The Real Crete - with Kids

A family holiday to Greece with something for everyone? Get off the beaten track in style at mountain-getaway Eleonas in lesser-known southern Crete.

We touch down in Heraklion under cover of darkness. For a moment it feels like we have entered Patrick Leigh Fermor’s cloak and dagger account of abducting General Kreipe in 1944. After all, British commandos and local partisans kidnapped the Nazi commander of occupied Crete only a few miles down the road at Villa Ariadne. The vigilant old lady manning the hot antechamber of the luggage belt hall throws me a suspicious look. Our man on the ground, Stefanos, is waiting at Arrivals holding up our name like a codeword.

Once outside the terminal, we gulp down the warm night air like black velvet. Stefanos leads us to the sleek white Citroen Elysee parked opposite. “We haven’t much time,” he says furtively. “Small operations like ours. You understand?” My eyes are drawn to the territorial neon signs hovering cheek-by-jowl above the strip of car rental companies. I take the cue and stow the bags in the boot, the children in the back seat, already drowsy with the late hour. My wife turned navigator flicks on the satnav as we pull into the high-octane calm of a midnight sliproad. For our way lies south up and over the Psiloritis mountains, that rough cradle of the infant Zeus.

We awake the next day to our first morning at Eleonas. We are sitting on the balcony of our cottage, the air bubbling with birdsong, the sun well advanced over a great descending arm of the mountain. Somewhere underneath the canopy of olive grove that gives its name to the place a young river tears downhill. Lord Beetle, who looks like he is permanently carrying an extra fellow on his back, buzzes around our heads, miffed at the prospect of ten days on his turf. Looking north towards the deep fissure of the Rouvas Gorge, morning shadow rests in a ravine still cool with mountain sleep. But snugly guarding its entrance, the sky-blue dome of the monastery of Aghios Nikolaos is dazzling.

A benediction.

Further down the valley towards the village of Zaros the drilling rat-a-tat sounds of early industry can be heard, but here, the eye drawn to sunlit uplands, and surrounded by olive and pine and the soft slow pace of a holiday morning when few make it down to breakfast before ten, the only urge is to follow the natural example towards contentment and let things be. Down in the pool, I see my two children carried on my wife’s back in slow circles of fun.

Breakfast is taken beneath the shade of a venerable olive tree, around which the panoramic terrace of the taverna, ‘Elia’, has been deferentially built. Spreading outwards from its ancient leathery trunk, branches of green-grey leaves give out a silhouette that interweaves with the slatted shadow of bamboo awning and a profusion of herbs mantling terracotta urns. The morning buffet is an embarrassment of riches good and Greek. Hard choices have to be made as local shepherds on the path below drive their sheep towards the mountain. Do you start with the spiced sausage, baked tomato and feta, herby scrambled egg, still warm freshly baked bread and olives picked from the trees around you? Or is the whipped smooth all-you-can-eat Greek yoghurt too irresistible, when liberally sprinkled with hazelnuts, poppy and sesame seeds, glozed with honey and finally stuck with syruped bergamot and kumquat?

‘It is all about balance,’ says Manolis, sipping his morning iced freddo. Over the last twenty years he has turned a mountain olive grove which he inherited from his mother into a holiday settlement that sits in complete harmony with its environment. Shaded stone walkways, lined with abundant beds of rosemary, oregano and thyme, are cool and fragrant. The cottages rise up one flank of the mountain and are so completely camouflaged by olive trees they seem to disappear as you walk away from them. Inside, they are simple and stylish, the original cottages split on a mezzanine level on which rests the master bedroom, while downstairs hosts the living room, kitchenette, bathroom and a twin bedroom. The most recent builds are modern in design and have their own terrace pool, which must be exquisite in the heat of summer. Manolis intends to build only one more cottage and then stop. There is easily room for more development but keeping numbers down will ensure everything remains natural and in proportion on this quieter side of the island. A couple of years ago, he bought the neighbouring olive grove not to build on but simply to make sure it never was.

