Original subtitles

(THEME MUSIC)

In the first four series of My Greek Odyssey

we visited islands of the Saronic,

the Ionian, the Dodecanese, the Western Cycladic

and the Northern Aegean.

In series five, we're seeing the Southern and Central Cycladic.

Islands you've never heard of like Levitha, Anafi, Donoussa,

and ones you know well like Santorini and the big one, Crete.

Last episode saw me arriving on Crete, where I'll be spending

several weeks circumnavigating the island by land and sea.

So far, I've explored Chania and a few highlights in the southwest.

This time around I'll be heading into the mountains,

getting an education on the geological history of Crete,

as well as hiking through the massive Samaria Gorge.

Plus, I'll be making my way to a couple of spectacular

nearby islands that surprisingly few people visit.

Crete is 260 kilometres long, from east to west.

Throughout that span runs a massive mountain range

with the highest peak, Mount Ida,

commonly known as Psiloritis, reaching almost 2,500 metres.

This mountainous heart forms much of the island's character,

both in a physical sense and culturally.

They're a place of myth and legend,

adding to the diversity of environments that can be explored.

From cool high country summits and arid rocky slopes,

to deep gorges with waterfalls and lush green plateaus.

To learn about how the island formed,

I met with Dr. Babis Fassoulas,

a geologist who talks with almost as much passion

and excitement as I do.

We're looking at 300 million-year-old rock here.

How do you know it's 300 million-year-old rock?

We know it because of these kinds of fossils.

These circular type of fossils are corals.

We know that these particular corals,

they lived 300 million years ago, and then they were extinct.

After that, OK.

So we know that this is 300 million old, right? Wow.

This morning, I was stepping into a time machine

and going back millions of years to discover how Crete was formed.

To most people, these are just

uninspiring rocks and you drive past, without even a thought.

But for Dr. Fassoulas, this is a page from a scientific journal.

A slab of stone with a story of Crete's foundation etched into it.

Let's go to the next location. (SPEAKS GREEK)

We're just going to... anybody can see this.

Anyone can come here and see this.

Yes. It's a little bit dangerous because it's the highway.

But we hope with the construction of the new road,

this will be more quiet and easy to be accessed.

I think we've got a gap here. I think we've got a gap here.

Oh, wait, after that.

Our time machine wasn't a DeLorean like Back to the Future.

Instead, it was a rattling old Ford Ranger, I think.

The dust on it was so thick, I couldn't tell.

Our journey was taking us inland where over millions of years

the forces of Mother Nature have built the mountains,

which have then eroded in parts, exposing a timeline

of Crete's creation.

Professor, you brought me to a bunch of rocks on the side of the road.

I don't know how you can make this interesting but anyway,

let's have a look.

Yeah well Peter, this is a very interesting place.

It's actually like we're driving through the time.

We're now 50 million years earlier than the former stop.

So what we're going to see here are some unique rocks.

You don't find them often.

They were formed 250 million years ago in shallow water.

These rocks are called stromatolites.

And the reason that I brought you here is because this

is a special rock, which will bring us quite back in time.

3.5 billion years ago when it all started, actually also life started.

So these rocks are formed by some bacteria,

which are called stromatolites.

These stromatolites actually are extracting the iron

from the water and they release oxygen.

Actually, these bacteria turned the early red oceans into blue oceans.

So are you telling me that the ocean

three and a half billion years ago when everything started was red?

Exactly. It was a red sea.

It was a red sea and something in here...a bacteria

that's in there still, right, extracted the iron

and turned it blue!

Exactly. Wow.

This bacteria extracted the iron, deposited the iron into layers,

the dark layers that we see here, all the dark layers

that we see here.

Oh, you can see up there.

This section, you see. It looks like lots of worms.

They look like worms but actually they are developing like pillars.

Put simply, the water had communities of blue-green algae.

Through photosynthesis, it converted

the iron-rich water into energy and oxygen.

