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, Donousa,

and ones you know well, like Santorini,

and the big one, Crete.

In this episode,

I'm spending a couple of days

exploring Agios Nikolaos and the region around it.

I'll be meeting with famed author

Victoria Hislop and visiting the island of Spinalonga,

the place where her bestselling book

)The Island9 is centred on.

I'm also going to get

a first-hand education

about Crete's agricultural history.

And of course,

Kyriako will be sharing

one of his favourite local recipes.

And to top things off, I'm headed to a Cretan barbecue.

I've been coming to Crete for decades,

but on this occasion, I was doing things

a little bit differently.

Apart from visiting a few of the nearby islands

that I hadn't stepped foot on before,

I was also going to old haunts

and checking out how they've changed,

finding new things to see and do.

It's given me a whole new perspective on the region.

The city of Agios Nikolaos

is basically the gateway to eastern Crete.

From here, you can see the Eastern Mountains.

You can travel along the,

what I believe is, the Cretan Riviera,

all the way to Elounda and Mochlos.

And there's also some wonderful little city beaches.

The town has a population of 27,000 and it's got everything you need.

It's not the prettiest town in the world,

but spending a day here, you'll enjoy it.

I should have said you could spend

a few days here and enjoy yourself, not just one.

I was probably being a little too harsh on the place.

Because, to be honest with you,

it's a great spot to base yourself

and explore the surrounding mountains and coast.

As the capital of the region,

there's plenty of development and commercial activity.

A main feature is the beautiful waterside promenade,

where you'll find an abundance of restaurants and bars.

There's also plenty of fashion outlets,

souvenir shops, and cafes.

Early in the morning, it's a great place

for a walk and a coffee.

Further in town, there are several museums

that explore the region's history,

culture and art.

There's also plenty for those into architecture and religion,

with a visit to the church of Agios Nikolaos a must.

The main landmark is Lake Voulismeni,

sitting in the heart of the city.

It's connected to the sea via a narrow canal

and surrounded by restaurants and bars

that buzz with activity of an evening.

It's a pretty setting with a rock wall

and greenery to one side and the promenade on the other side.

Fishing boats fill the moorings and add some colour to the scenery.

Legend has it that Artemis and Athena bathed here.

Another myth was that the lake was bottomless

and a passage to communicate with evil spirits.

It's actually 48 meters deep

and is essentially a sinkhole

created by an underground spring.

(SHIP HORN BLOWS)

Massive cruise ships are a regular feature in these parts.

There are countless vessels

constantly moving throughout the islands.

And naturally, Crete is a popular destination.

Because Agios Nikolaos sits within the shelter of a large bay

and has a deep water port,

it's easy for the bigger ships to make a stopover.

Speaking of the bay,

it's a stunning stretch of coast,

making a road trip one of the best ways to see the region.

Only a short drive from the city,

and it feels like you've escaped the masses.

Mirabello Bay.

And from Mochlos right through to Agios Nikolaos,

this to me is the Cretan Riviera.

Right in the centre is Elounda,

littered with hotels for the rich and famous.

But that's not why I'm here.

I'm off to Spinalunga to meet a bestselling author.

But before I go, I'm just going to take it in.

What was once a sleepy little fishing village

is today the resort capital of Crete.

It's the place where the rich and famous come to holiday.

But there's also plenty of options for the less-affluent traveller.

Much of the area's been built up with villas and holiday homes.

However, despite the development and popularity,

there's still easy access to plenty of shady beaches.

So the tourists spread along the coastline

that flanks the town,

which means, for the majority of the year,

it doesn't feel overly crowded.

Maybe I'm missing something,

but I'm not entirely sure

what makes this such a popular spot for the glitterati.

Yeah, it's pretty and relatively peaceful,

but it's not as though it has the most amazing beaches

or best scenery on the island.

Perhaps it's the fact that no one cares who you are,

so they can get around the place

and not be harassed for autographs or stalked by paparazzi.

Regardless, the rumours of $25,000 a night

for bungalows still amazes me.

My next stop was the island of Spinalonga.

To get the most from a visit to this special place

and to fully appreciate its history,

you really need to do a little bit of research.

I took things to the next level

and was lucky enough to meet with journalist

and bestselling author Victoria Hislop.

