Samaria Gorge National Park, Crete

...excursion.

The Samaria gorge is situated in the National park of Samaria, in the White Mountains which are in West Crete. The gorge is 13km long although you have to walk a little bit further to get to the village Agia Roumeli from the exit of the gorge.

The gorge is open to the public from May to October (from 6am to 3pm) as the water rises in the winter and makes it unsafe to walk it, by closing it during the winter ...
...a spring used for the samaria bottle water, therefore you are not allowed to put your feet or clothes etc in it but you can fill up water bottles in it. There are a few points where you need to cross the water and this is by some very dodgy looking bridges made out of logs (they aren't very stable to be careful!!) there are also some points where you have to cross the water by stepping stones!

Parts of the gorge are a very steep climb. ... more

During our holiday in Crete we heard a lot of people talking about the 'Samaria gorge' so we decided to find out abit about it. Our Thomson holiday rep told us that they did two different excursions to the gorge. One where you were dropped off at the beginning and then picked up at the other end but this is a very long and difficult walk so there is an alternative where you are able to walk as far into the gorge as you wish and then turn back when you have had enough. We decided that seeing as we had my grandparents and my 6 year old brother with us it would be impossible to do the long walk and so we signed up for the latter excursion.

The Samaria gorge is situated in the National park of Samaria, in the White Mountains which are in West Crete. The gorge is 13km long although you have to walk a little bit further to get to the village Agia Roumeli from the exit of the gorge.

The gorge is open to the public from May to October (from 6am to 3pm) as the water rises in the winter and makes it unsafe to walk it, by closing it during the winter it also allows the gorge to 'recover' from the 3000 people that walk in it each day! Apparently the gorge is also closed if it rains as it can make rocks fall and that is obviously not too safe! The gorge is only open during the day as it isn't safe to walk it in the dark and so from a certain time in the afternoon they will only let you walk to a certain point before they make you turn back!

From our hotel we were picked up by a coach which drove us through the mountains to the gorge. The drive was a long and slightly scary on as the roads in crete are not fantastic at the best of times but those in the mountains are barely roads at all! The roads are incredibly narrow and have a sheer drop with no barriers! It seems like the coach finds it hard enough to get along some of the roads and it's terrifying when the coaches overtake each other and you look out the window and see the edge of the mountain crumbling away right by the tyres! We were driven to a ferry boat which took us the the village which led to the gorge. We were told the rules of the gorge and then pointed in the direction of the entrance.

Its quite a walk to the entrance and a steady pace with no stops took us just over half an hour. Up to the entrance there is no access to the water and there is very little shade. When you get to the entrance there is a little café area where you can buy drinks and snacks and sit down although at busy times this area is hectic with queues and you aren't likely to get a seat! There also seemed to be a lot of wasps around this point.

The entrance to the gorge is a little hut things where you have to buy a ticket for 5 euros to enter the gorge. Children under 15 go free which I think is a very good deal and students get half price.

The path through the gorge is very stony. The first part of the path is reasonable, it is paved and covered in loose stones but isn't too much hard work. As you go further into the gorge the path gets rockier and it is very easy to lose your footing if you aren't paying attention. When we got a bit into the gorge we noticed vultures circling above which wasn't too encouraging as it seemed like they were waiting to pick at the ones of us who didn't make it!!
After a while we were at the same level as the water which is a spring used for the samaria bottle water, therefore you are not allowed to put your feet or clothes etc in it but you can fill up water bottles in it. There are a few points where you need to cross the water and this is by some very dodgy looking bridges made out of logs (they aren't very stable to be careful!!) there are also some points where you have to cross the water by stepping stones!

Parts of the gorge are a very steep climb. Many of the rocks are smooth which makes them easy to slip on. We found that we were spending all our time watching our footing so we had to make sure we kept stopping and looking at the scenery (which was pretty impressive)! It was just a shame that we couldn't be looking around all the time but not paying attention to the ground is just too dangerous!

