Nikos Kazantzakis, the greatest writer ever to be born on Crete. By choosing this name for its international airport rather than that of Venizelos, its illustrious statesman, Heraklion, the island's capital, has come up with a very welcome idea for the destination. Right away, it gives it a lighter side; like John Lennon in Liverpool or Carlos Jobim in Rio. It's also more spiritual, less 'world in motion' than a Charles de Gaulle, a JFK or precisely a Venizelos. In short, it sets the tone for an inspiring island that gave birth to the greatest myths and the most beautiful legends, those of Cronos, Zeus, King Minos and the monstrous Minotaur.
As is often the case, these legends have a link with history, the real history, that of the Minoan civilisation, which began on Crete and ruled the southern Mediterranean seas from 2000 BC to 1450 BC.C. Indeed, King Minos, whether he was the son of Zeus as the poets say or more likely the first in a line of monarchs to have ruled the island, laid the foundations of a 'thalassocracy', in fact the first great maritime power in history, which was the equal of Egypt in the Middle Ages in terms of its hold over the region. So feared, in fact, that it had no need to defend its splendid palaces at Phaistos, Malia and, of course, Knossos, whose layout was already highly complex for its time, reminding us that its mythical architect was none other than Daedalus, the man behind the famous labyrinth.
Located a few kilometres south of Heraklion, the best preserved and largest of all these places of power and worship is usually the starting point for incentive trips to Crete. Just after groups have made themselves at home in one or other of the countless resorts that line the beaches to the east of the island's capital, from Hernonissos to the very chic resort of Elounda.
The fall of the Minoan Empire
A visit to Knossos, inevitably followed by a tour of Heraklion's dazzling archaeological museum, is a chance to revisit another great myth, that of Atlantis. Could Minoan civilisation be the sunken world recounted by Plato in the Timée ? Possibly, since this allegory could evoke the sudden fall of the empire of King Minos, which suddenly withered away around 1600 BC. In less graphic terms, a gigantic tsunami, with waves over 50 m high, caused by the explosion of the volcano on the island of Santorini is thought by some specialists to be the reason for this sudden disappearance. While this interpretation is disputed, one thing is certain: if this catastrophe did not totally kill off the Minoan empire, it certainly weakened it, allowing other civilisations, Dorian and Mycenaean, to emerge in their turn.
Once they have left behind their questions about this ancient mystery, the incentive groups can turn their attention to the Crete of today, losing themselves in the heart of the towns and cities still marked by centuries of Venetian domination and then Ottoman occupation.
The historic centre of Heraklion, limited by its size but covered with terraces where the gentle Cretan way of life flourishes, is dotted with fine examples of this Venetian past, with its town hall housed in the ancient loggia, the elegant Morosini fountain and its pediment sculpted with nymphs and tritons, and above all, defending the port since the early 16th century, its imposing Venetian fortress. On its façade, a lion of Saint Mark looks out over the island of Dia just opposite, and further out over the entire Mediterranean. You can imagine the boats full of goods arriving in Candia, the former name of Heraklion, the trading stronghold of the Venetian Republic in the southern Mediterranean. Today, alongside the sponge sellers and the fishermen spreading their nets, it's the joggers who have reclaimed the place and are taking on the Cretan diet in their own way, sweating profusely in front of the heavy stonework of the bastion.
Another example of the Venetian period can be found on the small fortified island of Spinalonga, some forty kilometres east of Heraklion. The last vestige of the Serenissima in Crete, the fortress withstood the Ottoman invasion until 1715. That's some fifty years longer than Candia, which nevertheless defended itself valiantly and fell only after a twenty-one year siege, the longest in history, which put an end to a domination that lasted from 1212 to 1669.
In addition to its military past, Spinalonga has found new fame thanks to the success of the book by British author Victoria Hislop, The island of the forgotten. Published in 2005, it tells the story of the leper colony that was established on the island after the Ottomans were in turn expelled from Crete. Between 1904 and 1957, the fort's walls sheltered patients from all over Greece. No need for a rattle for these people who endured a double exile here, the abandonment of their bodies and the banishment of society. They lived their lives as lepers among themselves, receiving treatment at the old mosque that had been transformed into a hospital, cultivating their plot of land and sometimes getting married. Always with the heavy walls as their only horizon.
To appreciate the ghostly and moving atmosphere of the now deserted citadel, incentive groups can embark from the port of Elounda on fishermen's caiques, privatised for the occasion. "A glass of champagne or ouzo is offered en route, and the boats also stop at sea to allow participants to take a dip in the turquoise waters.It's the fastest way to get here," says Maria Prodromitis, director of the incoming agency Select Holidays. For those who want to keep things short, the quickest crossing - five minutes at most - is from the small port of Plaka. On the way back down to Elounda, a winding road runs alongside the sea, passing a few lonely old mills. And yet, with the wind often blowing so hard that nature is reduced to a few scattered tufts of scrubland, you can imagine that these little mills must have turned and turned; just like the thousands of others installed not far away on the Lassithi plateau, which have been replaced by wind turbines, apart from a few that are still posing for photos.
