Archaeological sites and hippie caves in Crete - Festos, Górtys and Mátala

We drove through the mountains from the north of the island to the south. The road from Heraklion to the south was well developed, so we could drive comfortably, without any precipices or hairpin bends.

First we drove to Agía Triáda, the so-called royal villa, which is located 2 kilometers from the large archaeological site of Festós.

Unfortunately, neither the guidebook nor the internet mentioned that it was closed on Tuesdays, so we found ourselves standing in front of a fence and a locked gate.

So we took a look at the not so small excavation site from the outside.

Next we headed for the Festós archaeological site, which is open today. On the way we were slowed down a bit because there was a rider in front of us on the narrow road.

This is the second most important Minoan palace in Crete after Knossos and is said to have been founded by the legendary King Minos.

Most of the buildings visible today date from 1700 to 1450 BC.

Then the facility was destroyed by fire.

In this palace was also found the “Disk of Festos”, which we had already seen in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.

Our journey took us further to the coast to Mátala.

In early Christian times, caves were dug into the rock walls of the harbor bay and served as graves.

In the 1960s, these caves found another use: Mátala became famous because of the hippies who lived in them.

Today you can climb the rocks to the caves (for a fee) and we wondered how anyone could find it desirable to live here. The caves were very small and looked like ancient tombs...

But of course you have a beautiful view.

We walked through the town to a hiking trail that was supposed to lead to the “red beach”.

Unfortunately, we had to go over a mountain to get there, so we went up first.

Once at the top, we enjoyed the beautiful view and decided to take our picnic break here.

It would have been just as far down to get to the beach (and therefore up again on the way back), so we decided that the view of the beach from above was enough for us.

Back in Mátala we took a short breather in the central square.

Renovations were going on all over town. Many bars and hotels weren't open yet, but there was construction noise and the smell of paint everywhere.

On the way back we made a small detour to get to ancient Górtys.

It was the most important ancient city of Crete and the island's capital under Roman rule.

The apostle Paul is said to have appointed Titus as bishop here. Under him the island was Christianized. The impressive remains of the Titus Basilica from the 6th century still lie on the excavation site.

In the Roman Odeon from the 1st century BC, 12 Greek tablets of the city law of Górtys are still preserved.

On the opposite side of the road there is a freely accessible excavation site, but all we could see were lots of piles of stones.

However, these were very picturesquely situated between old olive trees.

Our last day of vacation came to an end with the return trip to the hotel and the next day we had to exchange the Greek sun for the North German rain.