Having spent 20 summers in this part of Crete,

Victoria knows Spinalonga better than most.

In fact, her 2005 book, The Island, was a fictional story

that explored the history of the place

in what's best described as an emotional roller coaster,

that I personally couldn't put down.

A trip to Spinalonga is a special experience

that starts the moment you board the boat

for the short ride across.

As you sit on the timber vessel,

you can't help but feel as though

you're taking a journey back in time.

Ahead lies the 85-acre island

with its stone fortifications and rugged, hilly interior.

Despite its small size,

it has an undeniable presence

with a fascinating history that you can't help but want to explore.

The island fortress has centuries of history.

However, Victoria's novel

focuses on one of the more recent events in Spinalonga's past.

You see, from the early 20th century,

this place was a leper colony, and the trials and tribulations

of the lepers and their families

were given a voice through Victoria's book.

While it may have been a fictional account

of life on the island, it was grounded in powerful,

heart-wrenching truths.

It's a story that will make you laugh, cry,

and experience all emotions in between.

To sit here and talk to Victoria was a real privilege.

And I always felt that if I hadn't written it,

someone else would.

Because to me,

it seemed such a kind of obvious place,

full of people wandering, helping each other.

The hospital up there, which is...

it feels like a hospital.

I used to climb in the window.

They've stopped me doing certain things now

because it wasn't quite so visited then.

So I did used to slightly break and enter to get a feel of it.

It's got these high ceilings

and you could imagine people

lying on their beds in there.

But I never ever felt sad here.

And I'm sure some people totally disagree when they come.

They go, "Oh, this is really miserable

because people died here ." But actually, a bit like Mia Zoi,

they had one life,

and people who came here made the best of it.

I feel it's a monument to their courage.

This bit here.

You get a better idea of individual rooms

and the height and that blue.

There's a lot of that particular blue

on the walls everywhere on the island, actually.

That sort of trying to beautify

somewhere that's otherwise really quite a sad place.

What gets me is they've got the hallway on the waterside.

Yeah. Yeah, actually you'd want to be looking out, wouldn't you?

Yeah. Yeah.

You'd certainly get the breezes.

In the early 1900s,

little was understood about leprosy

and people feared it.

Those affected by it were sent into isolation,

often enduring inhumane conditions,

as they were essentially abandoned and left to die.

In Crete,

Spinalonga served the purpose of providing a secure location

where a colony could be established, away from the populace,

where these poor, sickly people

could see out their days, forgotten by society.

This is the cemetery,

which always brings you back to the reality

of what really happened here.

There's hundreds of peoples9 bones

are in the ossuary and in these graves.

People didn't collect their families

or their relative's bones from here

because there was a lot of shame with leprosy.

If your relative came across,

many people wouldn't have had any contact

with their families again.

So they're still resting here, which is why it's lovely.

There's a monument just here.

I really do believe they had to support each other.

Absolutely. Because they didn't get

lots of support from the government,

so they...

My friend, I don't think it's fantasy,

but I believe that they looked after each other,

which has its own beauty.

Victoria's love of Greece is clear.

It extends beyond Spinalonga

and its unique story

and into the culture and lifestyle it provides.

From a very young age, she was hooked.

You love Greece.

You've been coming here since you were 17.

Why Greece?

I'm quite grateful to my parents for basically,

it sounds perverse,

but we didn't travel anywhere until I was a teenager.

And I think if you're taken around the world

when you are one, two years old,

a little bit like our children were,

you don't have that shock of the new,

which you can really experience

for the first time when you're 17.

And so first time I saw the Aegean

and swam in the Aegean

and tasted feta cheese and watermelon,

and this was transformative for me.

Until then, it was fish and chips

on a very cold beach in the UK.

Greece was immediately somewhere

very engaging for me

and I just loved it.

I mean, it was like falling in love.

You can't always explain why you fall in love

with one person and not another.

I really, firmly believe that you should listen to your instincts.

And I think instincts, if you ignore them,

you ignore them at your peril.

I think you've only got one life and you need to-

Absolutely. One life. Mia Zoi.

Mia Zoi. Absolutely.

I mean, I love the name of your boat.

It's exactly how I feel now.

(FOLK MUSIC PLAYS)

I think it's important that you try

to read Victoria's novel before coming here.