Just after Elounda, groups are sure to stop off at the end of the day in Agios Nikolaos, the Cretan Saint-Tropez. As well as its harbour and beaches, this resort has the particularity of containing the small lake Voulismeni, which is adjacent to the sea and so deep that it seems bottomless. As a result, there are countless terraces where visitors can sit at aperitif time, either on the seafront to admire the pleasure boats scattered around the harbour, or on the lakefront to enjoy the dance of the little caiques under a huge bougainvillea. "It's an ideal setting for gala dinners, and we've had the opportunity to privatise all the restaurants around the lake for large groups."explains Maria Prodromitis. This will be an opportunity for participants to practise the virtues of the Cretan diet in a relaxed atmosphere, before dinner is punctuated, as always in Crete, by a few glasses of raki, the local wine brandy, not to be confused with its Turkish namesake, an aniseed-flavoured drink equivalent to Greek ouzo or Marseilles pastis.
Head in the mountains
After these seaside festivities, it's time to discover the island's interior by taking the roads that wind their way along the high massifs, often slowing down to let a herd of goats make its way through the olive groves. For Crete, like Corsica, may be lined with fishing ports and lagoon-coloured beaches, but it has above all a mountain soul. The tours, which can be done in 4×4, usually start from Fodele, around twenty kilometres west of Heraklion, the village where one of the island's great figures, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known by his nickname El Greco, was born. His singular art of portraiture with its elongated faces, developed in Venice and then at the Spanish court, owes much to his apprenticeship with Michaïl Damaskinos, master of the Cretan school whose splendid icons are exhibited in the centre of Heraklion in the beautiful Museum of Christian Art, opened in 2015 in the church of Saint Catherine of Sinai.
On the terrace of the Kafeneions
For the time being, visitors to the Fodele museum will find it of no more than symbolic interest, with a few white rooms containing copies of the painter's works. Nevertheless, the village with its small church and tavernas on the banks of a peaceful river offers a refreshing stop-off before continuing further south towards Axos and above all Anogia. Situated at an altitude of 740 metres on the slopes of Mount Psiloritis, this small village is considered by many to be the most authentic on the island. It's true that the ritual in its squares is unchanging: the men chat on the shady terrace of a kafeneion - if they're not playing their komboloi while sipping raki - while the older women chat in front of the church, when they're not busy with their embroidery, one of the region's specialities.
However, while Anogia offers a nice glimpse of life in the Cretan mountains, the village has not been able to preserve its ancient stone houses, as the Nazis razed it to the ground in retaliation for the kidnapping of a German general. To get a better idea of what Crete was like in days gone by, you need to go to nearby Arolithos, a reconstructed village with a square covered in ficus benjamina and carob trees and houses that reflect the habits of rural life, where three generations could gather around the same fire. "Faced with the flood of modernity, my father-in-law decided in the early 80s to rebuild the village of his childhood by collecting old stones and objects from all over Crete, explains Diane Marty Mercier. His aim was to preserve ancestral culture by training local people in crafts, weaving and pottery.".
Open to the region's schools, Arolithos is also dedicated to tourism, with a 36-room hotel and a capacity of over 1,200 people for events. "You can organise a tour of the village, with cookery classes, mosaic workshops, an introduction to making komboloi or carving traditional bread for weddings, before finishing off with a Cretan festival with dancers, continues Diane Marty Mercier. We've even taken the village back to the 1920s, with craftsmen in period costume."
A touch of Venice, a whiff of Istanbul
After the seaside spirit and the mountain soul, it's the charm of the East that punctuates the journey as we head further west towards Rethymnon and Chania, the two most beautiful towns in Crete, where memories of Venetian domination and traces of Ottoman occupation are piled up like legos. With its narrow shopping streets, minarets added to churches and wooden corbelled houses reminiscent of the old Stamboul described by Gérard de Nerval, the centre of Réthymnon has the air of a large bazaar. The character of Chania, the ancient city of Chania, is more medieval, with streets lined with stone houses decorated with wooden and wrought iron balconies.
As in Heraklion, these cities have preserved their Venetian history, with heavy bastions defending the harbour where fish restaurants now line the streets. "In Rethymnon, it is possible to privatise all of them for an event, as in Agios Nikolaos."says Maria Prodromitis. However, more than at the Venetian port or in the historic centre, young people prefer to brighten up their nights by filling the terraces of the trendy bars set up along the promenade that runs along Rethymnon beach, ordering the latest fashionable cocktail or an iced coffee, and smoking a glow-in-the-dark hookah with friends, very much in tune with the music being played by the in-house DJ. It's a youth that cares little for the conflict between the nations that made up the city's history, and forgets the effects of the crisis; a youth that lives the present moment as it should be, with a joyful intensity reminiscent of the savoir-vivre of Alexis Zorba's character, in a perpetual 'yes' to life - "and may death die". - directed by Nikos Kazantsakis.
