Crete: Mountain Village

Crete: The largest of the Greek Islands. The photo is at one of the mountain villages, away from the tourist hot spots: narrow streets, flowers and often crooked houses.

We Have All The Time In The World

Sorry, but I'm going to mention Crete again today.

I wrote about how there were three signs that persuaded me to holiday in Crete with Karin, my wife. Afterwards I did a post about some Crete coincidences and what I saw to be the meaning of our Crete visit. But now I realise there was something else too.

While on our holiday both my watch and my wife's watch stopped. The batteries must have run out. I've since put new ones in and they are both okay again now.

Bit of a meaningful coincidence that this happened?

I think so because I remember the day mine stopped and we weren't too sure of the time. Both of us felt hungry for some reason. We didn't normally bother with lunch as we had big breakfasts and also much too much at our main meal in the evening. But this particular day we felt a bit peckish.

We were near a small cafe so while my wife sat in the sunshine I popped in to get a couple of cheese and salad baguettes. The proprietors turned out to be from Holland and they said I would have a wait a while as they had a couple of orders to do before mine. Everything was freshly made.

I got talking to the woman as she worked preparing the orders and she started on about time and how relaxed it is in Crete compared to when she visits her home in the Netherlands. We agreed it was a different way of life on the island as everyone was so much more laid back.

Now normally I don't like waiting in a queue, or being in traffic jams, or getting delayed for anything. Probably a lot of us are like this, but on that day I felt suddenly that the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I was quite happy just to sit and relax and wait until my food was ready.

When I got back to Karin I said something like, "Sorry for the delay," but she wasn't the least bit bothered and seemed to wonder why I even mentioned it.

It's now that I realise that one of the lessons of the Crete holiday is to chill out - if that's the right expression - and not to get worked up about time, how long things take and generally being time bounded during the day.

I remember my dad saying, when I was rushing about and in a hurry over something, "You've all the time in the world, son."

Dad was right we do have 'all of the time in the world.' I wonder why we don't always realise this?

On one of our Crete walks, where we had no real idea where we were heading, we noticed a small cave in the cliff side as pictured below. We found that there was an opening at the back and we could walk through the cave and have our own private balcony overlooking the sea and Kri-Kri island - that's the view in the photo at the top of the post.


We sat there looking out to sea, the island and the blue sky and time really wasn't important. We were in harmony with our surroundings - perfect! Who needs watches and time? We have all the time in the world.

(Kri-Kri island is uninhabited except for about 70 goats and is off the north-east coast of Crete.)

The Mysterious Crete Goddess Of Myrtos

Goddess of Myrtos
I'm back to writing about Crete again today, this time with a photo of the Goddess of Myrtos from the Minoan period.

I get excited about stuff like this because of it's age, to think that this civilisation existed some 4000 years ago - amazing! I only wish that I'd been allowed to hold or touch the Goddess, but it wasn't possible.

If we glance quickly at the photo above we'll no doubt think it's some sort of boring clay pot, but if we look more closely it's actually a woman holding a pot - and the woman is the goddess.

Okay, to our eyes she looks a bit strange with a very long neck, spindly arms and a bell shaped bottom half to her body. But she's all woman: breasts, pubic triangle and so on and she's holding a spouted jug, which is in the correct style from that period - 4000+ years ago.


Archaeologists found the Goddess of Myrtos on Crete at Fournou Koryfi - an ancient Minoan site, now destroyed but with parts still visible.

The Goddess is said to be a libation vase which would have originally stood on an altar, maybe a domestic one.

Here's a few more relics from the Minoan period.





Crete is an interesting place!

More on Crete:
The Mysterious Skull With A Golden Wreath Of Protection
Eerie island Of Spinalonga, A Sunken City And A Mermaid
With Visualisation Everything Is Possible

Photos: © M.Perry 2011

Eerie Island Of Spinalonga A Sunken City And A Mermaid

Island of Spinalonga
I'm writing about Crete again today and our trip on a boat to the island of Spinalonga, which also happened to take in the sunken city of Olous - and also a mermaid!