That oxygen eventually saturated the seas

and ended up becoming the air that enabled life on earth.

Over time, the bacteria formed layer upon layer of microbial mats.

And what we're looking at now is

the end result, called stromatolites,

which translates to layered rocks.

Professor, we understand how it turned from a red sea

into a blue sea.

And we got the beginning of time for Crete anyway, 250 million years ago.

What happened next?

Well, next we have to go to another nearby place

where exactly I will show you how Crete was developed as an island.

So we're getting higher and higher.

A little bit higher, and we will see all this formation of the island.

Let's go.

They come up this high in the mountain, Professor, the sheep.

Look at them.

They just had a haircut.

They just had a haircut, yeah. Look at them.

Where's the shepherd?

He should be waiting somewhere here to bring the food.

That's why they're all running for food.

This is fantastic. I mean, it couldn't be any more remote.

There's nothing happening up here except a few sheep.

Look at them all. Look at them all!

There's like 500 of them!

So we continue?

Absolutely! Let's get going but just, let's not hit any of them.

Wow, Professor, this is a little bit more creative.

Yeah, it's massive.

Now, what's happening here?

We know why we've gone from a red sea

to a blue sea, oxygen, life starting three and a half billion years ago.

But what happened in Crete? What's going on here?

What we see here, we see the ocean bottom.

A deep ocean bottom with the silica layers,

the white and the marble, which was formed at that depth.

And because this ocean was between Africa,

which is in the south and Europe that is in the north,

it was squished.

And the rocks you see were bent.

Some came up, some turned, some up,

and that's how the mountains are formed.

So they're pushing together,

the two tectonic plates and mountains came up.

This came up. Imagine, for example, that you're Africa from the south...

In the south. That's there.

I'm Europe, which I'm coming from the north.

We start to push and finally we bent the rocks

and we rose them up to create the mountains.

Wow. Hang on a second.

We're like 500 metres or 1,000 metres up in the air,

and you're telling me that's the seabed.

Exactly. This is the sea bottom.

How can you prove, what evidence do you have

that is the sea bottom there?

OK. Let's wait for a while.

I'm going to take you up in the mountains,

at the highest point, to show you exactly the proof.

OK. Let's do that. I love this stuff.

All this from rocks, it's amazing.

As we travelled further up the mountains,

the journey through time kept getting more and more fascinating.

We passed the Nida Plateau, which sits

between the east and west peaks of Mount Ida at 1,400 metres altitude.

It's a barren landscape used as grazing ground,

which is probably where that flock of sheep was heading.

It might not look like it now,

but apparently people come skiing up here in winter.

Now we are at an altitude of 1,500 metres

and look, what do you think it is?

I don't know. It looks like a big Friday night.

What is it?

This is the sea bottom.

We know that it's the sea bottom, because these are sea sponges

that were living at the ocean bottom some 50 million years ago.

Now we see them up in the mountains.

1,500 metres up. So this is proof.

You've proved to me that the mountains have come up

out of the sea, been squashed together

by two tectonic plates, north and south.

And this is north and south.

So we're talking about Europe over there.

And Africa over there.

It's the only way it could go.

That's why they are inclined now.

Thank you, buddy. You've taught me something today.

I love it. What a day.

There was no double speak or technical jargon from Dr. Babis.

He explained the geological history of Crete

in such simple terms that even I could understand.

Not only was it educational and awe inspiring,

but we had a great time together.

I've been blessed to meet several academics

just like him, who possess a wonderful skill of being able

to simplify and communicate decades of acquired expertise.

They have an undying passion and endless thirst for knowledge.

But more importantly, they know how to put it in layman's terms.

We often think about the remoteness of these

small Greek islands, right through the Aegean and the Ionian seas.

But that also exists on the biggest island in Greece,

Crete, but for a different geographical sense.

It's not the sea that separates the populations,

but these massive gorges.

