Crete-Discover the Unknown Crete

C H A P T E R 4
In the silent villages
Time seems to stop
in the archaic and
unsullied landscape
around Perivolakia
To better understand the spirit of this
region we would suggest a visit to the
villages that tourism has forgotten, like
Perivolakia and Drongari, set into a
landscape both wild and sensual and
approachable via a narrow path along the
gorge that lies halfway down the slope
beneath the little churches of Ayio Pneuma.
Where the gorge ends one encounters a
small plateau with thistles and thorny
bushes amid farmhouses, all deserted, save
one which appears to be inhabited by
someone fairly eccentric who has decorated
the house with odds and ends that vary from
old pieces of iron to ox-horns and empty tin
cans. The place is called Epano Perivolakia
and was abandoned after a terrible
earthquake.
98
Further down, settled among the olive
trees, Kato Perivolakia appears, a group of
low white houses with flat roofs and
terracotta chimney pots. In Venetian times it
was a rich agricultural village, but now the
life in its streets seems to have stopped still
and the few remaining inhabitants gaze