Our destination of Spinalonga is now an uninhabited island but has been previously used as a leper colony. It's an eerie place with all of the buildings now deserted, including a Venetian Fortress dating back to 1579. The fort was used to protect the port of Elounda.

Venetian Fortress At Spinalonga
But first Olous, the city now beneath the sea.

I was actually a little disappointed as I had been told that when the sea is calm, the walls of this ancient city can still be seen beneath the waves. I must have gone on the wrong day as all I saw from the boat was, well, the sea. My wife and I did go walking, however, on another day and saw walls visible above the sea level.

Olous (or sometimes Olus) goes back to the Minoan era which is around 3000-900 BC, so we are talking about a city some 3000 or 4000 years old. Records estimate that the population was around 30,000. The residents worshiped the gods Tallaios, Zeus, Apollo and Vristomartis.

As to why Olous disappeared there are two theories: either a severe earthquake - which seems the more likely to me - or perhaps a landslide. Either way the date of this happening was around 780 AD.

Tunnel and gate leading to town on Spinalonga
Moving on to the island of Spinalonga. There is a theory that this was made by the Venetians by cutting away the nearby peninsula and thus creating an island. The island was then used as a fortress to protect the now sunken city of Olous and also Elouda in later years.

Uninhabited shops and houses on Spinalonga

A resistance movement operated here in the late 1600s and early 1700s and it was not until 1715, 46 years after the Turkish conquest of Crete, that the fort finally surrendered.

In 1903 Spinalonga was turned into a leper colony with horrific, prison-like conditions. In 1957 the colony was finally closed leaving the island uninhabited with the town and fortress in ruins.

Views on and from Spinalonga

The lagoon and area surrounding Olous and Spinalonga is very peaceful and there is a Cretan legend that Britomartis, a mermaid goddess, frequents the waters even today. She was thought to have been the daughter of Carme and Zeus.

Britamartis means, in the Cretan dialect, sweet maiden or sweet virgin. She was also known as Diktynna, a mountain nymph.

Never managed to catch a glimpse of the mermaid but I'm sure she was out there somewhere. Probably a little shy!

See also: The Mysterious Skull (From Crete) With A Golden Wreath Of Protection

Photos: © M.Perry 2011

Ants In The Pursuit Of Happiness

In principle I suppose I don't approve of graffiti but sometimes it can be amusing or even meaningful and artistic.

I saw these graffiti, or maybe it's street art, examples in Crete. The first is on rock face steps which have the legend 'This way for Pursuit Of Happiness'. The ants have certainly taken this message to heart. There is a constant stream of them crossing the words - as can be seen by the enlarged section of the photo below. They are even taking their young with them in pursuit of happiness!


But some street art is a bit classier as these two from someone who signs as Gouro. Both found on walls in Crete.

With Visualisation Everything Is Possible

I've published a few blog posts about visualisation in the past including one about how to get car parking spaces using the mind. While in Crete recently I put visualisation to the test again to try and create pleasant days, where everything was as Karin and I would have wished.

I mentioned previously in my post about Crete coincidences where we always managed to get table 24 in the hotel restaurant we were staying at. There was a little more to it than this as before going for our meal, or on the way to the restaurant, I visualised getting this particular table - and it worked! Every time I did this we got our favourite table.

Another example was our favourite seat by Lake Voulismeni. At the end of the day, and before going in for our meal, we liked to sit looking at the lake and talking about our day. There was only really one seat and that was often occupied until, that is, I used the same visualisation technique. As we walked slowly around the lake towards the seat over and over again anyone sitting there would get up and move on just before we reached 'our' seat! I didn't have a 100% result with this but it worked enough times to say that we beat the odds.

The photo at the top of the post was taken from the seat. Being Crete, of course, it's no ordinary lake! The story is that the lake is bottomless - if that is the right word - and the Goddess Athena used to bathe in the lake. We didn't manage to catch her at her ablutions though.

Maybe that was because Lake Voulismeni has changed somewhat. In Athena's day it was a fresh water lake but in 1870 a small canal was cut through to the sea and the local harbour. And they now say that the lake is only 64 meters deep, so not quite so fit for a Goddess any more - but we still liked it.

