Our son Joe had been under the weather but was feeling better, and decided that he could use some exercise, to we headed off for s hike in one of the famous Cretan gorges. Sam and Nafisa decided to join us, so we went for one of the closest gorges, the Patsos Gorge, a\so known as the Agios Antonios Gorge because the church of St, Anthony can be found high on a wall in the gorge along the way.
We got there a little more than a half hour after leaving Rethymno, but the children needed something to eat, so we headed to a restaurant situated near the entrance to the gorge: Drimos
There were grilling fires at the back of the dining area, with chickens and lamb sections lining the racks to be grilled
It was a huge place, apparently aimed at feeding hordes of tourists arriving by tour bus. we were promised two takeaway dishes within 15 minutes, but it took nearly 45 minutes for them to produce it – and there were no other diners present. After Sam and Nafisa left the hike to take the kids to eat there, they placed their orders an no food had come after an hour, so they were ready to give up and leave. The place had a menu filled with promising choices, and a pretty setting, but it was pretty much useless as a place to eat.
We had a nice walk in the gorge, whose walls towered high above us
Fairly soon after the beginning of the trail, we reached the Church of St, Anthony, really a small shrine, that was built into a cave in the right-hand wall of the gorge.
I found it to be a bit of an anti-climax compared to the breathless online descriptions
Then we came to steps up to a lookout point
enjoying dramatic views of the walls of the gorge behind us
and upcoming, where the walls were going to close in
We stopped for a group shot
At that point Sam and Nafisa decided to head back so that the children could eat (unsuccessfully, as noted above), while the rest of us forged ahead as the walls got closer and closer
The path got rougher and rougher – it would not have been good for small children, and we kept meeting hikers coming back who reported the way become too rough for them. I did not want to give up – I had heard that there were spots where there were ropes to enable hikers to ascend or descend steep and narrow spots, and peering ahead I could see some near-looking bridges across the stream. Butt we finally reached a point where there was a steep descent over a gravel spot with neither a rope nor narrow canyon walls against which we could brace ourselves. With a swinging camera back potentially unbalancing me, we reluctantly turned back. Joe said that, hiking alone, he would have continued, but he took pity on his older parents and came back with us. Perhaps a different gorge would have been a wiser choice fore a hike with small children and aging grandparents!
On the way back, we used a wooden bridge to cross the stream at the bottom of the gorge
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And found a nice picnic spot including this fountain
We met Sam and Nafisa at Drimos — they were still determined to wait for the food they had ordered, but I wanted to find a small mountain village while we were out and around, so we drove to Margerites, a hilltop town known for its pottery workshops. We could not identify the plant beside the typical designs displayed outside this workshop.
Nancy deemed the work product schlocky and was unwilling to have me spend on a souvenir. Not one of the artisans was working –we had hoped to see them at work, thinking of the site as a good visit for our three-year old grandson.
We had lunch at Taverna Mántalos, overlooking valley the valley below
We drove back to Rethymno and met up with the rest of the family.
We strolled through town toward the Fortezza and found a wonderful dinner, with unusually meticulous service, below the Fortezza walls at Melina.
There was also a nice view of the valley and mountains rising in the center of Crete
One of their specialties, as at Drimos earlier in the day, was grilled meat done over an open fire, described on their menu as “faced up to the fire.” A page in the menu cited a passage in the Homer as the provenance for the process
The meal started with glasses of cherry wine (cherry juice for the children; one of the wait staff dropped a strawberry into each of the water glasses; the breads came with olive and sundried tomato spreads; chicken pies arrived gratis. For dinner, we enjoyed caprese salad, with flavorful tomatoes and super fresh mozzarella; I had the seasonal vegetable salad. Some of us opted for lamb and pork belly cooked faced up to the fire
my own choice was the pork medallions with a sauce of figs
Joe had mussels, which he felt were overwhelmed by the sauce (I liked it!)
Nancy had the snails, which she deemed too salty.
It tended toward dark; the mountains took on color
color filled the skies over the Aegean
and the kids wandered around below spotlit walls of the fortezza
People were still going into the Fortezza even though the closing time was 8 PM. There was apparently an evening concert
But it was getting late for us. We collected the after-dinner treat of watermelon slices and headed for home. But our appetite for a visit to the Fortezza had been whetted.
I liked this cool sign on the walk back to our apartment.
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