We started our day very early… well… what passes for very early on vacation: 8:30 in the morning. It’s not the zero dark stupid of some business trips but early nonetheless. Our first stop was breakfast at 📍Drops. They did coffee correctly, not trained barista correct, more I know how to operate an espresso machine without embarrassing myself good. Already an improvement over yesterday’s breakfast. Karine went for a yogourt bowl and myself went for a variation on shakshouka. Both were executed well too. I’ll take consistently good at most things over excellent at one thing and terrible at all the rest anytime.
Before stopping to grab the car we detoured by 📍Red Jane to fuel up with a cinnamon bun each and grab a snack for the hike. We opted for croissants as a safe (read nut free) source of carbs and Karine added some sesame cookies that I didn’t trust to be nut free but looked very good.
We then headed to the parking just outside downtown Chania where we had left our car before the move. In terms of ease of access, ease of exit and their valet parking service, the little more than 30€ we paid for the car’s stay was well worth it. We opted to go back to 📍Parking Apollon and leave the car for the night before we leave the city behind tomorrow.
Leaving the city we stopped by a gas station. Not because we needed to refuel the car but because it has been increasingly vocal about needing AdBlue in the next 500km or it would refuse to start. Not having a clue what AdBlue is I had to Google it. Turns out it’s an additive that’s mixed in with the exhaust to improve the environmental impact of diesel cars. Europe started requiring it as part of the antipollution system in new cars at the end of 2015. The new standard is there to ensure diesel cars in Europe have lower NOx emissions. The last diesel car I drove was my VW Golf that was bought back by VW for an outrageous price as a result of VW gaming the NOx emission tests. I’ve remained happily ignorant of any new diesel technology since. I had to learn that AdBlue is actually not blue (thank you for the confusing name) and is actually urea. Not sure if pissing in the thank would have done the same but filling up our cars’s AbBlue tank was 23€. It’s either expensive pee or there’s more to it than that. The things necessity require you to learn are amazing.
The road to the bottom of the Agia Irini Gorge was easy. The way back wasn’t so much but more on that later. The parking at 📍Oasis Tavern isn’t big, but we’re off-season so parking was easy. Not sure how it would be during the high season. Most logs on AllTrails seem to start from the top instead of the bottom, so that parking lot might not be an issue in the high season either.
Agia Irini Gorge owes its shape to the steady erosion of the region’s limestone and marble over millions of years. Water flowing through the area gradually deepened the valley, exposing its rugged and rocky sides. We’re told the seasonal rainfall and river flow continue the erosive process to this day. Not that we saw any rain (YAY!) or a river (Boo…) during our time there.
We started our hike from the bottom reasoning that, as the bottom of the gorge is in the middle of nowhere, we would enjoy looking at the walls of the gorge more than a crevasse with its dry river bed. While the first of the 7km up did not confirm or refute our hypothesis, starting from about the 1.5km all the way to the 6km mark, the views were splendid. Surprisingly, the quality of trail marking seemed to follow the quality of the views, at least at the bottom. When we started there was barely a blaze in sight and we mostly followed the dry river bed as a natural trail until markings got more frequent and the trail easier to see at about the first kilometre.
Based on the reviews we expected a wild trail: slightly overgrown, rougher terrain, some bouldering required. The descriptions we read say it’s the wilder of the major gorges you can hike after all. Considering there were handrails, stone stairs, rest stops with fully functional toilets and even a bridge, the “wild” portion is certainly not the trail itself. Maybe it’s related to the amount trees that grow in the gorge that makes it wild. We’ll have to compare to Gorge of Samariá we’re doing in a couple of days to know. In any case, If we compare it to the gorge of the dead we’ve done earlier it’s a much easier trail.
I won’t go into a description of the gorge itself. The pictures should say enough on their own and I would bore myself describing rocks which I know nothing about anyway. Suffice it to say we went up to the ticket office, paid our 4€ (2€ each) and headed back down. As we were going down we confirmed that the way up is the best.
I cannot comment on the distance and speed of our hike. There was no cell coverage on the trail and the GPS suffered from the canyon effect showing me going up sheer walls and back down in seconds. My watch must think I’m superman or something.
The lack of cell coverage also created some challenges for us. I usually download offline maps of the region we’re in. This time it completely slipped my mind. It returned to the forefront of my mind when I tried to route us back home and Google Maps refused. I can’t say I had paid attention to the numerous twists and turns on what can only be described as tortuous roads already. So we took the car and headed uphill with the hopes of getting signal soon. It took about 5 minutes of driving before the first drips of signal came in and another 2 or 3 before it was enough to get routing. By then we were told we were up the wrong side of the gorge but not to worry there’s a road going down soon. The thing is… that road going down is not so much a road as a cleared section of ground at a 20% grade with large rocks spread around. It was 1km down with many thight turns, a goat fence and a weave between two water tanks that we barely managed to squeeze through. All of that to make it back to our starting point and head in the right direction. Had we understood the route we would have just made a u-turn and gone down on the paved road we came from. Google Maps could have told us or offered the albeit longer but safer route but noooo, the longer path is no good for Google Maps. It would have been long and boring where as going through an obstacle course on the side of a cliff was much more interesting to it.
We survived and our car survived. It makes new noises but still drives. We’ll keep it quiet when we return. The rest of the drive was like the hike, the reverse of our way to. We parked the car where we picked it up, went back to the hotel, and took a shower to remove the thick layer of dust that had accumulated on our feet and calves.
Dinner was at 📍Salis, probably the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to all trip. While we love a more rustic feel with a farm to table ingredients; we had a wider range of dishes and flavour profiles available to us. We negotiated three courses with two dishes each in order to get the maximum breath of flavour. We got:
- Local cheese stuffed zucchini flowers and cheese croquettes as our first course making it, quite unintentionally our cheese course.
- Peinirli, some form of flat bread covered in ground beef and sauce, with buffalo (meat, not the cheese) filled ravioli in toasted herbs sauce that was the highlight of the meal. Call that our primi.
- Tomahawk pork chop served over mustard for some unknown reason and a white fish over puréed green peas.
It replenished our reserve after the hike and with the bottle of wine, for 175€ it emptied our wallet quite well.
Tomorrow we’re moving to Paleochora. We’ll be stopping by the botanical garden of the island and meeting an old olive tree, hopefully with easier roads than the last one.
Places
Drops Premium Coffee, Brunch & More! · Chania
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Red Jαne Bakery · Chania
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Agia Irini Gorge, Crete, Greece - 316 Reviews, Map | AllTrails
Agia Irini Gorge (Φαράγγι Αγίας Ειρήνης) On the west side of White Mountains, Crete, is one of the most beautiful gorges in this mountain range: Agia Irini Gorge. Its name is taken from the settlement of Agia Irini, near the entrance of the gorge. Apart from the impressively high rocky slopes and the geology of the formations of the gorge's cliffs, the gorge is characterized by high biodiversity, aesthetic and historical value. The stream that passes through it, ends at the seaside village of Sougia and the beautiful beach. Please note: paid access, € 2 per person (2019).
www.alltrails.com
Salis · Chania
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Parking Apollon · Chania
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Óasis Tavern · Kantanos-Selino
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