Throughout the gorge there are 'guards' who are there to make sure the visitors are safe, assist with any problems etc and make sure that the rules are being obeyed. Quite far into the gorge is the abandoned village of Samaria where apparently there is a doctor stationed but we didn't get this far so we wouldn't know for sure! The village of Samaria also has its original buildings which have been restored and an be used as a shady break for walkers! There are toilets on the way and the spring is fine to drink which is really helpful because it means you don't have to carry bucket loads of water with you! The water actually tastes very nice and we found that after half an hour in the scorching heat, the ice cold bottles of water we had brought back in the village were warm so filling up now and again from the spring was nice and refreshing as the water was relatively cold. There are also plenty of rubbish bins all over the place so you don't have to carry any rubbish with you and it also means that there is very little litter lying around.

The rules to the gorge are printed at the entrances but the main ones are that visitors can only walk along the main signposted paths and are strictly not allowed to light fires, camp in the park, pick flowers, destroy plants, remove or destruct nests, possess weapons or traps, hunt, fish or swim in the streams. Visitors are also not allowed to listen to radios, sing, throw stones, make excessive noise, litter, smoke or drink alcohol.
Although there are no age limits I wouldn't recommend taking very young children as it just isn't suitable for them. My 6 year old brother did incredibly well, only falling over twice! (although I must admit that one of the times was actually on the flat ground leading to the entrance to the gorge!!!!). I very much doubt that anyone under 10 would be able to walk the whole length of the gorge and be happy about doing it!

Obviously if you do the walk that we did you can walk as far as you wish but the whole 16km walk apparently can take up to 7 hours. Baring in mind that there is very little shade in certain parts of the gorge you need plenty of sun cream (we were using factor 50 plus and we still managed to have a tan at the end of the day!). You also need to take a bottle of water but as I mentioned above, you can fill it from the spring so there's no need to take loads. Obviously you need suitable shoes as the paths aren't easy and there is no way on earth that you could do it in sandals! We all wore trainers and they were fine but there were a few blisters so it's a good idea to take some plasters with you!

We found that after a while in the heat we all had headaches so it is a good idea to take some painkillers otherwise you end up feeling awful! Drinking a lot of water should also help prevent headaches though. Apparently it is also a good idea not to rest just below high cliffs as there is always a risk of stones falling (and possibly hitting you!) especially when its windy or raining so it's a good idea not to sit around below the high cliffs as it increases your chance of being hit by a rock!!!!

The scenery in the gorge is very beautiful but also very dry, the vegetation looks very dry as do the rocks and the ground. The river breaks into small lakes and waterfuls which are very attractive. There are a few goats (Kri-Kri) wandering around off of the paths (one decided to chase me and my brother on our way back which is strange considering they are supposedly very shy!!!). Many people who do the short walk will walk as far as the 'iron gates'. This is the narrowest part of the gorge with the rock walls bein 300m high and just 3m apart and is a very impressive sight! When doing the short walk it is a good idea to bare in mind that the distance you have walked already you will have to again to get back! Although going back is a slightly quicker walk as it is mainly downhill.

As you leave the gorge and get back to the village there are plenty of restaurants and Tavernas as well as little shops so it is nice if you get a little bit of time to spend in the village.

There are many trips to the Samaria gorge organized by various companies so it is a good idea to have a look around and compare prices of getting to the gorge and to see how long you will have there.

We really enjoyed the gorge, the only real disadvantages were the lack of shade and the heat! The paths aren't easy so you need to be relatively fit to walk it. The gorge can be very busy but we found that it was best just to get ahead of the crowds or drop behind them so you can walk safely and easily. The gorge was definitely a highlight of our holiday and although it was hard work to walk even just a part of it (!) I would recommend that if you go to Crete and are physically able to walk it then do so. The first 3km of the short walk isnt overly amazing but from then on it is great. The scenery in the mountains to get there is beautiful too even though it is so dry.
 

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