It’s the story of two famous french ski alpinists, Stéphane Brosse and Charles Dubouloz (Millet team) that crossed in 6 hours all the Lefka Ori from Omalos to Askifou, climbing Mount Pachnes.

It’s 40 kilometers, usually you need two hard days to walk it!
But more than the exploit we are interested in the beautiful landscape of that mountains with snow, the same mountain where the E4 runs, and where usually I lead trekking groups every year!

Luca

At the end, concert of an italian singer:  Ori.  And we’ll eat and drink something together.

At 4 pm, here’s the fair’s web  Fa’ la cosa giusta

We wait for you!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 40 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 105 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 15mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was November 12th with 102 views. The most popular post that day was The trip.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were camminacreta.wordpress.com, facebook.com, livingincrete.net, radio-kreta.de, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for walking the heart of crete, stelios georgedakis, pachnes walks, camminacreta, and walking the hart of crete.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

The trip March 2010

The Project March 2010
1 comment

Travelogue October 2010
6 comments

Walkers September 2010
2 comments

Helping March 2010
1 comment

Sentence of the day:
If we suffer it is not caused by the impermanence of the phenomena. The reason is that we believe that things are permanent. When a flower wilts we do not suffer much, because we undestand that the flowers are impermanent. We are not able however to accept the impermanence of our beloved ones and suffer terribly when we lose them. If we look deeply into the nature of impermanence, we will do our best to make them happy now.  If we are aware of the impermanence, we will become positive, loving and wise. The impermanence is a good news. Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. Thanks to impermanence, there’s always a chance of changing.  Instead of complaining, we should say:” Long live impermanence!”.  It is an instrument for our liberation.

Photo of the day: sitting in that café….

Meeting of the day:-

The Camminacreta is over. I am in Kastelli or Kissamos, it’s the same thing.  Sitting in a café, with my computer in front of me, sipping an orange juice so sweet as everybody who comes to Crete knows. In this day of november which seems almost a summer day, I have on just a t-shirt: around me instead the kids (I don’t know why they are not at school) are dressed as if it were winter, maybe because in a month it will be Christmas and therefore one must wear winter clothes which are not much used here ! They have on sweaters, jackets, even coats, definitely sweating inside them.
Today it is a short ending: just 7,5 kilometres. But to avoid the asphalt I walked up and down through a few rocky hills, openig and shutting dozens of gates made of mesh. Sweet hills covered with tidy olive tree groves,  which around the corner fall sheer into deep gorges. Today I am happy, two days of walking and no asphalt, while the original E4 was entirely on asphalt !
So I am here happy, peaceful: this long walk started a year ago in my mind, aware of the impermanence of things, happy to go back home.
Someone asked me if after this beautiful journey, I will become a walker of long journeys without ever stopping. No, I don’t think so. I am not a collector.This one was born as a special yourney and will remain so. I will surely  continue my profession as a guide of walking journeys, if the walkers will be still interested in following me. I will do it with the new association we founded from the ashes of Boscaglia and whose name will be “La Compagnia dei cammini” (The company of the walks).
I will also continue to address myself to Crete, as the love for this island consolidated with this journey, but has become more aware: I see the merits and the faults of the beloved. I will go on working to build an opportunity to make the E4 one of the european trails as it deserves. I hope to write a book that can be a guide for those who want to walk along this path. This book and the gps traces I put freely at disposal are two instruments that will make this path accessible to everybody.
I will continue to address myself to the problem of the “barrel dogs”. I will go on building nets among the people of good will who live in Crete, as those many of whom I have written: Olimpia, Dimitri, Janina and Babis. Alistair and Suzanne, Jorg and Susanne, Stelios and Claire. I hope to organize presentation evenings of my travel, around Italy. It would be nice if you have the chance to do it. I can bring beautiful photos and the live story. I can also raise funds to help one of projects, or to settle one of the problems. I know that Crete does not mean much to many of you. You will say: why should I take care of the dogs of Crete or of the donkeys of Crete, since there’s so much to do in Italy ?  Of course, empathy is a private matter. It is something that one feels inside. But this island is the cradle of our civilization, has a unique nature all over the world and very few persons take care of it. If these are not sufficient reasons…
Let’s count. I walked 460 kilometres to go from east westwards,  from Zato Zakros to the monastery of the Golden step. I did  501,5 kilometres to reach Kastelli. Does this town deserve the end of the walk ?  Honestly no.  A quiet town, but lacking of a particular charisma. In the square there’s a statue of a seated man: how can such a sleepy town be welcoming for the walkers, the pilgrims ?  I believe that the walk ends in Hrissoscalitssa. Maybe the name is difficult, it is in the middle of nowhere, is little served with public transport, but it is the right place to end. It is all white, glaring, sheer over the sea; it is possible to ask the friar  for hospitality to end the travel with a moment of insight. Or maybe to stop for few hours in silence under the pine tree to reflect upon the walk just ended. To start again from here to walk to Kastelli: OK,  two days more of walk to come down to earth, let’s call it “extension” of the walk.
The direction of the path which was originally thought from west to east, for me has been phantastic from east.  The path must go from east westwards. Starting from the sea and ending in the monastery. With the sun into one’s eyes every evening at sunset.

