If the Greek islands wanted to form their own pantheon, the party-loving Mykonos would undoubtedly be Dionysus, while Hydra, favorite of artists and bohemians, would be perfect as Apollo, the god of the sun, poetry, music and beauty, and The retired Samothrace would act as Orpheus, who, according to mythology, introduced Jason and the Argonauts to it in his mysterious rites. But we are still missing Zeus, the father of gods and men.
If we listen to the Greeks themselves, who consider it the most authentically Greek of all their islands, Crete would embody the king of the gods. Not only because of its size – which doubles that of Mallorca, making it the largest of the nearly 6,000 that the Hellenic country has and the fifth in the entire Mediterranean – and its historical power – Homer already hailed it in his Odyssey as “ the land of the hundred cities” – but also because Zeus himself was born in it, inside a sacred cave full of bees that can still be visited today (with no little effort, it must be said).
Populated since the Neolithic, between 3,000 and 1,100 BC, it was the home of the Minoan culture, one of the most advanced civilizations in the Western world, whose traces can be admired in the indispensable palaces of Knossos and Phaistos, the remains of the port city. of Malia, and the impressive archaeological museums scattered around the island, such as those of Heraklion, Agios Nikolaos or Rethymno. Conquered by Alexander the Great, upon his death it would enjoy a certain independence from other nearby kingdoms, although after the agonizing Hellenistic decline it was left in the hands of pirates of Sicilian origin.
The dominions will follow one another from now on: Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Byzantine again, Venetian and Ottoman. And the Cretans have seen it all over the last two millennia: the flourishing of trade and the fall of great empires, the thriving Turkish slave markets, the development of Venetian administration, a Renaissance of their own, Egyptian rule. , the revolution that would lead Greece to its independence in 1822 and the subsequent Enosis – the union of Crete to the country in 1908 –, the Nazi paratroopers invading the island and the unusual kidnapping of the German general Kreipe by British commandos and Greek resisters, the necessary reconstruction that followed the Greek civil war and the arrival of hippies and beatniks in search of an authentic myth, integration into Europe in 1981 and the boom of global tourism.
But despite all its accumulated wealth – material and immaterial – and the modernity with which it has been clothed in recent years, Crete continues to carry a burden as unfair as it is persistent: the bad reputation of being ruined by unrelenting developmentalism. scruples. One piece of information can help us quantify the severity of such prejudice by putting it in context: tourism accounts for 56% of the island’s annual GDP, with agricultural production being its other economic engine.
And it is true that the northwest of Crete, above the bustling capital, Heraklion, densely built – and certainly not following balanced urban plans – makes one think of the (tourist) gold rush that has devastated so many privileged places, not only in Mediterranean.
Now, the entire southern coast and the confines of the island, as well as its mountainous center, remain just as wild and captivating as when the American writer Henry Miller discovered them, a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War. “The blue vault – writes the author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn – opens like a fan and the blue decomposes into that last violet light that makes everything Greek seem sacred, natural and familiar. In Crete one feels the desire to bathe in the sky, get rid of one’s clothes, run and, in one jump, immerse oneself in the blue. One wants to float in the air like an angel or lie rigid on the grass and enjoy a cataleptic trance. Stone and sky come together here in marriage.”
Crete is above all a land rich in contrasts, characterized by a great diversity of both natural landscapes and proposals for visitors. Here you can ski well into spring in the Lefká Óri mountain range – which literally means ‘white mountains’ – and bathe in a turquoise sea all year round; explore small whitewashed villages in its mountainous heart and come across the typical shepherds in rigorous black – high boots, a scarf drawn over their hair and a knife at their waist – drinking coffee and raki; buy spitticó crafts – popular and handmade – from their own producers, discover the proposals of young designers who reinterpret tradition in the light of the current zeitgeist or go shopping in glamorous and well-stocked shopping centers; drink a local wine in some ancient Venetian ruins converted into a contemporary taverna and enjoy a gastronomy that goes far beyond the dakos, gamopilafo and pastries of Sfakia. In short, earthly happiness made exactly to our measure.