It brings to life,

in the most vivid and poetic way,

the now abandoned buildings and streets,

giving you a sense of what living on the island was like

in this isolated community.

It's tragic to think that those who were forced here,

were sent for life, never to see their families again.

Such was the fear of leprosy

that people not even afflicted by it,

who presented with similar symptoms

caused by other ailments, were sometimes sent here too.

Despite the hardship and loss

faced by the inhabitants of Spinalonga,

they banded together and through kinship,

established a functioning society.

They turned the dilapidated Venetian ruins into a town,

complete with a bakery, hospital, houses,

and even a coffee shop.

They survived in isolation,

hidden from the world, bonded by a shared suffering.

It wasn't until the late 1940s

that a cure for leprosy was discovered.

By that time, Spinalonga had become a flourishing community.

It was no longer just about surviving in exile,

but thriving in it.

People married and had children

who grew up without ever being infected

by the illness.

There was a school and a barbershop.

And thanks to a brave priest

who volunteered to live on the island,

they could attend church.

Life here had become as close to normal as possible.

Finally, in 1962,

the last of the island's inhabitants left.

And now, many decades later,

thanks to Victoria,

Spinalonga has again been brought back to life.

(FOLK MUSIC PLAYS)

If you turn right after crossing the causeway outside Elounda,

you come to this beautiful spot

where you can see the bay of Mirabello.

Right here, though,

in two and a half meters of water,

is the ancient city of Olous.

You can grab a snorkel and a mask

and some flippers and jump in and you may see something.

We know that there is a road

that goes from here across to the other side.

It's an ancient road. That's what I want to go and see.

There's some other stuff in there,

but it could take forever to find.

So I'm going to go and get my gear and jump in.

Looking from above,

you realise just how much the water has risen

since the ancients built here.

Or is it a case of the land subsiding?

What lies beneath is part of one of the most important

Dorian cities of early Crete.

It's believed the city disappeared

as a result of a landslide or

a massive earthquake in 780 AD.

(CALM MUSIC)

Having easy access to

sites like this is pretty awesome.

There's no entry fee

or security guard.

You just need a snorkel, mask,

and a sense of adventure

and you can explore an ancient landmark,

free from crowds of tourists.

What makes this particularly special is the atmosphere.

There may not be the sorts of details or scale of ruins

you find at other places,

but the experience of being underwater

and slowly discovering the old-world remnants

in a still, calm environment is something quite unique.

The most obvious feature is the road,

constructed using large, rectangular slabs of stone.

Flanking it are low walls

and the foundations of what would've been houses

and other buildings.

It paints a picture of what was quite a large settlement.

At its peak, over 30,000 people lived here.

The city even had its own currency.

You're probably wondering

where everything went and why there aren't more ruins.

Well, up until the 15th century,

the Venetians used all the materials they could find

for building the salt plants and fortress of Spinalonga.

But even though little remains,

what is here gives you a tangible sense of the past.

And it's only visible from a bird's eye view,

or if you take the plunge.

All right.

So we've got goat fricasse.

(SPEAKS GREEK)

I don't know what fricasse means,

but anyway, it's goat.

So we've got two kilos of goat.

We've got some dill, just a handful of dill.

We've got a handful of parsley.

What's this? Lemon. Olive oil. And wine, dry.

It's basically a hundred mil of each for every kilo of meat.

And then we've got stamnagathi,

and we'll explain stamnagathi in a moment.

We've got two onions. One's already chopped.

You want to start chopping the other one?

We've got some spring onion.

You get three or four for each kilo of meat.

Start chopping that as well.

And we've got six eggs,

three eggs for every kilo of meat that you've got.

Now, you can use goat meat

or you can use veal, but this is traditionally veal.

Some people use fish. Kiriako doesn't like fish.

He likes snail fricasse and goat fricasse.

Now, you're probably saying, "Where am I going to get goat?"

Well, it's the most eaten meat in the world,

so you're going to find it. Wake up to yourself.

Stamnagathi, now, what is stamnagathi?

It's a weed that you find in Crete.

It's like, I think, white chicory.

Should you not have the stamnagathi because you're not in Crete

and you can't air-freight it to your house,

just use lettuce leaves.

