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Sphakia – Impressions
Spkakia. The name is always cropping up in the pages of Cretan
histories and books of travel, and has cropped up often enough already
in this one. Sphakia, they all say, is something special. But the reader
must be warned, if he is to visit Crete; Sphakia is not so special as it
once was. Many of the distinctions which marked it off from the rest of
Crete have disappeared. The traveller today will find similar clothes,
customs and language throughout the west of Crete. There are local
variations, but less marked than before the days of radios and buses.
The whole area of the White Mountains, however, remains distinct
from the rest of Crete, and is the most interesting part of the island. A
few jottings made on a trip through these mountains, and now expanded
and edited, may give the flavour better than a formal description.
Julie du Boulay went with me on this trip.
27 May. Canea to Lakki, where the people leave you alone. The
question of the donkey arises here. (We had decided If possible to buy
one.) Julie is very keen. Of course they all think us mad. Eventually
an old man, Georgioudakis, speaks up; he has a beast which he might
sell, for 2500 drachmas (about £30) since it is a good beast, so we
arrange to inspect it later and meanwhile go down to Meskla. Much
better. Friendly people. A bustling papas is sitting under a clambering
vine, unscrupulously extorting money for the church.
‘Come on now, the church needs money. Look what it does for you.
Everyone has a duty to give.’
An old man: ‘Yes, but ... I have nothing, next year I’ll give an
extra lot’, etc.
Most of the villagers are working on the new church. In the old one
we are forced to eat olives and drink wine, and apparently it has ceased
to be holy ground, because we are all smoking cigarettes in there in
front of the papas. The church they are building – the children all
helping – will be the usual concrete affair. There are three other
churches in the village, one of them old, containing excellent frescoes.
They love new things.
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