Crete is the Largest Greek Island + Is Wonderful

_{Island of Crete, long and not very wide at parts. All the maps showed the English spelling and Greek spelling of the places, and my spouse started, by the end of this trip, to be able to sound out the Greek spelling. I was and am impressed. The round icon on the left is where we stayed in Chania.}

The final part of our 2024 visit to Greece took us to Crete. The largest and most populous of the Greek islands, it has very ancient ruins, lovely beaches, snow topped mountains, amazing cuisine, and warm, welcoming people. The island is 161 miles west to east and 37 miles wide at its widest point and 7.5 at its narrowest. Our home base was Chania, an old harbor town featuring architecture that has blended Venetian, Ottoman, and modern influences.

I would love to go back, I really did like this area and was so impressed with its people, agriculture, and history.

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_{Walking to our hotel at night, with rumbling luggage going over the brick and cobble stone walkways. Photo by PattyCooks.}

Our Arrival at Crete

We took a boat, late in the afternoon, from Santorini to Crete, arriving at Heraklion ~2 hours later. There we were picked up and driven to Chania, again a ~2 hour trip to arrive at our destination, where we were let off at the bottom of a small hill (the D on the map below) to walk up a pedestrian-only cobble stone pathway to the hotel (the red pin). This placed us within the old Venetian walled city.

Map of the area around our hotel in Chania, Crete. The pin, located center-left, is where our hotel was located, with a quick access to the ancient harbor lined with restaurants and little shops.

Home-base within the Walls

We stayed at Casa Delfino, once a family home (really a 17th century mansion) for the Delfino family, that was transformed into a small boutique hotel with 24 rooms, a central atrium, exiting out onto two pedestrian pathways.

_{Casa Delfino, the courtyard area of the hotel. The back exit, which we used initially as a front door, leads to the small walkway we used to first enter the hotel. The other exit (actually the front door) is a short walk to the old Harbor. Photo by Casa Delfino.}

It has a pebbled, and romantic, courtyard at which breakfast is served each morning. Typical Greek breakfasts are offered with yogurt, honey, and fresh fruit. But also they served pastries, morning cereal, eggs any style, etc. Plus, the ever present water, orange juice, and coffee or tea.

_{Hilly pedestrian-only walkways tempered by steps, and lined with places to stay, restaurants, and shops. Photo by PattyCooks.}

Just a step outside the hotel and you are placed within a maze of pedestrian-only walkways lined with little restaurants and small shops twisting within the heart of the walled, old Venetian town. The walkways could be as wide as ~15 or so feet, which allowed for outdoor tables at little restaurants, small coffee places for a rest, and stores who moved displays out for better viewing. People were walking on stones not pavement, speaking a myriad of languages, and those physical reminders brought home to me that I was back in Europe, after nearly 5 decades away. It felt good.

_{The Aegean Sea and the old Harbor of Chania. Photo by PattyCooks.}

Once out of the windy pathways, we broke out into the main pedestrian pathway that encircles the old Harbor, with restaurants and little shops all long the way. At one point waves were coming in as a storm was off shore, and I wound up drenched up to my knees by a sneaky wave. And for those wondering, yes the water was cold.

_{The owner of the small bakery, who did not speak English, was making special loaves for a wedding the next day. We were told any wheat grown on the island stayed on the island and was not exported. Photo by PattyCooks.}

The Amazing Land + Food

Except for a few flat areas, it appears as though most of the agricultural activities were through small farms on the outskirts of the town of Chania. It seemed to me that often the farmers worked the fields traditionally, that is, with minimal mechanical machinery. This might be due to the steep and hilly landscape of the majority of the island. But, walking around, we found lots of food being grown and processed: olives and oil, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, carob beans, sheep milk for cheese and yogurt, and grapes for wine, raisins, and to eat outright.

_{An olive tree that was older than the USA as a country, located at the Manousakis Winery. Puts into perspective how young the USA really is relative to other countries. Photo by PattyCooks.}

While we toured the island, we saw walnut, chestnut, and almond trees. Many olive trees, and bee boxes dotting the land, but also lots of wild herbs (like chamomile, spearmint, oregano, thyme, fennel, etc.) and bushes growing alongside the road.

_{The Cretan banana, which is a smaller, aromatic variety known for its unique sweet taste and nutritional value, is a strain of the Dwarf Cavendish banana. Photo by PattyCooks.}

The trees we saw included oranges, peaches, avocados, mulberry, kumquats, figs, and special small and very sweet bananas.

We also saw sheep, goats, chickens and some special cattle. The cattle were small in size and weight, and were walking the steep hills and mountains along with the sheep and goats. The cattle are called Cretan Gidomouskara (aka Goats Beef) that have been on Crete for thousands of years and have goat-like feet that are required for living on this cliffside terrain.

Another food readily available on Crete were snails.

_{“The cheese spot” (15 kilos) soaking in sea salt water for 7 days, and turned every day. We saw local farmers arriving with sheep milk, getting paid by the cheese maker, and a small staff working on making cheese. Photo by PattyCooks.}

But mainly we saw bees, sheep, and goats, used to produce honey, cheese, and yogurt.

An Athens fish tray offering some options to choose from for dinner. Photo by Sterling.

We were told that since the Mediterranean has been overfished (since the 1960s), fish did not seem to play a significant part in its economy, and any fish found went directly to local cooks for any fish-based dish.

Our Friend Frini + Cooking

We took a taxi to the Central Market, that was unfortunately closed for renovation, and sat on a bench waiting to be picked up for a Crete Cooking Class. A small red car pulled up, and a woman yelled out, “Patty?” And thus we were introduced to Frini Katsouna who became a friend very quickly.

