A Day in The Life of Europe’s Most Southern Island - Kounavi, Crete

Taking the overnight boat from Athens to Crete island once a month for 25 years to reach my Mother's village, the views encountered and thoughts that come to my mind from this traveling. Why my Athens routine world is put there into a semicolon.

For the past 25 years, about once a month, I take the overnight boat from Athens to Crete Island. The moment of boat entry, early morning, into Heraklion harbor is very special. As the sun prepares to rise, the clouds take a particular color and the rays reveal Koules, the Venetian fortress and old walls, among the longest city walls in Europe. KTEL, the intercity green bus, takes me to my Mother’s village.

The ride is a total antithesis to the ride in the Capital. Climbing hills, the blue sea behind getting further and lower, the fields interchange between olive groves, vineyards and rocky parts with greenery, a changing color pallet according to the season. 

My favorite moment is when my eyes salute from the bus window, Knossos palace, the living symbol of Minoan civilization, the living myth of Labyrinth with Minotaurus, Further up a stone water bridge appears above us, an early 17th century Venetian arched aqueduct that sends out a screaming silence.

 

The blue and white five-dome Christ Savor byzantine church is what stands out first from Kounavi village, my final destination. 

The brown and stone colors of the tiled houses make a playful antithesis with the Aegean color of the cathedral church.

It is an old village, its name likely Latin that the earliest record to it is on a Venetian document of year 1212. 

Every time I reach Kounavi, it is a travel to another dimension. 

My Athens routine world is put into a semicolon; this village is dotted with all kinds of everything: fresh soil and old legends, beaten nature and unbeaten traditions, stone, wood and mud houses that maintain some Minoan features, green herbs, olive oil, and wine.

Aged people with mustache, white hair and wrinkled face still meet daily at kafenion for Greek coffee and news exchange. 

And when the sun sets behind Juhtas Mountain, the one with the human face shape peak believed to be Zeus burial place, I know I have spent a day in the life of a special island at the southern point of Europe.

 

my-european-history.ep.eu