Here at Aradena, this town has been separated

from civilisation for centuries by this gorge

and this one little track that takes you from one side to the other.

Until in 1986, they decided to build this bridge.

And boy, did it make it a lot easier.

People have inhabited the mountain areas of Crete

for thousands of years.

Throughout most of this time, the deep gorges and high

mountain passes have been natural barriers that kept towns isolated,

and made travelling between them not only time consuming, but dangerous.

Even today, there are just a few major roads

and bridges connecting the island.

So there are villages dotted about Crete that are quite remote.

The ravines and hills have some of the best hikes you'll come across.

And the trek I was about to do

was to traverse through one of Europe's longest gorges.

It's also the most popular walk on this island.

Now, I've done my fair share of walks through the Greek islands.

But my absolute favourite is the Samaria Gorge,

which we're going to do today.

But this time with an expert in Christoforos. Are you ready?

I'm ready. Are you?

I am, but I've never walked with so much camera equipment

and sound people and directors.

Do you mind walking with all of them?

I don't mind. We will survive, I guess.

I think we will. Let's go.

We were up at 4:30am this morning to be at the entrance

as the sun came up.

It's a long hike, so it's best to do as much of it as you can

before the heat of a hot summer's day.

The track lies within a gorge,

so you get some shade and it stays fairly cool for the early miles.

But as you get low and the sun gets high, it starts to bake.

You know, Christoforos, I like this walk because it's all downhill.

This is made for a big guy like me.

It's not exactly all downhill, but...

Oh, the majority of it!

The majority of it is downhill like this.

We're starting from 1,200 metres of altitude

and we're getting to zero, to sea.

So we're dropping 1,200 metres.

Exactly.

And we're going 16 kilometres.

That's the main trail, 16 kilometres, all the way to the sea.

So we end up, where do we end up?

What's the place that we end up at the sea, the beach?

What's it called? It's called Agia Roumeli.

Agia Roumeli?

Yeah, it's a small village where there are no roads.

It's accessible only by boat or on foot.

Now, you've been doing this walk since you were, what? How long?

My first time was when I was 16 years old.

In the last 10 years, I stopped counting

how many times I've been through.

Careful here because the rocks are quite slippery.

This first bit is the steepest bit.

There isn't anything like this again is there?

Actually, now we are going through the so-called Xyloskalo,

which in Greek translation means the wooden stairs.

Believe it or not, it was carved by human,

by the Ottomans, so they can have easier access inside the gorge.

So they were sticking small pieces

of wood in the rock so they can make a small stair.

That's why they call it Xyloskalo.

Right. It gets pretty busy here.

How many walkers do you get a day here in summer?

Up to 1,000 a day in the high season.

There's been times, of course, there have been 3,000 per day.

Wow. But look, you can see why.

It's a must-do thing.

Yeah. It is a must-do thing when you come to Crete, definitely.

Rugged landscapes build resilient people and those that call

the mountains of Crete home

are amongst the toughest you'll come across.

It was this harsh environment that forged

the revolutionaries of Sfakion.

While today there may be some of the modern comforts available

in the mountain villages, there's still a sense of self-reliance

that breeds independence and strength, but they're also

some of the most welcoming people you'll come across too.

Like I said earlier, this is the most popular walk in Crete,

and possibly Greece for that matter.

But despite the huge number of tourists that do the hike,

there's still a sense of peace and serenity.

You might cross paths with others,

but there are plenty of moments where there's nothing but the sounds

of insects and your footsteps and in my case, some huffing and puffing.

Well, Christophoros, we've gone from the green and brown

of the beautiful tree-lined gorge to this river bed.

This is the change, isn't it?

Actually, we will be passing about 21 kinds of habitat.

Now we're walking along the river bed

where usually in the wintertime, this is all flooded.

You can see the timber and the logs

that the force of the water can bring down.

