We have had a great plan for Crete, one rest day followed by a hard sightseeing day!!! …Well yesterday was the most grueling day of 2025 for sure!!! Hiking the Samaria Gorge is not easy at all.. especially that I did not have my hiking boots!! It was a rocky mess and my feet and knees took a serious beating !!! My endurance was just fine, it is the sneakers I had on that were not meant for this terrible terrain … I survived with no major injury and that is huge!!! For all of you out there looking for a challenging hike, Samaria Gorge is one such place!!! We started at 9:30 am and ended around 4:00 pm with a lunch break in between !! It is an 11 mile long hike and about a mile elevation at the start down to zero at the sea at the end. What bothered me is the rocks of all sizes and loose as well, my poor feet are still aching as I write this… my knees are too .. I m not sure I will be that mobile today given the beating I took.. add to that the strong Mediterranean sun, well you get the picture!!! However, the reward is the surroundings : stunning beauty!! The trail follows a river bed with the river having water in places and no water at all in other places. Where did the water go I asked?? Who knows…may be deeper in the ground?? ChatGPT says so.. In any case, the day was just amazingly beautiful and painful but I m hereto write these few lines. The hike ended on the beach, yeah!!! Then we took a ferry to the next town over to get on the bus to go back to our car at the top of the mountain… some people hiked both up and down, we opted against that, as we did not want to carry our aching bodies up the hill 😂!! The return to our place was rather quiet in our rental car … we did stop for dinner at a great restaurant where I had rabbit meat, don’t hate me you rabbit lovers, the meal was delicious.. Grecque restaurants are amazing, they give you free disert with a meal ..
In any case, Samaria Gorge is an amazing hike but you need boots and stamina to survive !! I did not have boot so I may be grounded for at least a day …
