by John Freedman | Jan 3, 2021 | Blog
I have written numerous times about Koum Kapi in this space. It is my neighborhood in Chania, and I have come to love it every bit as much as any other place on Crete. The name appears to be an abomination or shortening of the Turkish phrase koum kapisi, which means...
by John Freedman | Oct 31, 2020 | Blog
I don’t know how much the rest of the world still thinks about the Hollywood film “Zorba the Greek,” but if you live anywhere near the Akrotiri Peninsula of Crete, you think of it almost daily. My wife Oksana and I, for example, look out from our...
by John Freedman | Sep 6, 2020 | Blog
Is there anything I love better than a road? Well, yes, an empty road. An empty road in the middle of nowhere. That, surely, is heaven. The pictures below were not actually taken in the middle of nowhere, it just looks like it. In fact, this magical land is just a few...
by John Freedman | Aug 30, 2020 | Blog
Zakros, the smallest of the four main Minoan palaces on Crete, is nestled just beneath the foothills of a fairly rugged mountain range and the fertile lowlands of a valley split by a small river that runs into the Libyan Sea. It is thought there would have been a road...
by John Freedman | Aug 19, 2020 | Blog
Kato Zakros, located on the far eastern shore of Crete in the Lasithi region, can seem to be a long way from anything. It is an hour from Sitia, over 90 minutes from Irapetra, and over two hours from Agios Nikolaos, all major cities in east Crete. When we stepped into...
by John Freedman | Aug 13, 2020 | Blog
Crete is stunningly beautiful and deeply rich in historical detail. Yet, the one quality almost all Crete-lovers treasure most is its simplicity, and its lack of, shall we say, bling. Let me start from afar. The day I write about here ended as my wife Oksana and I...
