Hills of history, villages of resistance

After the drive south to Chora Sfakia, we wanted to head inland again slightly further west to where the Samaria Gorge starts near Omalos.

Orange groves near Fournes, at foothills of the mountains

We’d heard the white mountains (Lefka Ori) in that direction were quite spectacular, and they were full of stories of resistance and insurgency through the ages.

One with a major claim on revolutionary history is Theriso, a small town about 14km south of Chania, which is accessed through an attractive leafy gorge.

In 1905 it was theatre for an eponymous revolt that led to Crete’s unification with Greece. It also gave its leader national fame and he went on to become prime minister of unified Greece. Back in 1905 Crete was a separate protectorate of a number of European powers (France, Britain, Italy and Russia) that objected, along with the high commissioner for Crete, Prince George of Greece, to union with Greece.

Beehives on the hillside

Eleftherios Venizelos, a Cretan politician who had fallen out with Prince George sought a more democratic future for Crete and selected Theriso – also his mother’s hometown – as the location for an uprising to overthrow the administration. He organised an assembly of 17 leaders from around the island along with hundreds of armed men, and proclaimed the goal of a union with Greece.  Over subsequent weeks Venizelos organised a provisional government from this small town. The insurgency eventually led to democratic constitutional changes that paved the way for unification with Greece at the end of the First Balkan War in 1913. 

We drove on further into the mountains away from Theriso. The road turned into a single track curling around the hills like an orange peel. It was mostly paved, but unmarked and with no room for cars coming the other way. We passed little: the odd farm, a minute village, some stunning views back over the valleys to Chania, and fortunately, no cars coming the other way.

Village of Lakkoi

Back on the main road, Lakkoi is a village sitting perched on the hillside, its

double-steepled, domed Greek Orthodox Church a crowning centerpiece. Again stories of resistance: leading a revolt against the Venetians in the 13^th Century, against the Ottomans in the Greek War of Independence (routing 5000 members of the Ottoman Army) and much of the population, men and women, arming to resist the Germans in the 1941 Battle of Crete.

In these villages today with the populations diminished due to urbanisation, it is mainly older people, women always in black, men sitting drinking coffee or raki, who make up the village street/café life. They are the descendants of that legacy of resistance – and you wouldn’t mess with them either.  

 Goats cheese made next door

Best food moment: a mountain lunch at Omalos. With a sign for a cheesemaker’s behind the
restaurant, we ended up with quite a cheese-fest of meze. We tried little hot cheese pies filled with mizirtha with a very thin, almost batter-like pastry, dakos, the barley rusk with tomato and mizirthra, a local goats cheese variation, air-dried olives, super salty and juiceless, and of course chips for Milly. For dessert, they brought more cheese pies on the house, this time covered in a sticky malty honey. Delicious! 

Dakos

Small cheese pies