Bath, England

Bath

I had strained to hear the voices of the Minoans, distant ancestors of Crete, but my British ancestors (in the more literal sense) shouted in my ear, loud and clear. Though they came only somewhat indirectly from the southwest of England (more on that later), who would not recognize their compulsive storytelling, their looming sympathies, their expressive and foul tongues, their enthusiastic inclusiveness for all of Nature--down to snails, laboriously carved on the solemn acanthus leaves of their old churches? I was home, with my fellow descendants of Shakespeare, the Bard, who looks down twinklingly on their busy comings and goings. It seemed to me that English women in particular have soothing smiles and tenacious voices that crawl soothingly like cats licking your wounds.

My B&B

Bath is a strikingly beautiful town. I had found a comfy B&B up in the Bear's Lair, a lofty neighborhood from which I descended on hidden pathways into town, a blend of brisk commerce and Roman Baths and elegant Georgian architecture. All Bath is in stone, grayer up in the neighborhoods, tawnier when seen from on high, soaring Cathedral spires and uniformly soft calcite streets of 18th c. townhouses.

Cleansed by moist country air and rose bushes, I slept deeply in voluminous white linens, enscounced in pillows by the open window where a solstice sun climbed early. The night before I had headed down to town, to see what there was to see, crossing paths with exhausted climbers. I found the soft pale stone city below, and the thermal baths. I bought the Twilight Package at the Thermal Baths, which include aromatherapy steam rooms (jasmine! frankincense! eucalyptus!) among kids in smooching pairs, many of them Chinese, and old couples, a rooftop pool and dinner (overly buttered sole with a chatty Midlands couple whose English I could barely understand). Then I walked back in the quiet city, a few kids crosslegged on the stone streets outside a pub, up green paths under soaring gulls and birdsong, back to perfect sleep.

Bath Abbey--angels climb its facade

Mornings I jogged up steep Shakespeare Ave round the bright green tender grasses overlooking Bath. As I took the path down the hill again I realized that Holloway Road, which continues out of primordial shade into town, had been the Roman Road, and now is marked by a 19th c. poem in commemoration of a horse, "felled by a cruel blow."

A man of kindness to his beast is kind,

But brutal actions show a brutal mind.

Remember! He who made thee, made the brute,

Who gave thee speech and reason, formed him mute.

He can't complain, but God's all-seeing ee

Beholds they cruelty and hears his cry.

He was designed they Servant, not they Drudge.

Remember! His Creator is thy Judge.

Across the road is the Magdalen church, in continual use for 900 years. It was donated in 1088 by its Norman owner to the Benedictines of Bath Abbey, and in 1212 was a Chapel for an adjoining hospital for lepers.

Inside Bath Abbey

The beautiful Bath Abbey, whose vaults take gothic on a sinewy adventure in the Perpendicular style, was originally an Anglo-Saxon Abbey which achieved immortality when England's first king, Edgar, was crowned there in 973. In the 1090s it was restored as a Norman cathedral, and then was resurrected as the last great gothic church in England in 1499. Bath had sheltered the Americans in WWII, but all it got in return was a flag, on display in the Abbey. Its walls and floor are tiled with the gravestones of Bath's long past.

Temple of the Baths--Gorgon/Neptune
Courtesy Wikicommons

The centerpiece of Bath are the baths themselves. The Romans took Bath because of them, and adopted their Celtic goddess Sulis who morphed into Minerva. The water, that contains at least 42 minerals, came from rains that fell 10,000 years ago, then, heated by geothermic forces, filtered back up through limestone. I swear I felt the effects of my 3 hour spa for weeks. The tour of the Roman Baths begins on a terrace of stone Roman Emperors, whose visages were invented in the 19th c, the result being that Julius Caesar looks something like a soccer thug. They stand against the sky and the gothic turrets of the Abbey. Originally sheltered by a domed roof 20m high--high as the Abbey's soaring peak--but now exposed to the sky, the rusty waters are growing algae. The ancient waters bubble steamily from red soil at the rate of 1.17 million liters a day. The tour takes you over stones that were once the pavement of an enormous temple complex, among the daily lives of the Roman soldiers who built the monumental stone and brick (the local Celts lived in mud huts, so Gallic soldiers were imported), the grave of a Syrian, the remnants of temple carvings--a Neptune Gorgon, sun and moon gods, Hermes and Asclepius. There are hundreds of curses that had been written on lead fragments and thrown into the goddess' waters by the little people, seeking redress for their daily tragedies. There were tombstones and altars that had been erected, the former by the soldiers' guilds, the latter by rich supplicants. And there the complex baths themselves, where Romans gossiped, held forth, robbed each others, saw and were seen by a cosmopolitan gathering. Unique in Britain, were these Aquae Sulis. Seneca wrote of them:

Sulis/Minerva

"The picture is not complete without some quarrelsome fellow, a thief caught in the act, or the man who loves the sound of his own voice in the bath--not to mention those who jump in with a tremendous splash."

We continued up through Bath to the Circus, which is a circle of Georgian architecture, three levels with Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns respectively, part of which is used for social housing. Then on to the Royal Crescent, achieved by the same architect, where we stood patiently in an 18th c. townhouse museum listening to ancient ladies talk about the joys and tragedies of that life, squirming with kids from Eastern Europe who hid behind their foreign tongue. The last room, the 18th c. kitchen, featured a metal wheel that was kept turning by a running dog. This odious practice, unique to the southwest of England, entailed a hot burning coal at the dog's feet to keep it running. I was ready to leave Bath.

We recovered from that atrocity with tea in a beautiful restaurant (The Circus). The blonde wide-eyed staff glided our way with that British welcome, almost maternal in its encompassing sympathy.

Temple complex of the Roman Baths

My connection with the southwest of England is indirect. I have ancestors of 17th c. America who settled with Dame Deborah Moody, originally from nearby Avesbury, in the colony she founded in Gravesend, New York (now part of Brooklyn). Like her, they were religious seekers, who studied Anabaptism and Quakerism, and were driven to the colony by the religious intolerance of John Winthrop in Massachusetts. Called Lady Moody by her followers, she was considered by the authorities to be learned and venerable, but decidedly a Dangerous Woman.

Traveling on Crete

Samarian Gorge

Crete of the ravishing vistas, incessant birdsong, subtly spiced ---that hint of mint and thyme--and the people's enthusiasm. Here are some other things we did there.

St. Nicholas

Crete is filled with gorges, deep folds of the ancient land, but the one most recommended for hiking is the Samaria.

Village of Samaria

Our day began inauspiciously, a raucous bus ride early in the morning with 20-somethings. The trailhead was chaotic and loud, a race was starting and young hormone-pummeled youth were making as much racket as possible. But I skipped forward in my barefoot shoes. 

Ahead were the blue folds of the gorge, sun drenched green and blue shadow, pines and the full furry cypresses of Crete. Rocky paths descended, turning and twisting to the small Byzantine church of St. Nicholas, filled with icons. Nearby, a sacrificial altar to Diana and Apollo had been in use since the 6th c. BC. From clumps of phallic, leathery orchids in the woody shade we emerged into the sun, tortuously along the riverbed, on treacherous stones crossing the crystal stream, while above were travertine caves and rock faces of the narrow gorge. It whistled amidst birdsong and rushing water. Sometimes logs crossed a swinging bridge, sometimes rocks led us back and forth across the river that furled chalkily in pale aqua around white boulders. Above was gravelly, sedimentary rock with fossils 180 million yr old, and always the cypresses filtered the brilliant light.

The village of Samaria was an exquisite ruin, half walls of rocks, a study in light and air. But later as we finished in the present day goat yards of Agia Roumelli we were reminded how oppressive life with its full allotment of burdens can be. Beyond the forgotten village and its own Byzantine church paths playfully arrayed along the stream bed under the cliff faces of the Iron Gate, various bridges, soft high trails, till at the end we came to a spring. We filed out singly, the soft light of the gorge forgotten as we pressed on. Suddenly my every step was painful under the hot sun, through the smelly village of tethered bleating goats. We found a very Greek restaurant where middle aged natives sat in the cold shade of the terrace, whiling away Sunday. We ate all the local dishes till my feet swelled no more. Then we ventured onto the stony beach on the Libyan sea of plunging rocks and deep turquoise water, where Daskalogianni, the ferry, waited.

southern coast

It ploughed along the southern coast, past forbidding scrubby rock face, void of life except for the occasional brilliant white church, tiny and angular, sometimes presiding over a graveyard. Our fellow hikers in various states of somnolence, sunburned and quiet except for children who after 16 k through the Gorge still run like cops and robbers. The inlet at Loutros had a beautifully kept harbor of white Moorish hotels trimmed in blue, and then we reached Sphakia, home of vampires. (The Great Island by Michael Llewelyn Smith recounts the vampire scares of the 60's, when whole villages evacuated in fear.) We climbed into a whale of a bus driven by a young blond man who, once he got going, drove like a maniac at alarming speeds, passing four or five buses, forcing cars to the shoulder, straddling the median, along the travertine rock chiseled highway.

Venetian fortress, Rethymno

The city of Rethymno perches on great bastions over the sea, porous rough gray rocks holding back the foam and bluest turquoise. The sun's rays focus on the barren, Venetian fortress, still shapely with domed guard posts, beautifully arched powder magazines, a graceful mosque, views of the pale umber stone over the turquoise sea. The church has become a museum of Neolithic tools and pots, Minoan clay sarcophagi, beautiful floral designs on late Minoan pots, Roman statuary, and coins from the entire Mediterranean world. The city itself is more youthful than Canea or Heraklion, with beautiful old houses, very much intact, lining the streets. It is light and airy like Minoan paintings.

Daedalus and Icraus

To see the east of Crete we took to the road, well paved, through plateaus and basins, tawny and gold and green down to the sea. We headed south, where we stopped at Agia Galini, where Daedalus and Icarus had flown. Daedalus' statue sits on an overlook of the bay, by his cave, looking so Greek and long-suffering. Looking the part of an artist.

Near the Minoan city of Phaestos we visited Gortyn, a Roman ruin, but the first sight is the 6th c AD Basilica of St. Titus, a gorgeous shell of an enormous Byzantine cathedral. It is a hot, flattening walk to the Odeon where the Law of Gortyn (which has taught us much about 5th c. BC law) is clearly written in boustrophedon Greek. That is an early Greek which reads as the boustrophedon ox ploughs, right to left, then left to right, and so on, even the letters are in mirror images of each other.

Matala

That night we stayed at Matala, an ex-fishing village where hippies lived in cliff caves over the sea in the 60's and 70's. Their reunion was advertised for the beginning of June. Der Zwei Bruder became our abode, a spanking pension run by Austrians for the back packing set. I collapsed to the sound of the violent Mediterranean--waves that smash up the beach. In the dark we walked to the ex-hippy caves, where Roman burial grounds were later discovered. By the parking lot (a grassy stretch under cliffs, under vine covered trellises) were ruins of Roman settlements, that were being completely ignored except perhaps by some vagrants living in a cave there. The night brought cats to the restaurants to beg from hearty Swedes and drunk Greeks. In the morning I jogged up to and climbed rocks where caves waited for hippies and a goat bleated. Below was a beach, probably nudist.

from the trail at Matala

We stopped (to pee) where enormous pink oleanders hid huge vacant lots of wheat colored grasses and miscellaneous garbage dumped and a few munching goats. The glory of the colors, red tawny rock and earth against the piercing blue sky, laced with rose blossoms that lent a visual fragrance to the hillsides. Shrines everywhere, and goats scampering, long silky fringe and bulging eyes. Two rams with horns swirled backwards in many spirals, two grand veterans face to face.

View near Agia Nikolaus

Near Agia Nikolaus we stayed at a huge budget hotel filled with hard drinking young Russians. In the morning we jogged down to the sea, the fresh searing sun in olive groves descending the small rocky peninsula to turquoise waters.

Lato

Nearby is the most beautiful Byzantine church, Panagia Kera. Complete Biblical stories from the Apocryphal scriptures are told in Cretan icon painting, covering the walls and pillars. The large dark Greek eyes, sad and wise. The massacre of the innocents, John the Baptist's head on a platter, gorgeous undulatating landscapes and wide-eyed saints, staring and vulnerable.

Also nearby the large ruin of the Dorian center of Lato reigns over summits flanking a gorge. In the rough gray stone of Dorian times, the prytanée and ruler's home are now tumbling boulders. The facing hill had an undistinguishable stone theatre, but very distinguishable were the workshops, shops and homes ranging the hillsides.

Lunch in a Greek village

We drove out a narrow precipitous winding road above the sea and fields of olives to a tiny village where the men had been skin diving and ate their seafood and tzatziki with raki they tried to share with us, and laughed in that hearty inclusive Cretan exuberance.

We spent our last night on the road at Sitie, and had wonderful swordfish steak, which we fed to a beautiful white and black cat with a mangled ear. Across the purple port, rock mountains rose pink from the sea, while in front of us children played on the plaza. SItie is not yet a tourist destination--there we were simply visitors. It has some elegant house of newly restored Venetian stone carvings or iron balconies. At the harbor were a few thoroughly rusted hulls of ships. Sitie has a simple air of sweetness, with a horizon of blue mounds sleeping in the sea.

Icon of the Cretan Renaissance

Our last visit was to the museum of the History of Crete in Heraklion. It told many long-winded stories, of the long siege of Candia (21 years) against the Turks, of the fierce Cretan rebels under years of domination, of the exquisite Byzantine art, solemn, austere, restless faces that chafe under life's sorrows, like the Greek men themselves who seem more fraught, more divided and complex and sensitive than other Mediterraeanean men. The museum also told of the multiple heroisms of the Cretan people. The Nazis encountered fierce civilian resistance for the first time in World War II when they invaded Crete--civilians, monks, guerillas and the British held them off. After the Germans recovered from the surprise, they mercilessly decimated the civilian population throughout the occupation.

Poseidon, 6th c. BC

The Museum was run by women, a different face of Crete: women taking matters into their hands, taking stock of your needs, making things work, responding verbally to everything, handling the situation. The museum is something to be proud of, its sophisticated way of discussing the highly visual icons, its thorough history, its crisp and tart feta pastries in thick crusts of sesame seeds.

How difficult it was to leave this sublime climate! And those distant and mysterious ancestors of Minos, airy devotees of motion and the spiral, animists and pagans who worshiped on mountaintops, who saw the god in fleeting moments. They were great exorcists, so said the Egyptians, and renowned artisans of the day. Egypt, dominated by the flux of the Nile, created massive stability, while Crete with her powerful and static sun, created flow in the wind and sublime waves of blue.

On parting we couldn't find the airport for the endless dilapidated signs in Greek, and so, wandering through an industrial area, we stopped next to a sturdy woman on a motorbike, chin like a promontory, helmetless, kinky Minoan hair flying, blue flowered sleeveless blouse, talking on her cell phone. Follow me, she said and when Jacques would begin to drive alongside her she waved him, patted him back behind, we the foreign descendants of old Minos, and got us there. Our goddess of the voyage.

Monasteries of Crete

Path of cave monasteries, Akrotiri

The roads of Crete lead everywhere to monasteries, whose histories sometimes stretch back to a pagan era, when a fertility goddess was worshiped on mountaintops and in caves. Many have been theatres of political resistance for Cretans whose gritty, courageous fighting is legendary. The European Union preserves many monasteries--yet their placards are in Greek and unintelligible to other Europeans. Perhaps one cannot blame them; in modern history, Crete has been a pawn of the Great Games of larger powers. Though here was where Europe's great civilizations began.

Agia Triada

We began with the monasteries of Akrotiri in western Crete. Agia Triada was built by the Venetian Zangaroli brothers in the 17th c, a sublime Byzantine structure of austere precision, balanced by lush floral grounds. Many young and narrow cats sleep in the sun, fleabitten, bumpy, but with exquisite Egyptian faces. Inside the Orthodox sanctuary the pure architecture seems to collide with nearly garish icons, but then it took us awhile to appreciate the Orthodox style. A rather petulant Angel Gabriel and a secretive mild-mannered Angel Michael defy our western notions. Another Michael holds a tiny Virgin in his hand as he tramples a man. The monastery contains a museum of Cretan Renaissance icons, most notably of the Evangelist John receiving instructions from a tiny angel whispering in his ear.

Ruin of Gouverneto dependancy

From there we drove up the rocky hillsides of olive trees and brambles to the Gouverneto Monastery. A black kid, still without a bell, scampered under brambles. The entrance to the Gouverneto resembled the grounds of a California Apple millionaire. Perhaps we were fortunate that the monastery itself was closed, for we proceeded down a flagstone path that plunged to the sea, a journey with the more interesting "dependancies" of the Gouverneto.

Stalactite in Bear Cave

The assiduously laid path hid treasures along its winding way. A ruin of a Byzantine monastery was built around cave--called the Bear Cave--where a huge stalagmite for all the world like a kneeling monk or bear prayed at the edge of a man-made pool. Deeper in the darkness stalactites glowed. Before Cretans worshiped in buildings they worshiped in caves, before majestic stalagmites and stalactites. Icons were gathered in shacks at the entrance.

A shack outside a cave

We climbed further down the stony path, bordered by gnarled oliviers that had been carefully pruned, presumably by monks. Across a steep ravine we could see remnants of stone walls, courtyards and in a cliffside was a dome building out of which peeked black goats.

Ruin of Christian monastery

The torturous bends of the path kept another secret, revealed by a gothic church door, stranded as a surrealist painting, against the massive rock mountainsides.. It led to the remains of a Christian monastery, Before it was the entrance to a cave where a kind German lent us his flashlight. Inside the cave an apparently natural rock ceiling peaked in a gothic style. Columns of swirled stalactites adorned the interior. Outside the cave, a massive stone bridge had been constructed over a now-dry river bed. Arched windows adorned the few standing shells of buildings. I climbed back alone where lizards scurried, in birdsong and sun, up to get water. A black robed priest was conferring with the construction workers who drove off in the back of a pickup, brown young Cretans pulling out their cell phones.

Forgotten, except by goats

Chryssoskalitissa Monastery

The next day I drove down and up winding hills toward the south from Canea, among pine forests and villages, velvety tundra, goats gamboling up sheer cliffs and scattered along the road, among prehistoric boulders and the cracked skin of brown rock mountains, among travertine caves and shapes of many chapels, to the restful brine of the Libyan Sea, at Souja's. On theway we stopped at the Chryssoskalitissa Monastery by the sea. There, it is said, an icon hidden in the rocks cast a glow that a shepherd saw, so a church was built there. During the Turks' occupation it harbored, like other monasteries, a hidden school for Greek children. Tiny, scrawny kittens greeted us. The museum emanated a decayed sweetish smell, as if an ancient saint were still in there.

Azogires Monastery

We stumbled upon Azogires, Monastery of the 99 Holy Fathers, gleaming white plastered against the forested slope, next to exuberant cataracts and falls of mossy green. It was closed and quiet, but we learned that the 99 Holy Fathers had been followers of St. John the Hermit (who stayed back in his cave), and they all were said to have died on exactly the day he died. The tomb of Father Gavriel Papagrigorakis remains by the monastery, who in the 19th c. restarted its holy mission and still performs miracles for the local people from the beyond. There are many monastery caves in the area, accessible by footpath, treacherous to enter.

Arkadi Monastery

On my "rest day" Jacques visited the legendary monastery of Arkadi, where more than 900 Cretans chose to blow themselves up rather than surrender to the Turks.

The Monastery of Vrontissi, contains a 900 year old house and a 700 year old church with the original frescoes still on its walls. The Monastary of Vansamonero, which has the most spectacular frescoes of the Cretan Renaissance frescoes is owned by a museum in Heraklion, and was closed.

Vrontissi Monastery

Courtesy P. Vasiliadis, Wikicommons

Of Crete's rather sparse tourists we were among the geekiest. Even the German who made loud declarations about the archeology of Harold Evans at Kato Zakaros fled the museum of the Toplou Monastery, one of the most signifiant in Crete. But we devoured the icons, most notably a fantastic work, a Michaelangelo in miniature--all creation, with a Last Judgment, in a Renaissance-like mandala of scenes crowded upon scenes. The document and engraving section gave the history and beliefs in the Orthodox faith, including a graphic scene of a prophet hanging upside down about to be sawed in half beginning with his genitals.

The Monastery had been a center of resistance, its elegant pink mortar and pale stone fortified from the 15th c onwards, so that now it is a small Byzantine church with remnants of original frescoes still on the walls, built over with walls and courtyards and buttresses till it has become a fortress. Its lofty Cretan belfry had transmitted messages for the Resistance during the Nazi occupation. Eearlier it had been a center of insurrection against the Turks, where monks and laymen had died for their country.

In Search of the Minoans

Minoan bull games

As early as 8000 BC Cretans lived in caves and created pottery. A wave of immigrants from Asia Minor, in 3000 BC, brought copper and seafaring skills. They sailed the Mediterranean to Egypt, and found cultures and technologies that had spread from Mesopotamia to the shores of Syria. And they created the first great civilization of Europe.

Male - 6500-5800 BC; Female 5300-4500 BC

By 1800 BC the eastern Mediterranean was a veritable international cauldron of 30 states, that fought, traded, exchanged diplomats. Crete's distance from the turmoil of the Orient meant she could develop in relative peace. Crete also absorbed the artist of the nearby Cyclades. Her own aesthetic, in turn, was in high demand throughout the Mediterranean.

The Throne Room of Knossos, 1550 BC

Palace ruins, 2500-1100 BC, have been found along the northern, southern and eastern coasts of Crete. Knossos was the great power among many centers still being discovered beneath layers of world history. In 1700 BC, and again around 1400 BC, destruction came from massive eruptions of the volcano Thera, from the island of Santorini, which sent tsunamis crashing onto Crete. Subsequent invaders--Myceneans, Dorians, Romans, Venetians and Turks--have left layers above the palace ruins.

Found at Zakros, 1450BC

Still, the Museum of Heraklion (which was unfortunately mostly closed when we were there) is filled with archeological finds, many still encrusted with dirt, still needing conservators and restorers. What has been cleaned and restored includes pottery, painted in a loose and wild style with motifs from the natural world, cult objects such as the powerful snake goddesses, beautiful jewelry to match the tombs of Egypt, exquisite receptacles made from semi-precious stones, and skillfully made creatures of reality and imagination. The museums of Canea and Rethymnon have some of these objects, along with Crete's Hellenistic and Roman art.

Snake goddesses of Knossos, 1600 BC

We first visited the Palace at Knossos. a sweltering site which first appears as a rather senseless ruin. One works hard to imagine the large, complex palace. Its excavator Harold Evans has had fragments of it painted in what he has understood to be the original style. The peripheral area provided visitors to the palace with lustral baths, purification sites, and shrines for consecration and sacrifice. The inner sanctum contains the famous throne room, ostensibly for a goddess perhaps in the form of the queen, as well as the royal living quarters.

Prince of Knossos, 1550 BC

From there we found the museum at Heraklion under repair, the visit reduced to a few rooms of the most iconic Minoan works. These include the snake goddesses, bare-breasted and wide-eyed, the much restored King with his wavy locks and insouciant pleasure-loving gait. Most interesting were the many signet rings, for stamping individual seals of complex scenes. One sees the evolution from highly skilled early work--figures from before 5,000 BC, the high achievements of the 1700-1450 BC, and the eventual plunge into the geometric and archaic periods. A new resurgence rises under Hellenism, marbles of Isis/Aphrodite and Zeus/Pluto, with Cerberus from an Isis temple. And the sturdy half wild Philosopher of the Romans.

Two bees of gold, each dropping honey on a comb, from Malia, 1800 BC

Another day we visited the Palace at Malia, amidst an endless string of beach resorts, but an old man showed us the way. This is where the exquisite bee pendant was found. The Malian palace of red clay was rather austere, but a model of the site reveals it was sprawling, complex and asymetrical (perhaps the reason for the myth of the labyrinth). Vastness and grandeur are now the dimmest memories of red stone a few feet high. Present day Malia sits under a blue dome of sky surrounded with exuberant green and bright oleanders, hibiscus and cypresses, in a stiff sea breeze. It invites a few moments of reflection and then simple Greek food, nestled into the green cafe.

Central pillar of graves, object of worship

Driving south from Rethymnon, we visited Armenoi, a Minoan Necropolis in a quiet grove of small oaks. Rock cut graves, sometimes chambers to walk around in, with a single heavy pillar, are often guarded by spider webs. We entered each grave with its mysterious niches, whose occupants of 1400 BC were on average 28-35 years old, while women were often younger than 25, buried with their fine pottery and jewelry.

St. George, Agia Triada

On the southern coast we visited Agia Triada, a smaller and lovelier site above green hills, considered a summer residence for the Minoan king. Most moving was the tiny Byzantine church to St George, 14th c. frescoes still on the walls.

Then we drove to Phaestos, an extraordinary ruin, with reconstructions drawn on informative placards. Here one begins to see the grandeur, and one retreats to the pines to thank the local deities.

We began to get the hang of decoding the ruins: the shrine rooms and sacrificial slab, the porticos and central courtyards, the storerooms of giant jars called pithoi, and the more sheltered and luxurious megarons of the king and queen.

Gournia, unlike the palaces, is a Minoan village built up to a shrine on the hilltop. In the stupefying heat I sat under a tree and thought of the Minoans. What did they fear? The bulging eyed snake goddess' spilling breasts? Omens in their buzzing world of nature? Their rulers who somehow compelled someone to haul these rocks up here?

Theatral stairs at Phaestos

We drove along the northeastern coast where blue humps of land plunge into the sea, and ate wonderful salads of seeds and dried tomatoes (instead of the fish the chef wanted to cook before my eyes till I escaped his kitchen). The island in view, Pseiris, had had a Minoan settlement. It had produced goods and traded. 

Knossos

Paleokastro, on the eastern coast was where the giant tsunami had swept into Crete from Santorini's earthquake about 1600 BC--dates are bit disputed. Though blocked by a stubby rock mountain rising from the sea, the tsunami had smashed in sea-facing walls and destroyed life as it had been. We learned that the men had been 1.6 meters tall and the women 1.5 meters. Paleokastro has been largely covered over again, to protect it, but the complete rooms were apparent, in a rough stone that had presumably been encased in mortar and covered, in the royal rooms, in gypsum.

Kato Zakros, houses of nobles

Finally we visited Kato Zakros, 4th largest Minoan palace and center of artisans who forged the legendary Minoan objets d'art from precious raw materials from Africa and Asia. Excavation was ongoing. We chatted with a young conservator who showed us how dirty and unpromising a fresco could be before cleaning. She talked of how many unrestored findings languish in Herakleion's store rooms.

Palace at Knossos

Mentioned frequently by the Egyptians, their artistic creations found throughout the Mediterranean, the Minoans remain a mystery.  Though they had developed writing, it seems to have focused on commerce and accounting.   And so many of the great, unwashed findings remain in the storerooms of Herakleion.