History of Crete  continued

There are two separate and distinct atmospheres to savour on the island. There is the lively bustle of the Cretan towns, where traditional courtesies and hospitality mingle with commercial vigour and street sharpness, to the slower pace of the village life where you will find the locals escorting a donkey laden with twigs and straw or possibly tilling the land and crop gathering by hand, or a lady perhaps leading a pair of goats for milking.  

Each region has it’s own character acknowledged almost to the point of caricature.

For example the laid back qualities of the Sitia people in the East of the island, the commercially minded Mesaras farmers and the proud and ferocious Sfakiots residents of the West.
Perhaps the regional temperaments have something to do with the landscape reflecting the gentle gradients of the East, the prosperous fertility of the Mesara and the harsh bleakness of the mountainous West.

In the villages, people work hard at basic agriculture with their bare hands and unsophisticated tools. Relaxation is found in a glass of Raki and taking part in long discussions of local affairs and politics, with scarcely a glance at the television set that mutters incessantly in the corner.
It is here more than anywhere else you can enjoy undiluted Cretan hospitality and see the men and women going about their everyday lives in traditional dress, watch potters creating an urn or a woman weaving a rug in the way that such things have been done for centuries.

Many of Crete’s population have fought, suffered and died in wars over the years, yet the single most obvious, unifying characteristic of the islanders is their fierce pride in being Cretan. Independent and beholding to no one. 

Crete is a land apart, as any visitor to the island will discover