Walkers of today: Luca

Techinical notes:
Lenght: 7,5 kilometres
A rise of 200 metres and a descnt of 400
Difficulty: easy.
Strong points: to enjoy the end of the walk sitting in a kafenio or in a restaurant.
Total of kilometres from the beginning: 501, 5

Sentence of the day:
Don’t forget to smile.

Photo of the day : a micro barrel dog

Meeting of the day: the women who attend to the churches.

Here I am, full of energy to try to reach Kastelli Kissamos not on the asphalt, as it was sadly imagined when the E4 was created, but through a new path. I must say that I have found a proposal which is enough interesting, even if there are surely others.  My route starts from Elos, where I slept and plans to pass the mountains that divide me from the sea of the north coast, following a line which is as straight as possible, thugh it envisages to pass on high. But I like it, after all the altitude is a little more than 1000 metres. But these mountains are wild, there is no marked trail nor traces of trampling, apart from the hunters whom I meet without ail.
Therefore, here and in other stretches it is necessary to devise a “new E4″, a trail out of the asphalt. It is possible, almost always.  The variations I studied with Matteo and Stelios and by myself also, cut out much asphalt.
Today the vanes of windpower bothered me. I crossed two stations of them. They scare and cause anxiety: they are too big for us, little humans. They are noisy, when the vane comes down one expects the stab. Moreover, when I passed the second station there was a very thick fog and I just guessed them, it seemed an horror movie. It is not pleasant to walk under them, so if I could study a new variation, I would study it far from them.
But today I was strong, and remembered to smile, as suggested by the sentence of the day.  I walked very much, 24 kilometres. There was also an adventurous passage. While I am going down from the first mountain to the valley, the road disappears. I think: there’s an error in the map, but shortly afterwards I find the road again. But there is a drop, a great overhanging rock. But I find a trace which goes down alongside this beautiful rock and ends into a stream, into the water. But the stream jumps, so I have to climb to find the side passages. Then it becomes easier and I can walk among the plane trees whose roots are into the water.  Up ahead I find a wonderful chestnut grove and also a trace.
Today the harvest of the olives begins; in the past few days I had seen people settling the nets under the trees.  Today everybody is at work, maybe because it’s Sunday: The noise is really unpleasant; I knew that the olives are collected with a comb, as I did in Molise more than ten years ago. Here they do it with a sort of  “edge trimmer”, a petrol tool which spins and makes the olives drop. Around one tree there are even three people with these tools: I let you imagine the poetry of the harvest, when it occurred without noise, chatting while working. Now it’s all a “bzzzzz…bzzzz”.  Will it be like this now in Italy ?
In this area all the villages end in …ana: Marouliana, Zachariana, Taboriana, Stavrouliana, this last is a village of few houses (there is not on the map) where I stayed at night.
I found a wonderful place where to sleep. Its name is Astratighos. It is a small church far from the houses, in a quiet area, with beautiful plane trees in front and a powerful spring, of room-temperature water. It is strange: it is not cold, but after all we are at an altitude of  only 250 metres..
I had arrived at another small church,  not so beautiful and there was a woman washing the floor. You must know that each church has a woman who attends to it, cleans, lights the candles.  This woman was welcoming, asked me wether I wanted to sleep inside the church, I hesitated, I showed her my tired feet, she was empathetic. Then she went away and told me to shut the gate when I went away. But I was not at ease in that church. So I walked for two kilometres more towards another small church that I had seen on the map. It was the right one, Astratighos. But two women were there. One was picking tangerines from a tree and the other one was inside the church tending to it. These women seemed less friendly, they sat outside to eat tangerines and I waited for them to go away.  I waited patiently and at last they went. And I settled in this nice square among the plane trees, with the cats running after the mice, the spring of not-cold water, the eucalyptuses, the full moon and the small church open at my disposal.