It's fine. A lot of Greeks actually like it with lettuce leaves.

Combine the onions, chives, oil,

and meat on the stove, simmering until lightly brown.

Keep stirring so the onions don't burn.

Oh, in goes the wine.

Next, add the wine and stir

for a minute or so

before pouring in the warm water.

Cover and leave to simmer for an hour and a quarter.

Well, it's been an hour and 15 minutes, right?

And we've split the meat into two pots.

We're about to put the lettuce in one

and the stamnagathi in the other.

But before we do, come over and have a look at it.

I want you to look and see what it looks like inside.

A bit of salt on it. Just a bit.

Let's cut that for Helen.

Please, please, mate, please.

Helen's going to kill me now.

There's no way. It's too much salt.

But he's saying the green stuff needs salt.

Green needs salt, in Greece, anyway.

And you don't mix it in? That's it?

You put the salt on that?

Just a little bit. OK.

(SPEAKS GREEK) Just a little bit of salt.

(SPEAKS GREEK) I don't know what that means anyway.

(LAUGHS)

You're ready to put the lettuce in? I love this stamnagathi.

It's a weed. Look at it.

They reckon...

it is the secret to the long life of the Cretan.

The Cretan diet is actually the Mediterranean diet.

What are you doing?

That is way too much salt! Why are you laughing?

The world doesn't like stuff like that, mate.

Actually, it's nice.

You need more? You're going to put more in?

Helen, there's nothing I can do. It's Kyriako.

They love him. (LAUGHS)

15 minutes.

15 minutes and then we will come back.

OK. Let's go and have a beer.

Go and have a beer. (SPEAKS GREEK)

Been 15 minutes. Let's bring it over.

We're ready to go.

Now, we're only going to do the one, aren't we?

OK. We'll leave the other one there so that everybody can see.

You need it to be fresh.

So we use the dill for the lettuce

and we use parsley... (SPEAKS GREEK)

for the stamnagathi. What's happening next?

You do that while I stir this, right?

So you've got three eggs and three egg whites in here, right?

Three egg whites, and he's beating the three egg whites big time.

Look at him go. You're strong, man.

Whoa.

Get the eggs?

Here's the egg yolks.

And I've got to put it in one at a time, right?

One at a time. Here we go.

Here we go, one. There goes one. One's gone in.

Look at the colour. Look at the colour. That's awesome.

Hey, and one more, one more, one more, one more.

Yeah, that's it. I'm not scared, mate.

Don't say I'm scared. I'm not scared.

Don't worry about it, OK?

And that's the third egg gone in.

We're going to take half this lemon juice

and put it in because we need the other half lemon juice

for the stamnagathi.

You're ready?

Slowly, slowly.

Here, up there.

You didn't tell me that, did you? Come on.

Once the lemon juice has been carefully mixed through,

slowly whisk in a few layers of the broth

from the pot containing the meat.

To avoid it curdling,

you have to pour it in very slowly.

Next, it's time to reverse the process

and stir the egg and broth mixture

back into the meat pot.

You repeat this whole sequence again

with the pot containing the stamnagathi.

I'm going to stir. Wow. Look at that.

It's fantastic.

Can we try this now?

Yeah. OK.

So what we're going to do is we'll let it cool down

and we're going to make the other one,

and we're going to taste them

both separately and see which one

is the winner, the stamnagathi or...

Let's see.

Through the magic of television,

five minutes later, here's what the final product looked like.

OK, Kyriako, here's the big taste test.

We've got the stamnagathi

and the (SPEAKS GREEK).

This is the weed and that's the lettuce, right?

So let's see what it's like here.

It's going to be sloppy, sorry, Helen.

Wow. That's good.

(LAUGHTER)

Been saying there was a lot of salt!

That's good too. That's terrific.

That's good. But, you know what, I'd take either.

I mean, if you want to fly this weed,

this white chicory from Crete to your home,

well, you can do that.

At the end of the day, the lettuce is fine.

And don't you eat it meanwhile because I want this, right?

But my mate Kyriako here has done an excellent job.

It is so, so good.

Lamb, goat, and you can use veal, and snails.

And what about the captain, he said fish as well?

Let's leave him up there.

He just knows how to run the boat.

OK. Another time.

It's so good.

Give me another hug, bud.