And as we walk, we will find other kinds of habitats as well.

OK.

So this is Agio Nikolos?

Yes. This is Agios Nikolos.

It is believed that it was a sanctuary during the ancient times.

People were coming here to heal, soul and body.

Gee, Christoforos, I look at this, this deep valley.

You're in the middle of nowhere.

It's almost like a really good hiding spot.

It was actually.

It was during the modern and ancient history of Greece,

of the island actually, Samaria Gorge was always a refuge

spot for partisans, resistance, anyone who wanted freedom.

Right. And people were living here, weren't they?

People were living here until 1962 actually, when the gorge

was declared a national park and they had to evacuate it.

Until then, it was inhabited since the ancient times.

And of course people were almost...

not almost, actually totally independent from the outside world.

Independent. The water's fine, but... what else would they use?

Did they have crops, olive trees? Of course, they would have crops,

olive trees, hunting, trading timber as well.

We will see on our way some remains of those establishments as well.

And they were self-efficient.

The nature would provide whatever they needed.

What did they do in winter when the water came through?

Were they still living here?

They still had passes to go out the gorge.

Today, nowadays we just walk the main trail.

But of course, all those mountains you see all around you,

they can be walked, even if it looks not possible.

It is huge.

Huge. Anyway, we've got a lot of kilometres to go.

We should keep walking.

There's water here but there was no water at the top.

There is a simple answer to that, Peter.

Actually, Crete is made out of limestone, a very soft rock.

So the water goes underground

until it finds some hard rock to surface again.

That's why it plays a little bit of hide and seek here.

Ah, right. OK.

Oops.

Remember what I said earlier about

nothing but the sounds of insects and footsteps?

Well, here you have it.

(INSECTS CHIRP)

You know, when you Google longest gorge in Europe, Samaria comes up.

But is it the longest gorge in Europe?

No, of course not.

But it's one of the longest

and one of the most important habitats in Europe.

That's why it's protected under UNESCO.

There's a lot of flora and fauna in Crete.

Yeah, of course. About 250 species.

Endemic to Crete?

Endemic to Crete. Yes.

And of course in here, 25 of them are steno-endemic.

They can be found only in here, in the gorge.

In Samaria? In Samaria, nowhere else in the world.

Wow.

I've been lucky enough to walk through the gorge

with my wife, Helen, and even run through it

with my koumbaro Terry, and I never get tired of it.

There's just so much theatre. The planning and preparation.

The drive to the walk.

The multitude of microclimates that you travel through.

Then there's the well-deserved beach swim at the end,

and finally the scenic ferry ride back to civilisation.

It's the complete package.

I actually don't have any photos

of me doing the walk, as there's no need,

because the memories are as clear as if it all happened yesterday.

We've got some spring water here, hey?

Yeah. You can refill your bottle here.

This is natural spring water?

That's natural spring water

and there's one spring every two kilometres.

Ah, fantastic, isn't it? Yeah. We've seen a few already.

Samaria water, aye?

In Crete, and in many other parts of Greece for that matter,

the water in villages is sourced from springs,

not a dam or reservoir.

The water from these natural sources

could have taken hundreds, if not thousands

of years to find its way through the rock strata to the surface.

The abundance of springs is also why the gorge

is so green at times, when other parts of the island are bone dry.

For hikers, they're a godsend.

So this is the village?

Actually, yeah.

This is actually the centre of the gorge

that was also a big trading centre.

And now we're going over the bridge to get to the old village.

OK.

I don't know about this bridge.

It's safe.

The village was abandoned in 1962

when the area was declared a national park.

Those that lived here were primarily wood cutters and beekeepers.

The settlement and gorge are both named after

the Byzantine church on the edge of the town.

The name Samaria is believed to be

a corruption of Osia Maria or Santa Maria.

The ruins tell the story of a once busy hamlet

where trade with passing travellers and the export of honey

and timber brought in enough revenue to sustain the small population.

