To read about my time in Crete, Santorini, and Naxos, please see the previous post, “Cycladean Rhythm.”

At five hundred feet high, the Acropolis can be seen from everywhere in Athens, including from our hotel room. The weather was perfect and the crowds thinning during our late afternoon visit.

The rocky mesa on which the Parthenon sits was the mecca for several civilizations prior to the ancient Greeks. Homer references the fortifications in the Odyssey. The goddess Athena, the city’s namesake, was worshipped here at least as early as 800 BCE.

The city-state of Athens was invaded by Persia (now Iran) a few times. The decisive battle during the 490 BCE incursion took place at the port of Marathon. The two forces were locked in a stalemate for five days until the Athenians, outnumbered three to one, outmaneuvered the Persians and won.

A courier, Philippides (also spelled Pheidippides and Phidippides) supposedly ran from Marathon to Athens to report the victory before collapsing and dying. His feat is the inspiration behind modern marathon races of 26.2 miles.

But there is more to his story—maybe.

The White Mountains on the island of Crete are bare of vegetation; thus the name. They are a moonscape of limestone.

The range has more than thirty summits over sixty-five hundred feet.

Concealed among the mountains are over fifty gorges, the most famous being the Samaria Gorge. At nearly ten miles, Samaria is the longest canyon in Europe. Since ancient times, people have hidden in the gorge from invaders or holed up between rebel skirmishes. 

Today, it is the hideout of the rare kri-kri, the Cretan goat. The kri-kri was the only meat available to mountain guerrillas during the Nazi occupation of World War II. The goats were once common throughout Greece, but now one of their last preserves are the almost vertical three-thousand-foot cliffs within Samaria National Park.

At 7:45 a.m. Leslie and I boarded a bus and left Chania for the northern entrance of the gorge. Outside of town, the bus began climbing through farmland and forests. The peaks of the mountains were obscured by clouds. Once above the tree line, sheep and goats huddled in the road. Each time, the bus stopped and honked until the herds moved.

The bus labored up the narrow road, switchback after switchback. An hour later we were at Xyloskalo, where we were required to present passes to enter the trail.

A cold wind howled at the start, but once we climbed below the rim the canyon walls served as a shield. The gorge trail is all downhill, starting from an altitude of four thousand feet and ending at the village of Agia Roumeli on the Libyan Sea. Over nine miles in length.

Easy, right? Except that the descent is steep and the footing strewn with treacherous scree.