted with ice cream and coffees and then walked up and around the steep, winding lanes.
We were in Spili mid-afternoon and so the folk museum that we had hoped to call into was not open, but we enjoyed our little visit to this lovely, if somewhat touristy, village nonetheless. Following this, we hopped back into the van for the final stretch of the journey, winding down the mountain roads towards Agia Galini on the south coast.