We walked around the historic downtown and harbour areas of Chania. The architecture of Chania is dominated by a Venetian influence. The Venetians ruled Crete from the 13th to 17th century, until the Ottomans took control of the island. Most of the fortifications around the harbour were built during the Venetian period. In the harbour area cars were not allowed and most of the historic houses and been turned into shops or restaurants. There were many tourists walking in the narrow cobblestone streets.
Our first stop was the refurbished Synagogue, Etz Chaim. It was, before World War 2, a Romaniote synagogue. Romaniote Jews are Jews that trace their heritage back to the eastern roman empire. Their liturgies were traditionally in Greek. I believe most of their community was wiped out in the Holocaust, but there may be some remaining active communities (I would assume in Israel). Before the war Chania had a medium sized Jewish community. There were two synagogues, Etz Chaim, for the Romaniote and another synagogue for Sephardic Jews. Sephardic Jews migrated to Greece in the 15th century after they were expelled from Spain. They were welcomed by the Ottomans and mostly moved to Thessaloniki, a city in northern Greece. Some Sephardim then migrated to Crete, sometime after it became incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.
Getting into the synagogue we passed through a gate into a small courtyard. From the courtyard we passed through the main entrance way into the one room synagogue. The entranceway was adorned by a stone arch that was pieced together during the restoration from the stones in the original arch, donated by the Vienna branch of the Rothschild family.
There were a few eclectic volunteers milling about the courtyard to answer questions and operate the small gift shop. In the synagogue there was a good looking cat.
The bema and the ark were at the back of the room. Through the back entrance of the synagogue, one could go into another courtyard with a single grave, and have access to a smaller room, containing, according to the synagogue, the oldest still functioning ritual bath (mikveh). During the war the mikveh room was used as a storage closet for the Germans, and because of the built up junk the water from the natural spring stopped flowing. During the restoration the junk was cleared out and the spring started flowing again.
The restoration occurred in the 90’s. It was spearheaded by an Englishman, who now operated the synagogue as a place of worship. Apparently, there was some controversy among the Greek authorities and populous about operating the synagogue as a place of worship, since it was not believed there were enough Jews left in Chania to justify such a place, but they’ve stayed open so far. This man has also written a book on Greek, Jewish cuisine, which was sold in the gift shop.
As we were leaving the synagogue, Lizy happened to run into a photographer she knew. They had met years before a the Krakow Jewish culture festival. He pointed out the house where the Chania rabbis lived before the war, now a restaurant. He told us in another life he could be a Chania tour guide. Apparently the area we were in used to be the Jewish Quarter. Now it was bustling with tourists. It was sad to think how thoroughly the Jewish presence had been eradicated by the Nazis.
Next we walked through the leather street. It was a particularly, narrow street lined with stores selling leather goods, including sandals, bags, and wallets. The street was extra crowded with people.
Afterwards, we walked down to the harbour and walked along the strip of rock that sheltered the harbour from the waves of the sea. At the end of the strip was a lighthouse. There were many tourists walking along the strip looking at the view of the sea. There was a children’s sailing class sailing out of the harbour and there were many little fish swimming beside the walkway. The strip opened up into a little square and we got a Polish woman to take a photo of Lizy and I. We saw many Polish people in Crete. I thought there must be a direct flight to the island from Poland. We finished walking the rest of the way to the lighthouse, then we headed back to pick up our car at the hotel.
We ate lunch at a fish place right across the street from our hotel. It was 2 in 1 style place with the restaurant being attached to a little fish market. You could pick out a fish and have it grilled at the restaurant. I got fish cooked in the oven with lemon and Lizy got deep fried sardines. Both were delicious.
We drove out of Chania on the main road that runs across the northern coast of the island until Rethymo, the third biggest city. At Rethymo we drove south into the mountains in search of a place called the Patras Gorge. The road seemed abandoned, but there were a few cars at the entrance. We saw a peacock and I chased it around the parking lot trying to get a good photo. The entrance map to the hike had a sign with a map where the trail was highlighted in green and red. The green part corresponded to the normal section and the red section was labeled something like demanding section, but because it was in contrast to the normal section we kept calling it the abnormal section of the hike.