Walker of today: Luca
Technical notes:
Lenght:  24 kilometres
a rise of 800 metres and a descent of 1100
Difficulty:medium, it is an interesting area, apart from the windpower vanes, which cause anxiety and spoil the walk. There is a dificult but short passage where a small path ends; it is necessary to go into a stream for half hour.
Strong points: the chestnuts groves, the small church of Astratighos.

Sentence of the day:
If you know what is sufficient for you, then you will have what is sufficient for you. But if you wait “to have enough of it” it will never be sufficient.

Photo of the day: the golden step !

Meeting of the day:-

I awake and a short rite expects me: at the beginning of CamminaCreta, on the beach of Kato Zakros, Fabiana had chosen for me a black heart-shaped stone to bring to the sea of the opposite side. I have decided that Elafonissi is the right place, it is west and has a white and pink beach. That black stone is a stranger here, everybody sees it, let’s hope it will integrate well. So I lay it on the sand and the morning sea begins to take it away.
Then I meet a German daddy with two little daughters, one on a tricycle and the other one, perhaps two month old, is carried on his back. He walks fast holding in his hands empty plastic bottles, it’s clear that he is looking for some water. I ask him whether he knows where to find it. He says that yesterday there was a black pipe from which the water came out, but afterwards it had ceased. I could go with him… I go and we find the water. Lucky stroke, it is right near the tree where I have slept !
I begin to walk and the coastal trail turns out to be like that one I did yesterday, hard. Besides it is not marked as the E4 goes on the asphalt, because it is a route which had been studied decades ago and has never been updated.Now this coastal path is the right one, even if  it must be marked and trampled in order to become easier. The new E4 will pass here. It is a trail in a wild environment, always with the view of the sea. I arrive to the Monastery of Hrissoscalitissa around noon.
What a joy and excitement, I have tears in my eyes, I am arrived to the “golden step” ! Gosh ! I made it, in 26 days and 460 kilometres. I take a ritual photo; I have a little talk with the friar who lives here, he has a long grey beard.
Then I settle myself in a corner of the monastery, under a pine tree, to decide what to do. And I decide thanks also to the sentence of the day. Definitely the E4 ends here; from here on my only walk  will be my way back home. To stop my walk here, I think of it, but I am not ready. Like those pilgrims who don’t want to stop their walk when they reach Santiago and go on up to Finisterre. This monastery, the “golden step”, is the Santiago of the CamminaCreta. I will walk more, with a new destination: Chania, the airport, to fly home. And as far as possible, I will walk, because the  return will be better. So the goal will be Kastelli Kissamos, which is also the conclusion of the E4, to understand whether this northward stretch adds or not something to the walk.
For those who don’t know it, the monastery is called “Golden Step” because the legend tells that one of the steps is made of gold, but only the perfect christian can see it.
After a long break I decide to leave. From here to Kefali there are ten kilometres of asphalt. Kefali should be a nice and welcomig mountain village, but it’s almost deserted. So I hitch a ride to Elos where I finally find a tavern with rooms.
Walker of today: Luca
Technical notes:
Lenght 18 kilometres
a rise of 500 metrs
Difficulty: medium, orientation is intricated in the 6 kilometrs between Elafonissi and the monastery of Hrissoscalitissa; after that there is only asphalt and no trace of the E4.
Strong points: the arrival to the monastery, exciting.

Barrel dog of today:

Sentence of the day:

WHEN WE WALK WE MAY NOT BE FREE. TO WALK  IN AWARENESS INSTEAD IS A PRACTICE THAT FREES. WE SHOULD WALK AS FREE PERSONS; FREEDOM MAKES US WILLING TO BE PEACEFUL AND HAPPY.  TO BECOME FREE WE MUST INVEST IN EACH STEP THE HUNDRED PER CENT OF OURSELVES. IF WE ARE PRISONERS WHEN WE WALK, IF FEELINGS OF ANGER OR WORRY ARISE INSIDE OURSELVES  OR THOUGHTS OF THE PAST OR OF THE FUTURE OR ABOUT SOME PLACES, WE ARE NOT FREE. BREATHING IN, WE ARE ABLE TO GAIN IN AWARENESS.

Photo of the day: Walking on the sand

Meeting of the day: a woman gives me her water

This morning I awoke worried. A little crisis: which is the sense of my walking, I asked myself, now that it is going to be over ? It has been an interesting experience, of course and also exciting. But did it help me to grow ?  And will it be useful to someone else ? Paleochora had not been so welcoming as I expected, by now it is all closed. One can only sleep in dirty rooms and eat the leftovers of the end of the season. Then I picked the sentence and it was exactly the sentence I needed today. I repeated it all day long like a mantra, when thoughts without reply crowded my mind, when worries arrived fast. I felt guilty because here there is the sun, it is warm and I can swim while people I love are cold. Then I realized it had no sense and thanked for the weather, for the sun and the warm.  Today also I swam twice along the path.
The walk of today is divided between two parts. The first ten kilometres are on asphalt, in an uninteresting area, among greenhouses of tomatoes and peppers. I advise to skip them by means of transport, because afterwards you find ten beautiful kilometres that you can enjoy without running. To tell the truth, today I faced well these ten kilometres even if I rergard asphalt as the enemy of walkers.  Every time I was bothered I applied the  techniques of the walking meditation, I coordinated breath and step and focused on this and didn’t even notice the trucks passing by me. This is really a wonderful achievement !
After the asphalt there are ten kilometres of coastal path, along small beaches, sand hills, many up and down. It was very hard: I had underestimated them, they take plenty of time, one never arrives.
Besides Elafonissi is not so beautiful, but rather disappointing after you have passed sand hills with cypresses, well protected beaches, small natural jewels. During the season in Elafonissi there are a few taverns, but today it is all closed. I settle under a tree, a cypress, with my supper of breadsticks, olives, cheese and a small chocolate cake.   I think this is not the place where many hippies lived long ago. I think it was rather the hollow I saw before, wonderful, with sand hills and glades among the cypresses; in the midle there was also a well, and that was fundamental.  I have no water. First I meet a woman who offers me a lift, tells me that I am lucky to sleep here and gives me all the water which she has inside the car. Then I go up to the taverns, inspect them well, open a gate (one of the usual ones made of mesh) go and take water from  a tap, but it is really bad.
Tomorrow I arrive to the monastery of the golden step. My journey could end there: who knows why the E4 arrives to Kastelli, tomorrow the passage from  East to West will be complete. We’ll see.

