anogia vicinity

Sights - Rethymnon Prefecture
Anogia - The vicinity


History	The village	The vicinity

The valley north of the village is Anogia's agricultural area where vine, vegetables, olives, various fruit trees and a little corn are cultivated. There are furthermore some pigsties and abandoned windmills.
In the valley are the churches of Agios Nikitas, Agia Triada and Agios Antonios.
In former times most of the area was covered with woods, but throughout the years they have burned or been cut down. Today there are only scattered groups of Holm oak, maple and ordinary oak.
The lack of wooded areas has caused a drastic decrease in the number of wild animals, particularly partridges and hares. The endemic wild goat, the kri-kri, also lived here but has now completely disappeared.
The mountainous hinterland south of the village is almost entirely used as grazing areas, for example the Kambi plain and the large Nida plateau (2,2 x 1,6 km). There are several springs in the mountains, and after World War II 21 big cisterns were built for accumulation of rainwater, as the area has a yearly fall of rain and snow of 1-1,3 m. Anogia gets its water from the spring of Zominthos and other nearby springs, and a large reservoir has been built a little south of the village in order to collect water reserves for dry periods.

	An interesting sight in the mountains is the numerous stone huts (mitáto). Until the road to Nida was made - and before cars became a common possession - the shepherds lived all summer in these mitatos near their herds of sheep and goats. After having walked in the mountains all day they returned to the huts in the evening to have a simple but nutritious meal - generally consisting of mizíthra (soft cheese), olives, vegetables and slices of dried bread (paximádi).

	The shepherds worked together in groups i.e. one person was responsible for the goats, another for the sheep, a third for the cheese production and a fourth for the cooking and other domestic activities.

	Formerly the shepherds produced the cheese themselves at the huts, but they have now handed over the production to the co-operative dairy. Every morning when the shepherds have finished the milking, they therefore drive down from the mountains to the dairy with the fresh raw-milk.

	Dairies producing cheese, existed also in former times as joint property, for example the old Venetian cheese-dairy near the Zominthos spring.

	Another sight at Zominthos are the excavations of a large building dating from Late Minoan Period. The excavations were directed by the archeologist Giannis Sakellarakis in the period 1982-2010. After his dead his wife Efi Sapouna took over the further excavations of the huge complex, estimated to be one hectare big.

	The central building consisted of more than 40 rooms and covered an area of 1.600 m², which makes the building to the largest known country-house from Minoan time.

The northern walls are still preserved up to the height of 2,5 m, and there are indications that the building also had a first floor.

	In one of the rooms there has been excavated a pottery (probably of later date) with among other things two vessels for the cleaning of the clay. When they were found, the lower vessel was still filled with clean clay. Except from the potter's wheel there were also excavated 250 pieces of pottery, of which at least 12 were decorated.

The use of the big complex is still unknown, but a theory says that it was utilized as a hostelry for the pilgrims on their way to the Cave of Zeus at the Nida tableland.

A number of small churches have been built in the mountains: Agia Marina, Agios Mamas, Agios Fanourios and Christos. It is recommendable to turn aside to the right towards Agios Yakinthos to admire the very unusual church built like a mitato. Every year the Yakinthia Festival is started off here.
		The Agia Marina church
	Before you reach the Nida plateau, a road branches of towards the observatory on Skinakas. The observatory is closed for most part of the year, but is open to the public one day every month in the summer season. The road leads through the extremely stony area of Petradolakia.

From the Nida plateau a path leads up to the summit of Psiloritis. It takes 5 hours to reach the top, where the stone church dedicated to The Holy Cross (Tímios Stavrós) is situated. From here you can enjoy the formidable view over the entire island. Many Anogians go up here to participate in the celebration of the church on July 15th and 16th.

	Before the ascent there is an opportunity to have a refreshment in the tourist centre in Analipsi.
	From here you may also visit the nearby Zeus Cave (Idaío Ándro), where Zeus according to tradition was born and grew up in hiding from his father's anger. Today the cave is also called the Herd Girl's Cave (Spiliára tis voskopoúlas).
According to the mythology of Antiquity, Chronos had been foretold that he was going to loose his power to his son, as he himself had seized power from his own father. Therefore he swallowed his children as soon as they had been born. In order to avoid this, his wife, Rhea, went to Crete when she was going to give birth to her son Zeus.
After the birth Rhea gave to the unsuspecting Chronos a stone wrapped in clothes, and he swallowed it, convinced that it was the newborn Zeus.

Secretly Zeus grew up in the cave in Crete, drinking milk from the goat Amathea and eating honey from the holy bees, while the Curetes performed their noisy weapon-dance outside the cave to prevent Chronos from hearing the cry of the tiny Zeus.
When he had grown up, Zeus became the chief leader of the 12 gods of Antiquity as well as the protector of the state, the family, the strangers and the poor.
Every 9th year king Minos of Knossos travelled to the cave to ask Zeus for a renewal of his permit to reign and for the new guidelines and divine laws.

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