Crete Gorge & Beach Walks - Tours - Photos.

Touring and walks on Crete - Preveli, Kourtaliotiko, Prassanos Gorge, Imbros Gorge, Phaestos Festos Minoan, Palm Beach and the Amari Valley.

Phaestos Festos Minoan Ruins Visit and a walk - South'ish Coast This is one of the two Minoan palaces which can be found on Crete and it's located on a ridge of hills within the lush Messara Plain. The Ruins are well worth visiting and we found them to be quite quiet compared with the apparently always very busy Knossos Palace which is the main target for tourist coaches and day-trippers.

One thing unless you are really genned up on this type of thing, make sure you pick up the available leaflets to give you some idea of the layout and use of the palace since the area is quite large and there is little "noticeboard" information alongside the structures.

Heading south from Festos look out on your left for this interesting double arched church (the photograph shown on the left).
Eventually you come to the seaside resort of Matala - this area was quite busy with plenty of tavernas, souvenir shops and a nice wide sandy beach.. it's framed by sandstone cliffs and, because of the ancient caves which were used for burials or homes, is a regular stop on tourist coach day-trips. Heading back from Matala, after about a mile there is a track on the left which leads to Kommos - where there are more ruins to look at - these are right on the beach. We parked here and walked along the beach to Kalamaki and then continued as far as we could until we reached the military area - a very pleasant walk.

For the return walk we retraced our route back as far as Kalamaki and then left the beach and took the visible track heading over the cliffs back to Kommos.
On our drive back we stopped off at Agia Galini, a fishing village which has now become a holiday / tourist sort of centre and therefore somewhat busy, but even so it's still worth a visit and wander around. Since we had to return from here to Rethimon we took the mountain road via Melambes - this road went very very high (into the clouds at times) and wound all over the place - it was quite an experience from a driving point of view quite apart from the spectacular views.

South Coast Drive - Preveli to Hora-Sfakion. If you fancy some really dramatic countryside to enjoy whilst on holiday on Crete, a drive through a spectacular gorge and a really good beach then head south from Rethemnon and a few kilometres before Spili find a road going towards Asomatos. This road winds through beautiful countryside and eventually gets to the Kourtaliotiko Gorge - we often went to the beach at Damioni via this route and enjoyed the view here every time. You can park in several places on the way through and one of these parking areas has steps down to a hidden church.

After the gorge go on towards Asomatos and look for a sign towards the Moni Preveli - you can detour to this if you wish but the route we are describing takes you straight on past this turn-off through Lefkogia and eventually after a few kilometres you see a turn to the left towards Damioni.

Damioni has two beaches one being a reasonably large sandy beach and every time we went there it was quite quiet, although this was still late April of course. There is loads of parking along the front and a very good taverna as well. If you head towards the end of the beach (left side if facing the sea) and follow the track round you come to a small cove which is the naturist beach - this beach is surrounded by high cliffs and therefore gets quite hot - also even if it's windy on the coast there is pretty good shelter here. If you carry on further along the track you arrive at yet another beach, this one somewhat larger and probably even quieter than the others..

From Damioni you can then head to Plakias, which has a nice beach and several tavernas. Doubling back from Plakias turn left after a short distance towards Mirthios - the road now winds in and out and up and down and it's worth stopping frequently to admire the views. There are two really peculiar little villages on this road, Kato Rodikino and Ano Rodikino - the very narrowroad seems littered with chickens, sheep, dogs, donkeys as well as villagers etc etc all of which are either asleep or getting that way and none concerned about the traffic or anything else. At one side of Ano Rodikino you have to cross a really interesting little bridge and it's worth trying to park for a few minutes and have a look at it/walk over it/photograph it.

Continue from here to Frangokastello where you will find a castle which was in built in 1371 by the Venetians - you can wander around and when we went there was no entrance charge. Frangokastello is quite isolated and its long sandy beach, which encircles a shallow beach, seemed to be very quiet and is probably so most of the time. The last place on this trip is at Hora Sfakia which is where the Samaria Gorge boats bring walkers back too once they have walked through it. Presumably this is why there were loads of Tavernas and quite a reasonable sized harbour - i.e. a tourist trap. From here you can either return the way you came or go passed Imbros and Askifon to Vrysses and pick up the main coast road back towards Rethemnon. You could also go back as far as Sellia and cut across country to pick up the Rethemnon-Spilli road via Paleoloutra - the views on this road are pretty good since you wind up through the mountains - it also has more than it's fair share of sheep..