Give me another hug.

I need wrapping paper and take you to Australia with me, OK?

The inland villages of Crete are largely untouched by mass tourism.

They're also fiercely independent, with their own local governance,

incredibly strong sense of community,

and localised production.

Naturally, this includes a thriving olive industry.

Across the island,

there are millions of olive trees,

taking up almost half of the cultivated land.

Pretty much everyone on Crete

owns at least one tree,

and every village will produce its own olive oil.

We're in the village of Kritsa,

and there is no other village like this in all of Crete,

and I think in all of Greece.

Because the 1500 people that live here

have a certain entitlement that nobody else has.

We're off to a plateau that adjoins Kritsa.

There, we'll see.

You see, Kritsa is in

a municipality time warp.

Governance of the region

and its agricultural land

hasn't changed in over a century.

It's very similar to the way

communities were managed in medieval times,

both socially and culturally.

It's a town in the middle of nowhere,

where the people live in their own bubble,

of which they're immensely proud.

As a result, you feel like you've stepped off Crete

for a moment and landed on another island in another time.

For me, there is one word

that describes the geography of Crete,

and that is stupendous.

You would know it as a mountainous island,

but with those mountains come plateaus.

There are four main plateaus,

this plateau of Katharo

being one of them.

It extends for another 15 kilometres that way.

It's owned by the village of Kritsa, yeah, the community.

No one person owns it.

We're about to go down and meet

some of the villagers, some of the farmers,

have a coffee and maybe have a raki.

But just check it out.

It is stupendous.

Kritsa's vast agricultural plateau

and the surrounding terrain is managed by an age-old

community titling approach that was popular in the Middle Ages.

Every family in the town has a farming right

to a portion of the land.

The plots are handed down generationally.

And if a family's lineage discontinues,

that right is passed onto the local community

and not to the state.

It's an archaic system that still manages to work.

I was lucky enough to meet with

one of the traditional landowners as they tended to their plot.

This is real family. We've got the grandparents

and Yorgia, the granddaughter,

working together.

She's giving her a hard time

because she's pregnant, Yorgia, not the grandmother.

Yorgia's pregnant

and the grandmother's giving her a hard time.

"Don't work too hard, but work."

You ask him a question, it's all riddles.

The answers are in riddles.

It's great that there are no employees

toiling the land for them.

They come together as a family

and work their plot to produce food to eat

and also trade with their neighbours.

There's no salaries, no overtime, and no retirement.

I'm pretty sure Yorgia's child

will someday be working these fields alongside their grandparents.

Here we go. Here you go.

This is not my first time doing this with potatoes.

I've done it before.

There we go.

Their accent and speed of speech

is so coarse and fast,

that I was only picking up every few words.

He could have been making fun of me and I would've never known.

Just slow it down for me.

I can't understand this eastern Cretan accent.

(LAUGHS)

It's just too hard.

I have to admit, I had no idea what he was saying half the time,

and the more emotional he got, the faster he spoke.

Oh, that's beautiful. That's awesome.

I'm gonna take a break now. I'm gonna go have a coffee.

This was a powerful and emotive experience for me.

Watching this couple working side by side,

just as they would've for the last 50 or 60 years,

is a testament to the strength of their bond.

Yeah, Kritsa might be stuck in a bubble,

but I love the values that have remained as a result.

There are few places in the world

where three generations of one family

will live and work together, day and night.

(LAUGHS)

We finished the morning with some of Yorgos' homemade raki,

a few olives, and some cheese, all produced in these fields.

This type of hospitality is something Cretans are known for.

It was an experience that epitomised the notion

that a place can be pretty and have an amazing history,

but it's the people that truly make the experience, well, stupendous.

The plateau village of Katharo

is centred around one cafe and a tavern,

both of which have their own unique charm.

The coffee shop is run by an eccentric local called Yannis,

who grew up here, and as a result, he knows everything about it.

If you're lucky enough,

he might drag out his box of prehistoric bones.

Just make sure you have plenty of spare time,

because you'll need it.

This is a (SPEAKS GREEK) for elephant,

but dwarf elephant.

One of this, is this.

This is about one kilo,

but another in Africa

is four or five kilos.

Because that's from a bigger animal. (SPEAKS GREEK)

So did you find this yourself?