The photo below shows the lake and the canal at the far side leading to the harbour underneath the bridge.


But getting back to visualisation, over and over again I've proved to myself that this works. I wonder sometimes why I don't use it all of the time. I think it's because I(we) tend to get too immersed in everyday negativity pumped out by the media. While in Crete, as I have written previously, I didn't use a computer, watch television, read newspapers, answer phones and so on. I therefore had the freedom to think and create for myself.

The point I suppose I'm making is that if we can get the table we want in a restaurant, or a seat by a lake then we can actually get almost anything we wish for - providing we believe that this is possible.

The Mysterious Skull With The Golden Wreath Of Protection

I photographed this skull with a gold wreath while in Crete. It was discovered while excavations were taking place and is believed to have been that of an athlete.

In the second large photo below a coin is also shown which was found inside the skull's mouth. This is a silver tetradrachm from the Cretan city of Polyrrhenia from the period of the Roman Emperor Tiberius (14-37AD).

The coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased as Charon's fare for passage to the underworld.

The ring was found in the left hand of what is believed to have been an athlete. Though not very clear the stone has a picture of a female hanging a shield, or trophy on a column - indicating his prowess in his field.

The gold wreath indicates the deceased's success in athletic contests and also alludes to posthumous deification. The wreath has also a supernatural side in that it offers protection from demons.

For some reason I feel that the athlete would be proud that his skull, wreath and ring are on display some 2000 years following his death - a form of immortality.


However some bones and skeletons I think should be left in peace - see photo below.


To me these bones have an element of sadness about them. They are very ancient, from the Crete Minoan period, and could well be several thousand years old. Some things though should perhaps be allowed simply to rest.

See also: The Crete Coincidences And What Is Really Important.

The Crete Coincidences And What Is Really Important

I'm back from Crete, got home at 4.30am this morning so a bit tired. We had a great time though without computers, phones, television, newspapers - a complete news blackout. I didn't even know the football (UK soccer) scores! So with no media to manipulate, less niggles and annoyances.

I wrote about the three signs that led us to Crete but we didn't have any dramatic coincidence or synchronicity moments, but there were a few. Let's see, oh yes like:

We decided to go on a boat to a small island called Spinalonga, just off the northern coast of Crete. It was a trip where you simply buy your ticket on the day.

We headed for the ticket hut on the harbour and, as we walked, my wife and I started talking about Austria, which is one of our favourite countries. "Wonder when we'll go again?" she asked. It was just a 'throw away' question and I didn't answer as we were reaching the place to buy the tickets for the boat.

I bought two tickets and the guy said, in a Greek accent of course, "You can go straight away to Ostria now if you want."

Ostria, we discovered, was the name of the boat and was pronounced as we would say Austria. So my wife got her answer after all!

Another time we were at a sort of museum full of ancient pots and relics. I was looking at something or other, probably taking a photo, and my wife was looking at a flower bed for some reason. "Look at that stone," she said.

To me it looked very ordinary and I had no idea why she found it worth mentioning but I picked it up. On the back of the stone were scratched her initials 'KP'. And no, she hadn't done this herself!

We were staying in a hotel in Aghios Nikolaos and were allocated room 448 (which bizarrely was on the fifth floor). Every night for our main meal we sat at table 24 in the restaurant. It was up to guests where they sat each night, tables weren't reserved or pre-booked, but table 24 was somehow always vacant for us. We thought it the best table as it overlooked the coast and mountains plus we could 'people watch' at the same time.

I then realised one night that two fours are eight i.e. our room number. Perhaps that's stretching coincidences a bit, maybe not. But there again 2+4=6 and 4+4+8=16 and 1+6=7. So we have ... 67, as per this blog's title.

There were other coincidences as well but I think that the main 'message' for us, from our Crete holiday, was to emphasise how unnecessary the media, television and so on are to our lives, and how they influence and control us. Are we happiest buying or using the latest electronic gadget or walking along the beach enjoying the sunshine and seeing the flowers?

All things in moderation I guess. It depends on what we consider is really important.

See also: The Mysterious Skull (From Crete) With The Golden Wreath Of Protection