A few of the buildings have been restored and are used today

by the authorities to house the guards, a doctor,

and information kiosk.

Other than that, it's the main rest stop for hikers.

Not for us though.

We were on a mission and kept ploughing on through

with a Kyriako Bar in hand.

You'll have to watch earlier seasons of the show

to learn what that means.

By this time, the temperature was well and truly rising.

The cool mountain air from the high point at the start of the hike

had now become warm and dry.

In a few more hours, the heat would be through the roof,

so I was keen to press on.

I love that there's no cellular network connection

for the majority of the walk.

For me, that means peace and quiet

without having any disturbance from the outside world.

But in one of the brief moments

I did have a connection, I took a quick look at my phone

and I realised that it was my 30th anniversary.

With Helen back in Australia and seven hours ahead,

I needed to speed up so that I could talk to her before she went to bed.

In 30 years, I haven't gone a day without seeing or talking to Helen.

Can you imagine breaking that record on your 30th anniversary?

So Peter, this is it.

This is the gates of the gorge

and the most narrow spot of the whole gorge.

Just here?

Three metres wide, about 100 metres high. We're almost done.

We're very close to the exit. How long to go?

Two more small kilometres.

Let's go. Two more small kilometres.

And then I'm going for a swim at the beach.

And fresh beer. You bet. You bet.

After this last rough section,

the final two kilometres of the hike becomes a lot more civilised.

There are beer stalls and a paved road

where you can pay a few euros for a lift to the port.

A word of warning, you don't want to miss the boat,

because there aren't many options for accommodation.

Missing my ride wasn't an option.

So if you're wondering why we don't have any shots

of me going for a swim or relaxing with a beer, it's because

I literally ran the last couple of kilometres while dialling Helen.

Most people know that Crete is a massive island,

but a lot out there don't realise that it's surrounded by loads

of smaller isles, like tiny moons orbiting around the massive Jupiter.

Many are easily accessible by ferry

or water taxi and they're little treasures.

So we left Chora Sfakion to visit one that I've never been to.

This wasn't just any rocky island in the middle of nowhere.

It's a special landmark and a mighty pretty one at that.

You can see why this place has just a handful of year-round inhabitants.

It's arid and rocky with little greenery,

not much annual rainfall and just a couple of small settlements.

But in its prime, there was said to be some 8,000 people living here.

Over-farming and land clearing led to environmental decline

and the end result made Gavdos the barren landscape you see now.

However, it does get quite a few intrepid travellers

who come here to escape the crowds, camp and swim in the pristine water.

We've come a long way from Crete for something I'm about to show you.

It's more a geographical milestone than anything else.

How special is this? I've been waiting some time to come here.

We are at the most southern point of Europe,

here at the island of Gavdos and this big chair represents that.

A couple of Russian guys that left Chernobyl have looked for

a bit of freedom and solace

away from the disaster that they went through.

So they built this to signify a geographical milestone.

You can see the compass below us. North, south, west and east.

They've even left a little rock here

for me to be able to jump up onto the seat.

Now, you know I'm not... Hang on.

There we go.

Now I wouldn't lean back that way

because they haven't put the backrest right.

But, here we go. The island of Gavdos.

Southernmost point in all of Europe.

All I can say is, wow and awesome,

awesome, awesome for you guys out there.

Ah, look at it!

Just under 300 kilometres south of us is North Africa, Tobruk in fact.

For me on My Greek Odyssey, this is a final milestone in my bucket list.

I've visited the most western island of Othonoi.

Explored the most eastern in Kastellorizo.

Spent time at the most northern in Thasopoula.

And now the southernmost, Gavdos. That's the four corners covered.

Now to continue the mission of stepping on

all the inhabited islands in between.

Just below the chair is the beach of Tripiti.

Tripiti meaning hole, because there's holes in the rock.

That's pretty obvious.

