Island Hopping 2024: Crete, “The Moonspinners”, Minoan Village, Greek Orthodox Convent, a long drive

In 1964, in a dimly lit Midland theatre, 13-year-old Sandy was captivated by the scenes unfolding on the screen—a breathtaking panorama of azure seas, ancient ruins, and sun-drenched landscapes. As she watched Nikki’s (Haley Mills) adventures unfold against the backdrop of Crete, a love of Greece stirred within her.  She was watching the Disney movie, “The Moonspinners”.  To some degree she imagined herself walking through the warm Mediterranean Sun, listening to melodic strains of Cretan music and having her own adventure.

The Moonspinners movie

Based on book by Mary Stewart

Today, Sandy and I visited the Eastern part of Crete, the area around Agios Nikolaos (St. Nicholas), the region of Crete that the story was set in and where many of the film sites were.  This is a beautiful area of the country, rugged mountains coming right down to the sea with white washed villages squeezed between the sea and the mountains.  I think we did a good thing for the 13-year-old Sandy today.

Agios Nikolaos

The area of the filming

A very important scene in the movie involved a windmill much like this, once found all over the island

Sandy reenacting a scene from the movie in which Haley Mills uses the sails of the windmill to execute her escape from within

While in the area we also visited the Panagea Kera, an important Orthodox Church and convent in Crete.  It was a challenging mountain road to get there but once inside the little enclave, we could understand the quiet solitude and peace that this kind of isolation provided.  

The mountain road leading to the convent

The church of the convent (no pictures inside allowed), it was filled with icons and wall friezes

The view of the Mountains of Crete from the Convent

Another view of the church

On the way back down the mountain we drove into a welcoming olive oil processing plant.  During the tourist season they are open for tours, like a winery, but now they are closed.  Except!  We ran into the owner who gave us a special pre-opening private tour showing us the "old" way and the "new" way that olive oil is pressed from the olives.  Sandy even came away with some olives for dinner and some hand lotion made from their olive oil.  Sandy and I have always been lucky travelers.

Every thing ran off of one diesel powered belt system

The initial jugs that collect the oil from the crushed olives

Resting tanks where the oil separates from the water after crushing and pressing

Manos and his brother now operate the olive groves and the olive press that his great grandfather started

Some of Manos' olives on our dinner table

About an hour away and closer to the coast was Gournia, a well preserved Minoan town.  In other parts of Crete, the Minoan sites are those of the palaces of the wealthy and powerful, but Gournia was a working town, with clear evidence of workshops used by carpenters, bronzesmiths, and potters.  The Minoans occupied this town from about 3,000 BC until around 1450 BC when it, like many other Minoan settlements were destroyed by earthquake and fire.

Gournia

This was a working town with workshops and residences for the workers.

Maybe just stacked stones, but stones that were stacked as early as 5,000 years ago

These are the stone foundations for wooden and stone houses that would have been atop them 5,000 years ago.

Now, according to our GPS, over three hours from our apartment in Kalamaki Beach, we headed home.  Driving along the Southern Coast for a while and then turning into the mountains, for three hours we drove some perfectly improbable mountain roads (we wondered who would build them and how they were built).  Hairpin turns along vertical cliffs while climbing and descending the mountains and then all of a sudden a little village either sitting in a valley or hanging precariously to a cliff.  It was a white knuckle drive, but one that I’m glad we took.  We got back to the apartment before dark.  Barely! 

Pictures never show how precarious the roads seemed

Goats were all along the way

There were dozens of these mountain churches.  No one living around them, no place to park, and who was going to walk the roads for miles to get to them

One of the picture perfect little mountain villages

Just trusting the GPS to get us back to our apartment

Up here the goats have the right of way, we had to wait for this flock to cross the road.  No goatherd, they just seemed to know where they wanted to go

Touring the Eastern side of the Island

Made it home before sunset