Walking in Crete, Luca Gianotti

Hello..

The day before yesterday, in the evening, we got a mail from Luca Gianotti. He introduced himself as a walker, and asked if he could come by Kallikratis and see us tthe next day. Ofcourse, we invited him to come by.

He arrived yesterday in the late afternoon here. Luca, with his friend Stelios Georgidakis, have the project to walk the entire length of Crete, from East to West, a trip of 500km.

From Kato Zakros, crossing in the middle of Crete, walking on 3 mountain ranges (Oros Dikti, Oros Idi e Lefka Ori) , till the last part, the most famous, near the sea, with overwelming gorges, to the Monastery of Christoskalitissa. Today is his 19th day on the walk, he has covered more than 250km. His intention is, to revive the old E4 walking paths, to check their conditions and record GPS trails of the paths, which he then will publish free for any walker to use.

We were talking about his walk and experiences, about Crete and nature, about many things while cleaning wild vegetables. He had met our friend Giannis Giannoutsos in Kouses, the guy with the incredible herb shop, and Giannis had told him about us. Later, also Katherina and Antonis from Chania came, and we had dinner, and a great evening together. Luca has a wonderful approach, he calls it slow walking, which sounds most beautiful in Italian 'Movimento lento'.. walk, but do not run, have time to be present in the moment, time to meet people and nature in the now.. still, he covers about 20km daily..

He publishes a blog about his walk, which he updates daily, and which makes a wonderful read, both in Italian and English. The Italian version is daily updated, the English version is always a day or two behind.. have a look, its absolutely worth it, for all Crete lovers and for walkers.. The Italian version is at http://camminacreta.wordpress.com/ and there is a link to the English version on the site...

During the night, it started to pour down and this morning it was still pouring down with rain.. so we had a cozy extended breakfast everyone, waiting for the rain to pause.. as Luca said, that he doesn't mind rain on his walk, but he never starts out when its raining.. Today, he will walk to Askifou, where he will meet up with Stelios Georgidakis again to continue together..

After he had gone though, it again started to rain, and never stopped.. and foggy clouds filled the mountains.. we worried about him.. however, by evening he had arrived safely, but surely completely soaked, in Askifou..

May you have dry weather on your path, Luca..

Today is the new beginning...

So friends, here we are, all of us who contributed to a historical action for water here in Kallikratis, an action the like of which has not ever been seen before..

We were all willing to take the risk, we risked everything we had, a total of 6500 euro.... we were all enthusiastic about the project, became a team, we wrote history, we inspired and awed everyone who heard about it.. from allover we are, we all know Kallikratis, we all have spend time here, we were all willing to give it a try. We did not loose, we won, we won in showing, that together we can do things, nobody could do by himself. And its not just talk we contributed, we all contributed funds, and action, work, enthusiasm, hope and love, the excitement and the whole spectrum of emotions during the actual drilling days, ... we actively did something and did it together!! Thanks for all the support, it has been overwhelming...

Giannis and Anna Bitsakis, Chania, Crete
Lampis Xilouris, Herakleion, Crete
Arnold, Evelyn, Jaqueline, Holland
Jill and Derek Pearce, Kavros, Crete
Giorgos Markoulakis, Gerani, Crete
Giannis Tsagarakis and Maria Tolidou, Chania, Crete
Giangos Chairetis, Anogia, Crete
Nikos Psilos, Chania, Crete
Willy and Johnny de Zeeuw, Holland
Thomas and Martha Brandt, Christiania, Denmark
Manfred Hoffmann and Moni, Dresden, Germany
Ina Hviding, Norway
Giorgos Vougioukalos, Argyroupoli, Crete
Eleni Tsalikidou, Argyroupoli, Crete
Panagiotis Angelakis, Zoniana, Crete
Joscha Lücke, Berlin, Germany
Mitsos Karnagio, Chania, Crete
David Troutman, Chania, Crete
Kiria Stella Psaroudakis, Chania, Crete
Antonis Dagas, Chania, Crete
Henk Ploeger, Holland
Isolde Eleni Bichsel, Chania, Crete
Giorgos Tsoupakis, Frangokastello, Crete
Mitscha Rütsch, Bornholm, Denmark
Janne Gjerken, Norway
Jörg and Sandra Flaschka, Jena, Germany
ST and Regina, Berlin, Germany
Triandafyllia (Filio) Syka, Modi, Crete
Sheena Inoue, Bornholm, Denmark
Eva and Evtychia Christodoulaki, Modi, Crete
Giannis Ravdoskopos, Moudros, Crete
Maria (Mario) Matamadiotou, Plaka, Crete
Lill Heldre Gulli, Norway
Kristine Heldre, Norway
Heleen Kennedy, Scotland
Ria Vermeulen, Holland
Thomas Venakis, Zouridi, Crete
Dimitra and Mimis, Chania, Crete and Scopelos
Argiri Agavanaki, Athens
Giorgis Katsoulos, Frangokastello
Babis Psaroudakis and Janina Sørensen, Kallikratis, Crete

Additionally, Zacharis and Irini Daskalakis from Siva ecological wine production, Heraklion, as well as Nikos Psilos from Chania, each contributed 20 liters of the excellent Daskalakis ecological wine for the drilling days, local friends from around donated meat and goatcheese. Giannis came with vegetables from his garden, from Argiroupoli potatoes and a rabbit arrived. Spiros, one of the village guys spent a whole day carrying water for the drilling, four times one straight after the other, he went down to Frangokastello to fetch a cubic of water, each took a journey of one and a half hours. Thanks!!!!!!!