There's only about 100 people on the island.

It's only 30 square kilometres.

You don't really want to come here

for any other reason than maybe go to the beach.

But in Homer's Odyssey, the nymph Calypso

apparently enticed Odysseus to the island

and detained him for seven years.

And after seven years, she said to him,

"Stay and I'll give you immortality."

He declined it and left. Do you reckon he got it wrong?

Yiannis!

There is some form of civilisation on the island,

but very little infrastructure.

What does exist is mostly to support

the type of traveller that can get by with few creature comforts.

It's a place for minimalists.

Those after peace, quiet and isolation.

Beyond the local residents,

I get the sense that many of the people here are the transient type,

with no fixed address and free from the burdens of the daily grind.

I guess you could call them present-day hippies.

Even those living here full-time must be quite solitary,

as there's not much going on, even during the busiest periods.

You can visit one of the small villages

to grab a meal and get a sense of the community here.

But the main reason for coming over is to check out the beaches.

They're amongst the prettiest in Greece.

Some say they rival the best on the planet.

We're about an hour's hike from the famous beach of Saroniko.

This is Agios Ioannis.

It's considered by Discovery Channel

as the second best beach in the world.

Now, I don't know.

Maybe you need to add two or three zeroes on it for me.

When you have a look at it, you see the shack in the background.

It's not exactly the best beach.

It's a beautiful beach, don't get me wrong.

You don't see many people, because they're all basically hidden.

This is a naturalist beach, or a nudist beach.

The whole island's known for it.

It's the sort of place you come to if you want to camp.

It's not five-star hotel stuff.

In actual fact, there's not many hotels on the island at all.

And that's the beauty of the island, it's at the frontier of tourism.

It's a nice place.

I like it, regardless of what Discovery Channel

is selling at the moment.

Hidden in the dunes and shadows are shacks, shanties and tents.

It has a strange feeling to it,

because you know there's probably loads of people

lurking in the background, but you can't really see many of them.

The heat makes everyone retreat to the shade

or the comfort of their caravans.

It's not entirely my cup of tea.

I'm not fond of the idea of parking up a van

and making it home for months on end.

I like to move around and constantly learn and explore.

Perhaps later in life, I'll become a bit more sedentary.

One thing I certainly appreciate

is that Gavdos hasn't been built up and developed for mass tourism.

When that happens, so much authenticity is lost.

There are plenty of other places for people

after that kind of experience.

There are few things more soothing

than the sound of lapping water on a pebbled beach.

Here in the off season, there's no background noise

of distant traffic or people talking and splashing in the waves.

It's just the sounds of Mother Nature at her calming best.

Odysseus was not the only famous person

to use Gavdos as a place of refuge.

The famous pirate Barbarosa used this place as a hiding spot.

The apostle Paul had to stop here

in a weather event on his way to his trial in Rome.

But I love this beach, Saroniko.

For me, it's my favourite on the whole island.

In summer, it's absolutely packed.

The island actually gets about 2,000 people, but there's only 100 rooms.

They're all camping. Everybody's camping.

Now I've been filming all day and I think that's a tavern over there.

I think it is, anyway.

The little beach-side taverns are a highlight

of travelling through the Greek islands.

They typically serve fresh local food and cold drinks.

However, it's the settings that make them so special.

This is prime real estate, with views to die for.

You don't get much better than a table on the beach,

some mezze and an ice cold beverage.

On a bigger island, this place would be packed,

but here on Gavdos, there's always a table available.

You can even laze around in a hammock

and let the waves lull you to sleep.

That's exactly what I did, only to be woken up by a grumbling stomach.

So it was back to Mia Zoi,

where Kyriako is whipping up a favourite Cretan breakfast of mine.

I can see we're making dakos today.

This is a pretty simple recipe. It's a Cretan breakfast.

So let's go. We've got tomato.

We've got mizithra, right?

It's a local goat cheese,

which is perishable in about four or five days.