Walkers of today: Luca

Technical notes:
Lenght 20 kilometres
height difference: not measurable, many up and down.
Difficulty: medium, the orientation is good enough; the E4 is quite well marked
Strong points: the small beaches and the sand hills.

Sentence of the day:
Solid like a mountain
free like a white cloud.

Photo of the day: free like a white cloud

Meeting of the day: Stelios Tzatzimakis in Sougia

The mountains are over, now I walk near the seashore. I left Sfakia, the land of rocks and pallikari, and entered the district of Selino, which includes Sougia and Paleohora: its name comes from the Venetian castle which overtops Paleohora. The weather is changed: there’s the sun and it is warm, almost as in summer.!
Today I leave Sougia without breakfast because everything is closed. But I  have a good option: chocolate cookies and I eat them sitting on a bench as a cat rolls in front of me.
My dear friend Mariangela has sent me an amusing message:
“…how can you find time to tend so much the graphics of your blog?  How can you make the little frame of your photos and write a tiny copyright, put the bold in the right place…etc.  How can you be so accurate sitting on a stone and holding your pc on your knees,  while you are waiting for the rain to stop ????? Now and then I say to myself: all that is just a big story which Luca tells sitting in the terrace of some house near the seaside in some Cretan village…..come on!, tell me where you are so I can join you”. I get another message:  “To Vima” has pubblished, on November 17, the article about my journey. To vima is a national daily newspaper, one of the most widely read among the youth of Greece. Here is the version on line; I don’t know what they have written, but hope someone translates it sooner or later. I just learnt how my name is written in Greek: http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=1&artid=367652&dt=17/11/2010
I leave in a good mood and at the port I meet Stelios Tzatzimakis: he is on his boat and is fixing the engine. I know him for 13 years. He is a very kind man, he was fond of the mountain and I got in touch with him on my first time in Crete, to have news about the paths. Now he is too busy to walk, he goes fishing with his small boat and in summer he rents rooms in Sougia (“Tzatzimakis”)  and works as a cook in the best restaurant of Sougia “Galini. And in winter he collects the olives. We greet each other, he scolds me because I didn’t inform him, because, he says, there is always a room for me, even if it is closed. I know it  but I didn’t want to make him come on purpose from Chania and after all I like to sleep on the beach of Sougia….
I arrive at Lissos, among cyclamens, rocks and clouds and from on high the valley is magic.  And when I get down the ruins of the Asklepeon temple are also magic and the healing water with the taste of lentisk, and the small church built with the pieces of the temple. Inside the church there is a stone heart, this is the heart of Crete, I say to myself.
The sentence of the day reminds me of Kazantzakis, the writer who got the verse, which later became famous, carved on his grave:”I fear nothing, I expect nothing, I am free”.  Kazantzakis studied Buddhism in the Thirties and this parallel between the two visions so convergent is one othe reasons for my journey. To learn to be free. Living in the present, solid, without anxieties nor fears.
So I set myself free and in a small beach halfway along the path I stripped naked and bathed in the sea. And after one hour of walk, in another beautiful beach, another bath. After 24 days of walking they were the first baths, almost a baptism, a further purification.
I arrive to Paleohora in the afternoon and find it rather closed. I find a rather improper room…
By the way, I advise whoever will repeat this journey: be careful with cunning hoteliers, there are unfortunately, as everywhere. Before entering the room check the price of it and if you think it is too high compared with the standards of the place, try also to bargain. If you don’t ask anything, you may be swindled and pay too much. It has occured to me a couple of times, but it is my fault, I had only to try an arrangement in advance, as in any relationship. Clear undestanding breed long friendship.

Walkers of today: Luca

Technical notes:

Lenght 14,5 kilometres
a rise of 500 metres and a descent of 500
Difficult: easy, good orientation, the E4 is well marked
Strong points: Lissos, the two baths in the beaches along the path.