Highland

A trip to Crete is all about amazing beaches and lovely seaside settlements but it is also about majestic mountains and epic hiking routes! It is a big mistake to visit this big and multifarious place and avoid the highland since that's exactly the place to capture the true essence of the island!

The building at the picture above, is the shelter of "Volikas" at an altitude of 1450 meters (about 4.800 foot) on the north part of the "Lefka Ori" mountain and it is the highest point of my trip in August. Despite of the clouds of the day hiking in the heat of the summer is not a very wise decision so I promised to myself to go back on another season and explore properly all the area around!

Another truly unexpected twist of my trip was the descent into a cave with wonderful stalactites that is closed for the public! I owe that experience to my partner that did all the googling and located the key-keeper and to an amazing coincidence!

The cave has a tiny entrance closed with an iron hatch. The man that holds the key lives in a village nearby and he is the one that actually found this cave a few decades ago. Now he is too old to go into the cave and allows only to members of speleology societies to enter, with a previously arranged appointment. And lucky us an appointment like that was arranged for the same day we were around!

Τhe two best things when you spend a night in the mountains is the incredibly fresh air and the mesmerizing view! Below are a few shots of a glorious morning that had both!

So that was the 5th and last post about my summer trip. It was mostly fragments of the trip rather than a travel story but as I said at the first one I did a lousy job documenting our little adventure but I did an excellent job at giving restful and quality time to myself :)

The last picture is dedicated to the noble creatures that dominate the scenery and were always discreetly monitoring us!