Yes.

Many palaeontologists have visited the plateau,

and as it so happens, Yannis spent time with all of them.

As a result, he considers himself

an expert on the prehistoric animals they were studying.

What's amazing is how these animals arrived here.

They came from the Peloponnese,

they swam across the water, and over millions of years,

they got smaller and smaller and smaller,

because it wasn't a big area.

You see, that plateau was once

full of water and they bathed in that water.

But there were so many animals

that they slowly died off over the years,

as the water level went down.

Sad, but there's proof that they were here.

Amazing. Amazing, Yannis.

Amazing. Yes.

Despite all the research that's been done

on the dwarf elephants, much remains unknown.

A lot of what's been speculated,

such as how they got here and why they died off,

is largely theoretical.

But don't mention that to Yannis.

He's been collecting these bones since he was a child

and he's happy to show them off

to anyone who visits the town.

So between him, his box of bones, and Google,

I'm sure you'll be able to learn

all about this region's wonderful pre-history.

While sitting with Yannis,

I kept getting wafts of amazing smells

emanating from the neighbouring tavern.

So, being the inquisitive guy I am,

I popped in to check out what was on the menu.

Caliope's making

nerata mizithropites,

which is a cheese pie

that they only make here,

nowhere else in the world.

And that is (SPEAKS GREEK).

Mizithra, which is a sour...

like cottage cheese, a fresh cheese, fresh white cheese.

And this is a bit like a stuffed pancake

that she's making, and they're absolutely awesome.

I haven't tried one yet, but they smell really, really good.

Really simple.

This is their own cheese. Everything is their own.

The olive oil is theirs.

Now, they're called nerata, which is water,

because she doesn't use anything

but water to put them together.

Ooh. And over here we've got even more.

Ah. We've got the veggies.

Ah. We've got okra in there as well.

..is the king stuff.

Oh man, look at that.

Chicken and potatoes in a red sauce.

That looks so good.

And we've got...

Ah, just veggies. A briam.

Ah, man, look at that.

This is a village you need to visit.

If I wasn't hungry before I walked in,

I sure was after five minutes in the kitchen.

The aromas, colours,

and sounds of spitting and hissing oil

brought on those hunger pangs.

Thanks Costantino.

Fantastic.

Now, I'm told you eat this

with a bit of honey.

I've got to watch my weight

so only a bit of honey.

Here we go.

And of course you need to have the raki,

like I haven't had enough of this stuff.

Anyway.

I'm not going to use a knife and fork,

I'm going to do it the way they do it.

Mm. Wow.

(SPEAKS GREEK)

Ugh. I need to wash that down.

Ugh.

There's only one taverna here,

and there's only one coffee shop here.

Come and do it.

Kritsa and Katharo plateaus are definitely out of the way.

These places are so remote

that very few tourists visit,

but that's the beauty of the region.

It's stuck in time, in a period where the simple things mattered.

But like any Greek island,

there's always a beach not too far away.

On Crete, the drives are a little longer.

So after a quick bite to eat,

I was on my way to find a place for a swim.

Only a few minutes9 walk south of Agios Nikolaos

are these two beaches of Gargadoros,

and north of the marina is Kitroplatia.

What's wonderful about these beaches is that

during the day, when people have walked through the mountains

and the city, they come back down here

and they bask of a late afternoon.

Right into the evening, you'll see kids here,

as it's getting dark and even after dark,

swimming in this beautiful, clear, blue water.

But I'm not going to go for a swim here.

I'm going to head to the next one just a bit further over.

The water is so clean here

that the local port also doubles as a beach

for the people that live nearby.

Families park themselves on the sand all day,

visiting the tavernas on the shoreline for lunch and dinner

while the kids play in the water.

On a warm summer's day,

you'll see people of all ages

wading in the shallows well into the evening.

It's the epitome of a Greek island holiday.

These are the places and times that I enjoy the most.

It really is the simple things.

We're in a tiny village called Propodes Dujukta,

which means in the foothills of Mount Jukta.

And we're about to meet

a couple of families

that are going to show us all about the Cretan barbecue,

known as antikristo.

The difference is that it doesn't

use the heat of the coals or the wood.

It uses the heat of the flame, so it's a lot quicker to barbecue.

