Psiloritis

Vittorio Simonelli's trip 1893

 

September 11th-14th [1893]

 

 
At 6 o'clock in the morning we resumed our climb. Having passed the slopes facing down towards the Nida plateau, we began our walk along a mountain ridge, sloping gently up towards the highest of the mountain's peaks. Here we already got our first impression of the beautiful sight that Crete offers, when the island spreads at our feet as if it was a geographical map. But a heavy north wind brought fog along with it. We increased our speed and as soon as we reached the top we took refuge in the little Timios Stavros church so that the wind should not throw us down into a ravine.

 
We only stuck our heads out of our refuge when the blasts of wind eased off a little. But the only thing that we could see was clouds racing past us and giving us the impression of sitting in the basket of a balloon, left to the mercy of the weather. A few times the cloud cover opened for a short moment only to close again. We just had time to see a part of the sea, a distant island or the well-known profile of the Sfakia mountains, Kedros or the Lassithi mountains.

 

We came to the point where we considered waking up the Ida mountains' Zeus and ask him to tame the weather for us.

 
When we had seen what was to see in and around the Timios Stavros church, we started to walk down again along the south slopes of Psiloritis. For a long time we saw nothing but stones, a little snow and of course the fog that limited our visibility to 10 paces. Later we came across oak trees with a lot of acorns and cypresses, covering the part of the mountain which lay under 1500 m. Last but not least must be mentioned also the olive trees on the cultivated hill crests at the village of Voriza.