Touring on Crete, Greece

(Title picture: Riding out of the Lathissi high plateau)

Time was running out, i was thinking back and forth on where to go, checking weather reports and ways to get there up to the point where i thought i'd just spend my last holidays this year at home and just do nothing.

Now i am glad i pulled the trigger on a flight to Crete to have a good week at this beautiful place. Been way too long since i've been to Greece.

I am on my last day here, tomorrow i'll head to the airport. Organized some bubble wrap to wrap up my bike for the flight and now just hanging out in Chania, second biggest and supposedly nicest city on the island.

Some more pictures before i start with my lengthy sermon, haha.

(Riding up to the Lathissi plateau on some sweet gravel tracks.)

(Greek food. They gave me a small bottle of Raki for dessert, i guess it contained six shots but i was good after two.)

(Riding up to Spili. From Spili back down to the sea you can pass the Kotsifou gorge.)

(Camping by the sea.)

(Greek color way. Not really the cretan color way though, i mean there were places in this color way but i think that was only to give tourists some greek colorway vibes.)

(Riding out of Paleochora to head back to the northern coast.)

(Nice view into the Topolia gorge.)

Positive notes about cyle touring in Crete:

• Climate. I had now about 27° C max temperatures everyday, perfect weather. Sun was still pretty strong, it surely would be too hot for me in full on summer though. Great plant life, still many flowers at this time of the year, fig cactus was ripe and the pomgrenade. Olive harvest was on too, the smell of the south.
• Greek people. Super chill and super friendly
• Greek drivers. Top notch, i have not had a single close pass. I was surprised, was expecting it to be more like Italy or Croatia. I might be proven wrong on the last 15 km tomorrow with tourists rushing to the airport together with me. Generally traffic was very, very low except for a few exceptions (last bit up to lathissi, and along northern coast)
• Infrastructure. Tavernes everywhere, small supermarkets too. Lots of rooms available, would certainly be a good place to credit card it. On the flipside it is probably overly touristic in some places, but i expected that and was more surprised how fast you'd be out of the buzz and in rural places and villages with no tourism to speak of. I am here at the very end of the season, the day after tomorrow i think half the island will shut down, so i guess it was perfect timing to be here with less tourists around (and less people driving around in rental cars i suppose)
• Animals. Cats are everywhere where human settlements are. Love it. Vultures in the mountains, i saw them every day, except for the flatter hills along the north coast. Saw a big flock too, 40 - 50 birds on the way to the lathissi plateau. Goats are absolutely everywhere on the mountains and i like it. They're always scared when you pass and I sometimes worry that on a downhill a goat lying on the road might have a brain fart and jump into me, but they all had the escaping to safety dialed down. Dogs. I heard bad things about dogs in Greece, but every barky, scary dog i came across was either chained or trapped in a yard. All free roaming dogs were super chill, just lying around in front of the butchers or some garbage cans, not even caring about cats.
• Iced coffee. The greek love iced coffee and so do i. Since i have last been here, which is decades ago, they completely switched it around though, it used to be 'frappe' everywhere, which is made from instant coffee, but now they're all about the 'freddo espresso'. While they still serve frappe, they were kinda looking weird at me when i ordered it, i think it's way out of fashion. Took me a while to get the 'freddo espresso' memo.
• Greek food is pretty damn good too. Cretan nut bars with honey were also good snacks.
• Camping is great, although official campsites are not everywhere.

Can't really think of negatives. I guess if you don't like climbing this is not the place for you. Some roads had a lot of trash lying around. Some places are overly touristic, but kinda easy to avoid or leave fast. Traffic in the big cities is annoying, the greek all go by car or on mopeds. Still the drivers are great. I certainly will be back cycling in Greece soon, absolutely enjoyed it.

This was my route. Unluckily i've had a cold since i arrived here, so i didn't get to ride what i thought i would. Guess i'll be all good when i'm back in the office on thursday. I think it was down to not sleeping at all the night before i arrived, and only halfway the night before that, because leaving home didn't go as easy as expected. Woke up at 4:00 to get to the airport, then realised i had forgotten to loosen my pedals beforehand. Tried too hard with my multitool to remove them and it broke. Now i couldn't even remove the handlebar anymore. Tried for a brief bit to organize some tools at the airport with no luck and then just rescheduled the flight for the next day at 4:30 in the night from a neighbouring city. So i didn't sleep all night and arrived in the capital Iraklio kinda dizzy.

I am quite happy with my new setup, even though the old one had it's own advantages. It is now somewhat lighter, and the weight is more evenly distributed, so lifting it over barriers and pushing uphill felt better. Rides pleasantly but tbh i didn't mind the riding part with the old rear heavier setup either. Pretty sure i will do my next tour with this new setup again though.