In beginning leg of the hike we saw some other hikers that appeared to be older Greeks that lived in either Rethymo or the surrounding villages. About 5 minutes into the hike there was a church built into the side of the gorge. One wall was the cliff face and the rest of the church was made from clay (or concrete I wasn’t sure which one to be honest). Inside it seemed to be in a semi-functioning state. It had pictures of the saints lining the walls. I took some photos.
At the berth of the church was a pile of crutches as if cripples had come to the church and been healed. There were also a bunch of certificates that I couldn’t read, but I’m assuming certified miracles that took place at the church.
After exploring the church we continued deeper into the gorge. The path finding became harder in the gorge past the church. There were wooden arrow signs pointing in different directions that gave us confidence we were walking somewhere, but the signs only had Greek words carved in their faces. I tried to use google translate on the signs, but the image processing couldn’t understand the font of the carved lettering. At one point we had to retrace our steps and walk back up the gorge so we could safely cross the river and walk on the other side as it appeared we had walked on the wrong path even though there had been a sign.
The gorge was steep on both sides with a river flowing through the middle. There were little alcoves along the cliff faces the birds flew between. It reminded me of something out of jurassic park. There was an almost total absence of flowers in contrast to the rest of the countryside of Crete.
A French couple caught up to us as we were walking along the path. I was impressed with the woman, who did not appear to be dressed for a hike, designer bag and all. I guess this was the classic French style, elegance over pragmatism. We saw the second bridge that indicated the end of the normal portion on the hike. Lizy wanted to give up at the top of a hill overlooking the bridge, but I hiked down with the French people. There were some ropes that were fixed at various parts of the hill that sort of helped with the descent. I got to the bridge and saw that the path continued under a tree trunk and down a rock face. It looked like there used to be ladder there, but it had been destroyed or taken down over the winter. If I was alone I might have continued, but decided to turn around at that point. I passed the French couple on the way back up the hill to Lizy. They had stopped so that the man could take photos of the woman in a little alcove with a waterfall. He had to make the hike worthwhile for her, I guess. I let them know I thought that continuing would be “très difficile” in my broken French.
We hiked out of the gorge quite quickly.
We drove back north to the main highway and continued east to the capital of Heraklion. The drive was uneventful, but quite pleasant.
Lizy was shocked by how industrial Heraklion looked. We hit traffic and there were some aggressive Heraklion drivers. She even made the quip, “Well at least we won’t feel rushed here.” Referring to how we always felt like we didn’t spend enough time in the different locations we had already been.
Our hotel was on the edge of quite a busy square. People were sitting and eating dinner outside on patios that filled the area. Our hotel was very modern looking and it was clear they were trying to be “technological”. It seemed a little forced to me, and it gave the hotel more of a colder, austere feeling than other hotels we had stayed at in greece.
To greet us they brought barley rusks to our room in a little cart that also contained olive oil, alt and oregano. We had not seen barley rusks on our trip yet, or maybe we had refrained from ordering them, but they seemed quite off putting at first. They looked like pieces of stale bread. But after eating a few I came to appreciate the taste of the stuff dipped in oil.
To add to the modern look of the hotel there were what appeared to be giant metal blinds that ran down the front of the hotel. It looked kind of cool from the outside, but it blocked the view out of our window. A weird design decision no doubt. Adding to the technological feel of the hotel, our room had a samsung ipad thing, presumably to control features of the room, but we never used it. Signing into the wifi, prompted one to leave a trip advisor review, which I felt was very forward, and to download a hotel app which seemed again unnecessary so I refrained. Later in our stay I asked the front desk about the app, and he said it was definitely better not to download the app.
We were tired from the drive, so we decided to order pizza to the room. We slept well after having such a long day of walking and driving.