Even though, you might notice, that only two village people from Frangokastello, have actually contributed funds to the drilling, the support of the local village has been enormous, once the drilling started. They had said, they would contribute if the water would be found, they wouldn't share the risk.

But they were all excited when it actually happened, they all came by, wished us luck, they all had hopes, and now they are inspired, talking, sharing in what can be done from now on.. Its like we have shaken them into action as well....

September-october Vitex agnus castus part 1

Well, these days were Vitex days and here come some pictures, taken by Ina Hviding.. First, a single splendid Vitex flower.. even though flowering time is long gone, there are single plants which celebrate a new spring, a new beginning with new flowers alongside the mature seeds.... even though the seeds of these will not mature.. Here we can see both ripe seeds and the new
flowers as well, this is a rare sight..

We are cutting the racemes with the ripe seeds, and collect them into cotton bags.. you can see a bag here. Each person can collect about 2 bags full a day. At the end of the day we will bring them to their drying place and spread them.. Over the weeks, we just add the racemes and by the time, collection is finished, we will thresh the seeds of the stalks, fill them in bags and carry them to the distillery..

But first, some more pictures of collection.. you can click on any picture to enlarge it...

So here we are, always near the sea, going from plant to plant and collecting their fruits.. day after day..having a swim inbetween to cool off...

Some pictures of the habitats of this plant...magical beaches

The evenings, not less spectacular... a fire on the beach, the view of the magnificent sunsets...

Thus is our life in September and October...for the most part.. However, we also spend a few days in between for the day-collections of Myrtus communis, of Salvia pomifera, and for distillations of Laurus..

More about that in the next posts...

So here we go, creating a blog

Hello there..

Being back down in 'civilisation' again, I thought it would be nice to create a blog as well, to keep anyone interested in Cretan nature and aromatic plants, herbs and essential oils updated regularily.. I will still update the website, http://www.wildherbsofcrete.com/ regularily, but a blog seems a more immediate and personal way and is interactive...

We have had very busy days here in June, collecting flowering Satureja thymbra, Savory on the southern coast of Crete, collecting Lavandula stoechas, Greek Lavender, in the hills above Vatolakko in the northwestern part of the island, collecting Pistacia lentiscus, lentisk or mastic near the distillery in Modi..and finally we have made and finished our own little 'shop' up in Kallikratis, a quite deserted shepherds village in the mountains of Sfakia, at an altitude of 750m...

Truly away from all 'civilization'..nice and cool place to be in the summerheat...a few wanderers pass by, coming up or going down the wonderful Kallikratis gorge which is unspoiled and pristine..So its not a 'shop' shop, but more of a workshop, where we will make soap and shampoo, clean and pack herbs, and where everybody is welcome to stop by, have a drink and a chat, a rest or an adventure when we are up there.. We built the house around a beautiful piece of rock, you can just see some of it in the picture here... and it really puzzles the people.... they wonder, how ever did we get that rock inside the house??

We have also set some stonetables outside of the fence, so that people also can have a rest and enjoy the wonderful mountain views when we are not there...

Now, just a little background..We had our living and working place in Modi, near Chania for years. Here we built our distillery 16 years ago.. 16 years ago, we couldn't see any other house from our place, we were out in nature. However, as the years passed by, the new national road was build between Chania and Kissamos, and now during the last years several houses were build in the hills around us.. So we decided, it was time to move up further away into unspoiled nature, and started two years ago to build a place in Kallikratis, which is as far away from 'civilisation' as you possibly can come in Crete.. The village is deserted during winter, and in the summer just a few shepherds stay up here with their animals..However, there is a problem with water in Kallikratis during the summer, there's no real watersystem, the existing pipes transporting water from a well in the surrounding mountains to the village are quite rotten.. This needs to be fixed by the muncipality... So, until this problem is solved, we cannot move our distillery up here, we still distill in Modi...

A few days ago, we distilled our last Lavandula stoechas, Greek Lavender..from many days of collection earlier, clearing out the drying space for the next collection, which will be Laurus nobilis, Bay laurel.

As always, the final oil collection, the separation of the essential oil, is a magical moment.. because of the way we do distill, we almost everytime finish at nighttime..not having electricity at the distillery, we are sitting by the oil separator with a flashlight, watching the oil coming...

And from this Lavender distillation , we almost got 900 ml of essential oil..

Well, thats it for now, I have to get some work done now...

With aromatic greetings

Janina