EASTERN CRETE

C H A P T E R 1
Every season
has its own
colours at the
Kataharo
plateau: green
fields in
springtime,
yellow earth in
summer
Curve after curve, between oaks and
carobs with their tormented outlines that
seem born from the rock, the mountain
suddenly opens out offering a spectacular
view over the entire Katharo plateau,
surrounded by the bare mountains of the
Dikti. Fields cultivated with grain and
vegetables, fruit trees (in particular pears,
apples, figs and pomegranates) and great
stretches of meadows for pasture, few
houses, few men and the odd little white
church form a unified and compact pattern.
The plateau, which in springtime is full of
flowers and green grasses, in summer is
coloured yellow with stubble and the
ploughed soil that becomes as fine and
dusty as face-powder. Katharo is the summer
reserve of the people of Kritsa and at given
periods all the flocks of sheep in the zone
converge here for shearing: imagine the
sound produced by the bleating of
thousands of animals echoing through
the mountains!
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