I've had it before. I'm looking forward to it again.

I'm salivating as we speak. I'm going down to see them now.

Now, these are really heavy Cretans.

This is like the backwaters of Crete.

You see what I mean?

(LAUGHS)

Today, four brothers and their families

are celebrating a saint's day with a traditional Cretan barbecue

that will go all day and well into the night.

All the produce you'll see

is from their farms and is as fresh as it gets.

This is going to be a long day.

Pure, and it's not too bad.

This contraption here

is called an antikristo,

and no, it has nothing to do with religion,

although barbecue in Crete practically is one.

It's all put together.

There you go. It took 30 seconds.

Wow. And that's the antikristo mechanism.

We're going to see it with the meat on in a second.

Antikristo is a Cretan word from ancient Greek,

which means opposite to the fire.

It's one of the earliest recorded methods

of field cooking found in literature.

Homer even mentions it in the Iliad.

This method of cooking

has been practiced in Crete since ancient times.

To this day, it's still used by the shepherds

in the remote White Mountains and the Psiloriti range.

What's happening here

is the meat is being cooked by the heat of the flame.

They just put...

You can see the meat coming on now.

This is a bit of lamb and it's only salted up.

How simple is this?

They just put...

The kids are doing it.

Now, this is an amazing thing

because the feast that they have

is actually a wonderful process

because they take the whole day.

It's almost a cultural day that they have.

(SPEAKS GREEK)

Turn it around.

Let's get it around the right way.

That's it. That's it. That's it.

(FOLK MUSIC PLAYS)

No matter what the celebration,

in Greece, a barbecue or a festive feast is a degustation.

You constantly eat while you wait for the main meal to be ready.

Thank goodness there are weeks between saint's days.

Look at that, how juicy that is.

These figs were like jam. They were so sweet.

I really wanted to describe the flavour and texture,

but I just couldn't stop eating them.

Why did they taste so good?

And why did the cucumbers and tomatoes

look so vibrant and juicy?

Well, the answer was behind the house.

Fresh tomato off the tree. That's going to...

We're going to eat that today.

(SPEAKS GREEK)

Have a smell.

Oh, man.

We're going for cucumbers now.

Have a look at this.

Wait, I want to grab that guy. I'm grabbing this guy.

Cucumbers. Can it be any better?

This garden produces most of the needs

for a couple of families.

They grow everything here, from tomatoes, cucumbers,

pumpkins and chilies, to onions,

potatoes, cabbage, and lettuce.

It's a seasonal gourmet of the healthiest food.

And while the grandparents are in charge

of preparing the vegetables,

the sons are tending to the barbecue.

In a couple of hours from now,

it will all be ready for everyone to sit down

as a family and enjoy the feast.

Wow. That looks fantastic.

There's one universal thing with barbecues,

and that's no matter where you are in the world,

the men gravitate towards the meat preparing area,

picking off pieces as they go.

When it's this delicious looking, it's impossible to resist.

Sorry, sound person.

She's got two hands up there so she can't have it.

I'll give it to you like that.

Here you go.

See? See how we look out for the crew?

Look at that. Look at the juice.

See the juice coming out?

Look at that. Juice still coming out.

(FOLK MUSIC AND SINGING)

I've spent over five decades on this earth,

and this is the first time

I've ever had an experience like this.

It was a day-long cultural festivity

of food, singing, dancing, drinking,

and most importantly, family.

Everyone contributed to the process,

picking vegetables, tending to the barbecue,

setting up the tables and chairs.

And it all happened seamlessly,

with the sounds of laughter filling the air.

This gathering symbolizes

the strong character created by the bonds of Cretan culture.

Kinship is a powerful thing

in most places, but here on Crete,

I feel as though it's beyond anywhere else.

This was definitely a highlight of my journey

through this remarkable island, and one I will never forget.

(OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION)

The celebrations went well into the night,

with local wine flowing and traditional music

creating a festive atmosphere.

What's more, it seemed like the food never stopped coming.

In the next episode,

I'm making my way to the capital of Crete,

Heraklion, before heading further afield

to check out some of the nearby landmarks,

like the palace of Knossos.

I'm also going to explore

one of the ancient Cretan industries, pottery,

as well as trying some of the local wine

that's made in the traditional way.

Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv