The Mini Rough Guide to Crete (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

Author:Rough Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Greek Islands
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2023-02-04T04:57:54+00:00

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Souvenir shops in Réthymno’s old town

Southeast of Réthymno lie two valleys leading towards the far coast. The Amári Valley ™ [map] is the more easterly and the more exciting, with traditional rural landscapes to explore and dramatic views of Psilorítis as a backdrop. You’ll need a car or mountain bike, as public buses or tours here are non-existent, and accommodation scarce. The main valley loop-road leads through a string of small villages, many graced with fine old, frescoed churches, and all with memorials commemorating the 1944 German reprisals exacted for resistance operations.

At Thrónos , the 11th-century Panagía chapel has superb, later frescoes – the shop next door keeps the key (daily 9am–6pm; a tip is expected). The adjacent hamlet of Kalógeros has the small Theológos chapel, with more 14th-century frescoes. Monastiráki , southeast of here, offers two more churches: tiny Aï Geórgi, at the top of the village, with a fine image of the Panagía Platytéra, and Venetian-style Arhángelos (key from café opposite) retains a fresco of the Dormition. East from here, Platánia has another Panagía chapel (key from nearby café) with a vivid, nearly complete cycle of frescoes, some unusual – note the rarely shown Angel Gabriel, and St George with a right earring in the Byzantine manner. Going instead anticlockwise from Thrónos, Méronas offers the Metamórfosi chapel by the school, with well-preserved scenes of St Stephen and the Transfiguration, but the central village church of Panagía, with the most complete fresco cycle in the valley, is only rarely opened by the priest.

Water feature

There are several other fountains, now dry but inscribed with elegant Ottoman calligraphy, scattered across town. The easiest to find are alongside the multi-domed Kara Pasha Mosque and on the corner of Smýrnis and Koronéou, below the Fortezza.

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