It's a barley rusk. What else?

So we've got a tomato. We've got olive oil. We've got water.

We've got salt, capers.

Now, if you don't have myzithra,

feta cheese is OK, but myzithra is the way to go.

Now we're having it for breakfast,

but you can have it any time of the day.

Farmers used to take the rusk in their backpack,

tomatoes from the field, have some myzithra in their backpack

and put it all together in the field.

The good thing about this is, once you put it all together...

Keep going. Don't wait for me, right? Don't wait for me.

You just keep going. Don't stop.

It's a bit of water just to soak into the rusk,

to soften it up because you don't want to bust your teeth up, right?

A little bit of olive oil.

There's no such thing as a little bit of olive oil with Greeks.

It's fairly similar to bruschetta but really, it's the Cretan way.

We got the barley rather than just normal flour in the bread.

And Kyriakos was just saying, the tomato

shredded up like that basically soaks into it and softens it up.

Like I was saying, the longer it's there,

the better it is, because it's nice and soft.

Anyway, I'm salivating at the moment.

And then what he does, he just dices or chops

some tomato to put it on top.

So it's a bit more of a meal, isn't it?

Yeah, malissa. You're learning Greek as we go. Aren't you so blessed?

Hey, they're so blessed, aren't they? All right.

What do we do now? That looks so good.

What do we do now? We're almost ready.

See, he's letting me putting the salt on for a change.

See, Helen? I'm listening to you, babe.

So if you're using feta, you don't need... We have too much.

You're listening to Helen as well.

So if you're using feta,

you don't need the salt because the feta's got salt in it already.

This myzithra, the fresh myzithra, you can't beat it.

So for those of you that aren't Greek,

you need to go to a Greek deli to ask for myzithra.

Look at it. Oh, that looks so good.

We've got the capers over here. They're ready to go on.

Don't tell me you put some more olive oil on top as well. Mm-hmm.

Of course, of course.

Look at that. That's just a little bit of olive oil.

No such thing. I love olive oil.

And that's it.

There we have our dakos, which is a Cretan thing.

Only the Cretans... well, others have it now.

They call it theirs but it's Cretan's.

In the village, you would use fresh capers.

So what do we do now? We got to cut this up, right?

Do you want to do that now for me so I can try it? Come on.

(CRUNCH)

See, you can see, crunching together.

Now there's no real proper way to eat it.

It's going to be going all over the place.

So look at that. It just looks like a mush.

Now, if it's there for about two or three hours,

it's going to be a little bit easier to eat.

So if you with your girlfriend, wait for two or three hours...

or your wife, wait for two or three hours and then eat it.

It's a little less sloppy.

But when I eat it now, I'm going to look like

a bit of a slop eating this thing, right?

Oh, that is so good.

No, not too much. You don't want it to soften up too much.

This is so good, Kyriako.

We're in Crete.

We're eating like Cretans

and hopefully I might live long enough to be like a Cretan.

Thank you, Kyriako.

There you have it, Cretan dakos.

It's the epitome of Greek summer

and the ultimate representation of the Mediterranean diet.

Time in this part of the world moves slowly.

The pace of life is incredibly relaxed

and it takes just a couple of days for it to rub off.

It was the perfect bit of rest after a busy start to the trip.

Pretty quiet here.

With the weather map showing great cruising conditions,

we rose early and made our way northeast,

leaving Gavdos in our wake,

as we moved closer to Crete to visit a couple of little islands.

We've come to these two islands of Paximadia.

Right next to each other. Now paximadi, that's a paximadi.

They don't look anything like a dry rusk to me, but anyway.

The nice thing about this is that you can catch a tourist boat

to get to these islands, to come to this wonderful little beach.

There's a little bit more you should know about Paximadia

and I'm going to tell you about it when we get to the beach.

Onto the beach, Yiorgos. Right up, aye?

Thanks, Yiorgos.

Now, these two islands of Paximadia are tiny little things.

There's no inhabitants, nothing.

And you'd think there'd be no history.

Well, the Greeks, they've come up with something.

In popular mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus...

who we all know, the wings made of feathers and wax.

They were actually imprisoned here

on these islands because of Daedalus's labyrinth out at Knossos.

That's another story.

Anyway, they're imprisoned here,

created the feather wings, flew 170 miles north to the Icarian Sea.

They melted and he fell into the sea.

The strange thing is that the sun here

rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest and he flew north.

He was flying in the wrong direction.

I'm not too sure, but I think these guys that were thinking up

this mythology, maybe they were around a campfire or something.

Who knows what the fumes were from the campfire.

There might have been something that's been grown a lot these days.

Oh, I'll tell you what. This looks good.

Oh, I think it's time for a swim.

Greece's islands are broken up into groups

such as the Cycladic, Dodecanese, Sporadic and Ionian.

One group that's been overlooked

are the little gems that encircle Crete, such as Gramvousa,

Psira, Krisi Koufonisia and Paximadia, to name just a handful.

It's always been a bit of a mystery to me

as to why they've been left out.

I've seen several of them now and have a few more to go,

and I've come to really like what they have to offer.

As remote as they may seem, the majority are actually

accessible by ferry or water taxi from the mainland of Crete.

But despite this, they're quiet and undeveloped.

Perhaps travellers are too busy

enjoying the big island to get across to these little ones.

Ease of access to the many smaller islands,

as well as the freedom to move when we please,

are two of the main reasons why I love travelling on Mia Zoi.

But the best part about life on the boat

is sharing the journey with the crew.

The reality is, you don't need a big cruiser to do what we do.

But what's impossible to replicate are the people that make it happen.

When we're in Greece,

Captain and Kyriakos are everything to my family.

They work twice as hard to provide us the best experience imaginable.

Look at Kyriako right now.

He's driving the tender while the engineer is undertaking a repair.

It's like when Yiannis pulls out the medical kit and becomes our doctor.

Then a couple of hours later,

he's seen on the barbecue telling Kyriako what to do.

These guys really are an extension of my family and long after

the odyssey comes to an end, we'll be the closest of friends.

We're headed into Matala.

Matala is really well known for the '60s and '70s,

for the hippie times, when people like George Harrison, Bob Dylan,

Janice Joplin used to spend their nights under the Cretan sky.

They spent them here. There's some caves here, right?

Yiannis, where are the caves?

The caves is on our lefthand side.

And that's the beach.

Yeah, that's the beach and there is the caves.

So they would have had good times on the beach

and they lived in the caves. Wow.

Can we go right up against the caves and...?

Yeah, of course.

Stern to? Fantastic. Let's do it, Captain.

I'm a bit worried, Kyriako is on the tender.

Was that the right thing to do? He'll be OK?

He'll be OK. The sea is like olive oil today.

That's why he can, only because it's olive oil.

Otherwise, you forget about it.

Heading back to the mainland, I was really looking forward to

visiting this beachside town.

You see, there's a geological phenomenon here

that was millions of years in the making.

With some human intervention,

it led to the creation of cave-like dwellings that housed some of the

free-spirited Bohemians that came here in the sixties and seventies.

Many of the great artists from the time would summer here.

So to say it was exciting is an understatement.

The next couple of days were going to be awesome.

You're welcome all of you, anyway,

so I can tell you many stories about the hippies.

So you're going to be a hippy soon also.

Today, the place is more popular with backpackers

and English tourists, but it's still an unreal place to visit.

In the next episode, the journey continues

as I delve deeper into the fabric of Crete.

It's proving to be even more diverse and fascinating than I had hoped.

I might have been here several times before,

but there are unexpected surprises around every corner.

One thing I'm really looking forward to showing you

is the mighty Cretan vulture.

Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv