A trip to Crete is all about amazing beaches and lovely seaside settlements but it is also about majestic mountains and epic hiking routes! It is a big mistake to visit this big and multifarious place and avoid the highland since that's exactly the place to capture the true essence of the island!
The building at the picture above, is the shelter of "Volikas" at an altitude of 1450 meters (about 4.800 foot) on the north part of the "Lefka Ori" mountain and it is the highest point of my trip in August. Despite of the clouds of the day hiking in the heat of the summer is not a very wise decision so I promised to myself to go back on another season and explore properly all the area around!
Another truly unexpected twist of my trip was the descent into a cave with wonderful stalactites that is closed for the public! I owe that experience to my partner that did all the googling and located the key-keeper and to an amazing coincidence!
The cave has a tiny entrance closed with an iron hatch. The man that holds the key lives in a village nearby and he is the one that actually found this cave a few decades ago. Now he is too old to go into the cave and allows only to members of speleology societies to enter, with a previously arranged appointment. And lucky us an appointment like that was arranged for the same day we were around!
Τhe two best things when you spend a night in the mountains is the incredibly fresh air and the mesmerizing view! Below are a few shots of a glorious morning that had both!
So that was the 5th and last post about my summer trip. It was mostly fragments of the trip rather than a travel story but as I said at the first one I did a lousy job documenting our little adventure but I did an excellent job at giving restful and quality time to myself :)
The last picture is dedicated to the noble creatures that dominate the scenery and were always discreetly monitoring us!
The first picture of the post is my entry to Qurator's Photo Quest | Dim Light (I hope I am not too late for that :))
And you can find the links to the previous posts about my trip below.
Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.
Commenting, upvoting and rebloging are highly appreciated!
Ohhh - that gloomy shot didn't disappoint! Love the first picture, definitely all my favourite things are included, superb colours and so much drama! Perfect :D It's not that I don't like blue skies but there's something about clouds that makes life so much more interesting and speaks to my imagination <3
I thought you'd like it :)
It was the only cloudy day of the month and I think we spent it to the best possible place!
Amazing location with superb pictures. Love it!
Thank you very much!
Awesome shots. I need to go explore some caves here.
Thank you :)
Yes, caves are cool!
What a fun post. It is great that you spent time not photographing everything. I think about that when I am on vacations, even more now that I blog. Am I living in the experience or just documenting it?
The caves are cool. There are some here in Arizona that I went to for the first time last year and it was amazing! I want to go back.
Great sheep shot too!
Yes, a lot of times I feel that I am losing the actual experience by putting the camera between myself and the world!
After all everyone needs a vacation every now and then :)