This succession of foreign occupations almost makes us forget that the Cretan people are proud, even rebellious by nature. This is the side of the story that the writer recounts in his book Freedom or Death, which is set in the Arkadi monastery, 25km from Rethymnon, a key site in the island's fight for independence. After the fall of the Serenissima, it was the turn of the Sublime Porte to see its empire jammed at the seams, buckling under the blows of Balkan national ambitions. But unlike Greece, which became autonomous in 1821, Crete remained in the Ottoman bosom and was rocked almost every ten years by revolts that took a dramatic turn in this monastery. Taking refuge here and surrounded by the sultan's troops, 325 rebels with women and children preferred to blow themselves up with their gunpowder supplies rather than surrender to the attackers. In the refectory, photos of Cretan warriors, proud capetans with moustaches or beards, caps on their heads and hands with sabres or rifles, also show their determination to drive out the invaders. For their part, the swallows that flock to the site in the spring have little concern for these heroes; nor do they have any respect for the sanctity of the church with its sublime Renaissance façade. They frolic around the iconostasis, play their great organs and sing joyful litanies to the glory of the warm sun. Sculpted doves, holding long candlesticks in their beaks, stare at them motionless, almost shocked by such brazenness.
Enchanting monastery
After Chania, on the road leading north to the Akrotiri peninsula, the tomb of Elefterios Venizelos, the island's liberator, also recalls the moments of fervour that led to the island's reunification with Greece in 1913. Once past the monument, the visitor is greeted by a peaceful, enchanting and wild landscape, a plain bordered in the distance by hills jutting out into the sea, from which the scents of thyme and sage waft through the local scrubland, the phrygana. Discreetly set in the middle of the peninsula, a monastery - that of Agia Triada, of the Holy Trinity - is organised around a courtyard surrounded by two-storey buildings housing the monks' cells. It's a delightful place, with a garden featuring countless bougainvilleas and pots full of geraniums and cacti; a garden where everything is so well aligned, so well thought out, so sophisticated that you'd almost suspect the higoumene - the superior - of having called in a renowned landscape gardener to give his monastery such charm.
In the centre, the façade of the church dating from 1632 celebrates Italian Mannerism. Inside, the incense-filled air conceals a multitude of icons, while an immense chandelier rises to the dome from which an inquisitive Christ seems to look you straight in the eye. My son, have you sinned? Yes, my Lord. There, just now, overcome by a mad jealousy of these popes who must have a very sweet life in such a beautiful place. I'm also overcome by a feeling of profound joy that almost makes you want to do a few dance steps, sirtaki perhaps. After all, it was a few miles away, on the beach at Stavros, that the dance was transformed into a myth under the feet of Anthony Quinn playing a Greek called Zorba.
A rich civilisation hidden behind the fantasies of an archaeologist
Blessed is the temple of Karnak! The god Amon certainly protected it from a real curse... What would have become of its bewitching hypostyle hall if Arthur Evans had been an Egyptologist instead of the leading specialist in Minoan civilisation? It would probably have the same peplum feel as the Palace of Knossos today. For the British archaeologist, rather like Viollet Le Duc, has imposed his own interpretation of this ancient complex. To make the old stones speak for themselves and show off the magnificence of the palace, which comprised more than 1,000 rooms, he decided to protect the most important rooms, the throne room of Minos and the flats - the megarons - of the king and queen, under concrete slabs. And as the columns, once made from tree trunks, had disappeared, painted cement replicas replaced them.
Beyond these wanderings, through the reconstructed frescoes and rebuilt propylaea, a visit to the palace gives a first glimpse of the degree of refinement achieved by this culture, which reached its golden age around 1700 BC. But to get a clearer, and above all more authentic, idea, a diversion to Heraklion's archaeological museum is a must. Newly designed in 2014, it bears witness to the meticulous work of the artists of the time, with displays of delicately ornamented pottery and finely chiselled jewellery. Among the masterpieces on display on the ground floor are the Ring of Minos, the Disc of Phaistos - a kind of local Rosetta stone that is still waiting for its Champollion to decipher it - and cult objects such as these double axes, symbols of the local religion, or the 'snake goddess', which extols fertility. The many bull's heads also illustrate the central place of the animal in the Minoan imagination, over which young men used to jump, as if on a pommel horse, to demonstrate their bravery.
On the first floor of the museum, sublime frescoes also show the Minoans' discerning taste in interior decoration, covering the walls of their palaces with dolphins, flowers and animals... Above all, numerous scenes of life tell of their pronounced penchant for feasting and sumptuous cultic banquets. The most beautiful of all these works is the "Parisienne", with her fine face and little upturned nose who, rather than a pretty hussy, was more likely a high priestess of the time.