She drove us up into the mountains on very twisting and turning roads to the mountainous village of Drakona where the Ntounias Educational Farm, owned by Stelios Trilyrakis, is located. Along the way she and I connected via food, and best of all she turned out to be a forager. Soon enough she was pointing out the wild spearmint, fennel, oregano, thyme and other items just off on the sides of the road. A couple of times she stopped the car, jumped out to show me a sample of the herb, such as when we were talking about bay leaves. I was so excited, just buzzing and I think she was too.

We saw little tavernas, that were often owned and run by the same family for generations. These are little places that are all over Crete serving local foods such as kolokythanthoi yemistoi (stuffed zucchini blossoms), spanakopita (stuffed filo pastry), and various stews. But she passed everything, wanting to bring us to the most authentic Cretan place, where no electricity or appliances cook the meals, they use only people’s skill and wood fire.

_{Fire-based slow cooking outside, in the rain this day. Wonderful aromas wafted out over their farm and the hills and valleys surrounding them. Simply wonderful. I did notice that one of the pots was simmering snails, one seemed to have sheep or goat in it. Photo by PattyCooks.}

The place we were going to used only organic, local produce and meat, and prepared their dishes using paresis, which are wood stoves (shown above) and wood ovens which are in the kitchen (1, 2). Plus they make their own bread and cheese, like mizithra, which we sampled all over Greece and which was a fresh and, considered by many, a slightly sour ricotta-like goat cheese.

Cretans also make a white cheese which tastes amazingly like Feta, but cannot be so named due to its EU official designation back in 2002, as a protected designation of origin. The formal designation limits the use of the name feta to cheeses produced in the traditional way in mainland Greece, and in the Lesbos Prefecture

Because it was a blustery and rainy day, we did not get a tour of the garden, nor a chance to meet the goats, sheep, or cattle (though we drove by), rabbits nor bees, and we could not eat at their usual outdoor dining room, so we moved indoors. However, the outdoor wood-fired cooking did not stop, which was a traditional way of Crete cooking.

At Frini Katsouna‘s instruction, we hollowed out eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and red peppers. Then chopped up the food we had from the hollowing, added rice and seasoning, some oil, and filled vegetables with the mixture. Photo by PattyCooks.

Stuffed Vegetables

Frini came to the table we were seated at with brilliantly colored vegetables and a bowl of lamb, followed by bowls of seasoning and herbs, and said let’s go. So quickly after arrival we were chopping, cutting, dicing, and combining foods to make our lunch. While we made the dishes, they were passed off to the woman of the house, who actually cooked the food, and kindly served us a very delicious lunch.

Cretan Salad

When we arrived in Greece, the first meal we had was a daco salad that was simply amazing. My spouse could not believe the flavor of the overall salad, and how delicious the tomatoes were. It became one of our standard salads to eat.

Daco salad is to the left, with a bottom layer of hard dried rust, then freshly sliced cherry tomatoes, olives and cheese. Photo by PattyCooks.

Above is a picture of the same salad from Athens, and it was very filling; so much so, that we were unable to completely eat the dish, although my tongue wanted more. The photo above this one shows us making the salad, slightly different yet just as tasty.

What makes the salad so good is that the juices from the fresh ingredients fall downwards and the bread becomes soaked and tastes like goodness itself. The bread is called paksimadip, which is dried up pieces of a basic wheat bread, or barley rusks. But I have to tell you, unlike the Crete salad, the Athens one had the hardest bread, liable to chip a tooth unless you gave it time to soak.

Additionally, the Crete salad uses either mizithra cheese or dry anthotyro cheese.

Roasted Lamb

_{Lamb was seasoned and massaged with local olive oil and sea salt, pepper, and dried local oregano, then wrapped like a burrito in special paper to be slow cooked by the restaurant Chef.}
_{Photo by PattyCooks.}

So Frini placed white sheets in front of us that looked sort of like parchment paper, then she placed a chunk of meat onto the paper, and placed bowls of sea salt, pepper, and dried oregano in front of us. Then she instructed us to liberally sprinkle both sides of the meat with the seasonings, and actually massage it into the meat. Then enfold the meat with the paper and cook. The result was very tasty and moist, slightly fatty.

Conclusion

I must insist that anyone who wants to experience real Cretan food and foraging should contact Frini and schedule their own culinary experience. Contact her at doitlikeacretan which is an @gmail.com account, and check out her Facebook and Instagram of the same name. We absolutely enjoyed our afternoon with her and learned a lot.

Chania was a great town to visit, as was the hotel, and I would love to stay there again but in a main floor room. Their breakfasts were good, service from all the staff was simply amazing, and the rooms were cared for daily with great attention to detail.

We also had no time to really spend in the Museums and that was a shame, for I have seen so many documentaries about the ancient period of Crete and would have liked to actually see with my own eyes (to quote StarWars) the artifacts and ruins. Reason enough to go back.

Overall, Greek was just an outstanding place to visit. The people were genuinely welcoming, and made me feel so grateful for their attention and willingness to share their history and food with us. Greece seems to me to be a story of a people struggling throughout time to maintain self-identity and self-rule, for so many have invaded and occupied its lands. The Minoan civilization was overrun by the Mycenaean civilization, and Crete was later occupied by Rome, the Byzantine Empire, Andalusian Arabs, the Venetian Republic, and the Ottoman Empire, followed by an invasion by the Nazis. But despite these actions, the people have heart and pride.

It was also humbling, to be reminded that many of the amazing tastes we experienced do not, and did not, have to come from sterile, stainless steel, and electrified kitchens. What made the explosive tastes was the combination of the uniqueness of the soils and environments, the foods they grew, the freshness of the ingredients, and the experience of the cooks who made the magic happen. No formal training is required to make the best flavored dishes.

— Patty