Asomatos to Palm Beach to Moni Preveli to Asomatos - Walk (Crete) This walk goes under the type which you remember and would like to do again sometime. It is also a reasonably long walk - about 11 miles and has quite a lot of up and down, and also offers the opportunity to get wet unintentionally and lose your socks, which I did at Palm Beach.
Start this walk at the bus stop in Asomatos and walk back downhill towards the Kourtaliotiko Gorge, and just before the road bends sharp left turn down a concrete track on your right. (There is also space to park by the road here.). When you get to the bottom of the track turn left and follow this new track as it bends slowly to the right - and simply continue on the track as it straightens and after about 10 minutes becomes a narrrow and quite overgrown footpath. When you reach a fence go right and after a few paces go left to arrive at an abandoned olive press/stables - continue past this on the dirt track and arrive at a gate - which takes you onto a asphalt road. Turn left and after a while you will see an arched bridge on your left, cross this and turn right alongside the river (with a taverna on your left) and follow this delightful track for around 10 minutes until your reach a cobbled bridge on your right - cross the river here and continue to your right on the broad track.

As this track turns left continue straight on through a wire gate and continue past the chapel and derelict monastery on your right. Turning slightly left continue until you come to a fence where the track dips down into the gulley and then climbs out the other side on a very narrow path, when you get to the top join a wide track and continue on it until the track narrows back into a path. When the path splits keep right and after a slight incline make a detour on the right to the edge of the narrow gorge - you can see the palm line river below.
Back to the main track continue under some electricity wires - from here to the beach it becomes quite difficult underfoot - you have to pick your way down the very rough steep ground to join a track connecting the two beaches. You can see both beaches from here, you need to turn right on this track and then make your way down to Palm Beach

Cross the beach via a paddle throught the river and then take the visible steps up out of the bay. The views of the countryside, rocks and beach around here are really excellent. At the top of the steps you will see a small car park, take a track off to the left which goes past a shepherd's hut on your right and follow this track until you reach the main road - turn left and continue on the road to the monastery. Having looked around walk back along the road for a few yards and take the wide track on your left and head up into the hills towards and through a saddle, then continue straight on the track to the outskirts of Yainniou.

Just before entering the village go sharp right and pass a small church (on your left) to a T-junction. Turn right and follow this track round passing another church (Agia Paraskevi) on your left - immediately past the church go right downhill until you reach another T-junction. Go right and follow the track (the derelect monastery of Kato Preveli which was the original monastery comes into view) until you meet the main road. Go left past the monastery and continue down the road back to the bridge junction, then retrace your walk back to the start.

Amari Valley - drive. The following pictures were taken on our drive round the Amari Valley. This is a beautifull area of small villages, lush green valleys, gorges and with Mount Ida always dominating the background to the east.

Crete Holiday Walks through Crete's Imbros Gorge and Prassanos Gorge.

Imbros Gorge Crete. As probably like many visitors who are on holiday on Crete, we really did want to walk the Samaria Gorge whilst on holiday but due to weather and sea conditions this was not possible, mainly because the sea state was poor. We therefore went in search of a gorge we could walk and since the Imbros gorge is well publicised we took a drive across the Island to do this instead. Obviously you have to decide which end of the gorge to start from and then sort out parking and a transfer to the other end of the gorge to do the walk.

We decided to park at Komitades and found a Taverna which was signed as "park and taxi to the Gorge". This lugging of tourists to the top of the gorge is quite a nice little money spinner for the local Greeks, the taxis concerned are basically anything with wheels - from a knackered old Nissan (our taxi of course) to pick-up trucks and think of anything on wheels in between. You have to negotiate the price which involves a little discussion and loads of arm-waving and head shaking and so on. (Matter of interest when we got back we later heard our taxi driver quoting quite a lot more for the trip than we payed so getting to the start early obviously pays off whilst there is little business around).

The trip up to the top of the gorge in a car is not too bad, it is a very steep road with big hairpins etc and coaches coming down, the drivers of which seemed to think it was a one way road - their way. In our taxi the drive up was quite a major exercise in keeping calm, the car had poor steering and the taxi-driver seemed more interested in waving at his passing friends than being on the road surface. He did take huge delight in explaining about one very sharp and steep bend with a heavy drop down where apparently several tourists had been killed in an accident - this may well be the local version of the Loch Ness Monster.
We started the walk by the shrine in Imbros - you cannot miss the several paths which head down from the village to reach a streambed at the bottom - turn right. It is not possible to get lost on this walk, since there is only one path back down to Komitades. We were extremely disappointed to find that the gorge had been commercialised in that it had a little wooden shed at the start of the gorge with a man who wanted money, and a shed halfway down with a donkey and another man (also selling ice-creams and so on) to check you had payed - we don't mind paying to help upkeep such places but the picnic sites and so on sort of spoiled our ideas that this would be a nice wild gorge.
However the scenery was pretty good and we would love to have done this walk when it was just a wild gorge.

Prassanos Gorge Crete Having walked the Imbros Gorge we really needed to find a walk through an unspoilt wild gorge and fortunately we found the Prassanos Gorge on our map and decided to try it out. This walk is fairly strenuous and requires agility and really a little commitment. Weather conditions are important since if it has been recently raining heavily the gorge cannot be passed; even in late April we found some quite deep water and anyway a lot of the walking was through the river itself i.e. mostly the river bed is the path.

We were staying near Missaria and got a taxi to take us to the start of the walk which is on the road to Amari (just past the Mirthios turnoff), however he knew where we meant. Go left onto a concrete track going down through deep ferns towards a small farm which you pass on it's left, keep down to the stream bed which is clearly obvious. Turn left and make your way along the mostly clear path often criss-crossing the river on stepping stones but also some paddling is necessary. For the first couple of kilometres the walk is straightforward since you just follow by the side of (or in) the river bed - but eventually the path disappears completely and the river bed becomes blocked in places with rocks.

These rocks are huge in places and this makes walking quite difficult since the power of the water during heavy rain often moves and piles up these rocks making a clear way forward less than obvious, with sometimes the route being totally blocked and forcing you to by-pass or climb over these obstructions. There is often also a lot of dead foliage - from bracken to large bits of trees all tangled up in the rocks making movement far from easy.
The hardest part of the walk was when we came to some really huge boulders, two of which give the appearance of an opening, which is the way forward. However there is a long drop down into the water of probably about 8 feet. We therefore went to the right hand side and scrambled up and over the boulders and then got back to the stream bed - this was very difficult especially the final part since I had to lower my wife using a rolled up towel while she went through a narrow gap and dropped about 6 or 7 feet down to the river bed and then I dropped down myself by laying on my stomach and holding onto some cracks in the rocks and dropping the last few feet. At this point our river bed had developed from being around 6 or 8 inches deep to maybe 14 to 15 inches deep and we decided just to walk through it and be wet. Nothing like soggy walking boots..
The walk was then more straightforward although we still had to climb round huge rocks, or use them as stepping stones etc etc. from time to time. Eventually we came to the narrowest part of the gorge - in places down to about 12 feet wide - and this was full of water to about 3 feet - so you have to paddle it. This is why it can be impassable if there has been heavy rain or potentially dangerous if it is actually raining since a sudden increase of water getting into the gorge would soon make this narrow area quite hazardous. After the paddling we tried to dry off a bit and then kept going down the now much drier river bed and eventually walked out of the gorge.
When you see a fence on the left hand side come out of the river bed and go alongside it it on the left by the olive trees. Unfortunately a lot of junk and rubbish has been dumped in the river bed for a while along this stretch which spoils it somewhat. Eventually you will see a small bridge on your right but keep straight on also pasing some holiday accommodation until you reach a junction - take the right hand track going under a road bridge and eventually join the main road at Missaria.
As mentioned we did do this walk in late April and probably by end of May there is no water left in it which would make navigation a bit easier - but then you might not see the crocodiles (spotted by my wife apparently). It really is worth emphasising that this gorge is quite a remote walk and could be dangerous because of not only it's reasonable distance but also because of the heavy boulders and foliage which often block the route through. As with all walking in gorges there is always the chance of rocks falling down especially with the naughty Greek Crete Goats clambering around on the gorge sides. Where these gorge sides are really narrow you can easily imagine the probable water depth and violence should a heavy rainfall occur up in the hills and rapidly fill the river. Like other possible hazardous walking before doing this trip it is worth checking out the weather forecast and also letting someone know where you are intending to walk.

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