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Sights - Chania County |
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Description of the walk |
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from Agios Ioannis to the Agios Pavlos church |
| You can reach the church in two ways:
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| 1. Either by sailing to Agia Roumeli with the boat from Sfakia or Palaiochora and walk the last part to the church - the walk takes about one hour. | ||
| 2. Or by walking from the mountain-village of Agios
Ioannis. You reach Agios Ioannis from
Sfakia via Anopoli and Aradena.
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Immediately before the entrance to Agios Ioannis, closed with a green gate in order to keep the goats out of the village, a gravel road branches of down to the left. | ||
| About 50 m down the road, another gravel road turns to the right towards a fenced area, and here you turn to the left. Shortly after you must keep to the right, following the arrow and the path between the two churches. Stonewalls border the path at the beginning. |
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| The path, in most places clearly marked with red and white paint on the stones, leads across the Agios Ioannis plateau, where you see a few ruins from the time, that the place was still inhabited.
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After about 15 minutes of walking, a path leads to the right into the pine forest. Here you have to be aware: walk straight on and do not turn off. - For even though the forest is nice, and it is quite pleasant to walk through a thick layer of pine needles, it is impossible to get down to the sea, as the mountainside here is almost vertical. |
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Following the path for another half an hour, you reach the edge of the mountain, where you are met by a charming view down over the coast and the Libyan Sea. Here, the steep descent to the coast 500 m further down begins. |
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| The steep and winding path down the mountain is called Sellouda and was in former times constructed by the inhabitants of Agios Ioannis, so that they could get down to the sea. |
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At the beginning the path is paved (kalterimi), but then it zigzags six times through a large stone slide which has partly destroyed it. It is, however, still passable. |
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After about an hour you meet the path from Loutro. Follow this path towards the west through the pine forest, until you about 20 minutes later reach the Agios Pavlos church. |
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| Next to the church is a small tavern, which has also rooms for rent. |
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The English traveller in Crete, Robert Pashley, visited the area on May 6th 1834, and describes in his book "Travels in Crete" also the walk to the Agios Pavlos church. |
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| Read Pashley's description | |||
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