On holiday we find ourselves swapping one routine for another. We like to be known, our habits anticipated. Other guests proudly tell us they come back to Eleonas year after year. ‘Kalimera,’ says the attentive Peloussia – mother of breakfasts – as we make our way to the same table as the day before and the day before that. ‘Greek coffee semi-sweet?’ she asks. I nod in appreciation. That first wincingly bitter-sweet coating of the mouth takes away any lingering chill from the morning swim in the adults only pool. Sneak in first thing before the kids are stirring and you will find a zen-like place: only the sound of trickling water, birdsong, and the cool gaze of the mountain. The family pool is an altogether louder affair. ‘Cannonball!’, shouts my son as he bombs his way into the heated waters. Here you will meet your fellow guest, either in the first stages of post-arrival decompression, in the languid pose of ‘deep’ holiday or eking out one more day by the pool before the inevitable departure.

It takes a holiday village to raise a child and everyone has half an eye on each other’s offspring as they rollick in the pool. Soon the pack grows: Amber and Toby from St Albans, Henry and Harriet from Kent, Scarlett from Norfolk and Lara from Germany. One day, as we walk from the monastery at Odigitria through the Agiofaro Gorge and down to the sea, my daughter Emily insists on learning to count to 20 in German so that she can impress Lara at dinner that evening. The cyclops caves of the gorge that day echo to the hesitant sounds of ‘Ein, zwei, drei, vier…’. As soon as we take our seats in the taverna, the contingent of young peel off and make for the small soft-play area, ingeniously tucked away to the side of reception. Close enough for comfort after an accidental (or deliberate) foot in the face yet far enough away to make for an unexpectedly civilised dinner for two (the children return for brief feeding), never was there a soft play more lauded by grateful parents enjoying a bottle of excellent Cretan red.

The following morning and once more the Rouvas Gorge exerts its influence over the eye: always you are looking up and wondering if today is the day when you step into the wild of the mountain. A carpet of clover is rolled out for the intrepid rambler almost as soon as they step out from the taverna, its subtle perfume staying with you until the start of the ascent. So begins a climb that zigzags across the river which tumbles down into bottles of Zaros drinking water that are then despatched to all corners of Greece. The route takes you past the monastery of Aghios Nikolaos before you’re into the gorge proper and a steeply rising staircase of rockpools and waterfalls. The water is astonishingly clear and more than once you will want to pause beside the turquoise depths of an unblinking mountain eye.

The higher you go the more epic: at one point a flat lip of rock offers a moment’s pause at the steepest section and the reward of dramatic views channelled southwards towards the plains of Massara and the wine dark sea beyond. After crossing a sturdy wooden bridge, things flatten out and the path, still hugging the river, eventually brings you to a mountain plateau and the solace of a small chapel to St John. The weary traveller is invited to linger here for ‘rest and leisure’; the mix of unusually green grass, scattered stone and the remnants of ancient dwellings lends the place a kind of Garden of Gethsemane atmosphere.

A unique eco-system thrives here. The plateau is home to the largest concentration of kermes oak trees on Crete, alongside species of Cretan maple and platan, the endemic zelkova and the very rare orchid, cephalanthera. It is also the abode of the mountain goat. You hear their bells before you see them, and a small herd tinkles across the stream as I sit in the remains of what must have been a stone watercourse coming from the chapel. Their leader, a shaggy-haired fellow all grey and brown with a pashmina of white ruff around the neck ventures close, eyes locking on mine beneath a spiral of curved horns. Having just butted one of his kin, I wonder if he’s about to give the same treatment to this new intruder.

We hold a long alpine stare.

Before I take my leave and begin the descent, I am drawn to one of these curious mountain oaks, incongruously encircled by snow-capped peaks. Up close they are mossy, muscular and distended, a grotesque kind of beauty in this goat grazing sanctuary. For a moment I am tempted to travel along the E4, that great walking route across southern Europe, which crosses here by the chapel of St John. I take a few steps in the direction that would lead into the depths of the mountain, before thinking better of it and I turn back towards the gorge and home.

Further afield

The road down to the coast from Eleonas begins nimbly at the water plant on the outskirts of Zaros, before weaving its way through the pretty narrow streets and past men sat outside tavernas drinking Mythos beer. Then down it tilts, flanked by olive trees in the thousands, twisting and turning before flattening out as it arrives into the arms of the fertile plains of Massara.

Matala, south over the headland from Komos, was made famous by the hippies who descended in the 60s on this attractively dishevelled and still faintly bohemian seaside town. They moved into the iconic caves that make up one full side of the bay and you may see a few who never made it home, now swaying to the music in one of the town’s rooftop bars. No one knows for certain who made these caves, gouged out of the soft sandstone rock, but the presence of what look like stone tombs and long shelves built into the side of the caves would suggest an early Christian burial site. Easier to imagine would be the likes of Bob Dylan or Jodi Mitchell playing to the faithful fellow troglodytes and embracing outdoor living in those long hot summers of free love.

Those in search of more ancient history are well rewarded and if there’s one place that will have you donning the pith helmet, then it has to be Gortys. South of the road that splits the site, the signs disappear, as does any notional form of path. We take a chance, clamber over the verge and, stumbling across ancient olive tree roots and fragments of 2000 year old bricks, arrive haphazardly, my son on my shoulders, at a deserted Roman city. It’s an extraordinary place. The stones of the elevated streets that pass between the buildings look like they could still be in use; a statue of a Roman Emperor – Trajan most likely – imperiously surveys the scene; the foundations of the praetor’s palace look strong enough to start building afresh, and you can almost hear the cheers coming from the steeply rising amphitheatre. A curious temple to the Egyptian gods sits at one end: an early Christian settlement hedging its bets maybe. So empty and well preserved, it looks like it was abandoned to the Saracens just the other week. Pause for a moment: with the road out of view and standing before such ghostly magnificence, imagining what undiscovered treasures yet lie beneath the countless hillocks strewn with masonry, it feels like you’re the first person to have stepped foot in the place for hundreds of years.

Where to eat?

Once back in the coolness of the mountains, thoughts turn to dinner and there’s no better place in southern Crete to taste Greece’s greatest hits (often with a twist) than Zaros’ own local institution, Vegera, run by the irrepressible Vivi. People are drawn from far and wide by the reputation of this maverick Greek mama. Come back more than once and she shouts, ‘My son!’ as though you were Odysseus returning after long years of war and wandering. We watched with amusement a young German couple, who had come all the way from Malia that day, sit down at a table and be enfolded in the Vivi’s welcome. Diligently she asks the same question of first timers: ‘Do you have any allergies?’. ‘No? Good!’ She sweeps towards the kitchen. The German girl asks meekly, ‘Do you have a menu?’. Vivi gives the most wonderful quick-fire chuckle. ‘Menu?’ she replies turning back. ‘Never!’.

Instead, those fortunate to find their way to Vivi’s table are treated to dish after dish of whatever she has decided to prepare that day, an extraordinary culinary succession of Greek staples cooked the way Vivi’s ancestors would have liked, who look down approvingly from the walls. But with her own flair for the inventive too. She comes first with the soup and bread, which our children guzzle down. ‘What do we have today?’ I ask spoon hovering with anticipation. ‘Surprise!’ she beams as she delivers the same to all the tables in the vicinity, a whirlwind of chef and waiter all in one. The first taste brings the warm earthiness of barley and vegetables, the last scooped up with a generous hunk of homemade bread, leaving some for the fava bean hummus and Vivi’s own version of tsatsiki with a kick of spice and extra garlic. Her mousakka, crowning that day’s meal, is probably the best I have ever tasted.

No visit to Eleonas is complete without a trip to Kamilis Farm. On the edge of Zaros, in the shadow of the Psiloritis massif, Michalis and Velina - friends of Manolis - have created a purely ecological way of life. The farm is at the end of an encouragingly agricultural track, high up in a dream of a valley studded with tamarisk and olive trees. Here they invite visitors to try their hand at traditional food-making methods and it is not long before a small group of us, kids too, are up to our elbows in wheat and barley flour, kneading out sausage shaped rolls ready as libations for the bread oven, of which Michalis is high priest. Velina then leads us to large free-standing container which reminds me of one of those huge Minoan pithoi jars. She unscrews the large circular lid and we are engulfed by the smell of vinegar. A long slotted-spoon in hand, Velina takes the plunge into the seething liquid, moments later bringing out an amorphous white tendon of tyrozouli cheese, so newly knitted it squirms between her fingers. Then it’s all hands to the pump, quite literally, as everyone is given their turn at milking the goats, chasing hens, cooing at days-old piglets and giving Louisa the Donkey a stroke.

It is only later, as we are sat around tables on the veranda, fragrant with herbs of the valley and wildflowers, that everything comes together. Laid before us is a lunchtime banquet, solely made up of things that have been grown on the farm. Here we find our freshly baked bread rolls, ready to be broken and dipped in home-pressed olive oil; there the little pastry pies filled with tangy tyrozouli; the veg is fresh from the garden, the fruit picked from the orchard; the wine straight from the vines.

No resting on your laurels, however, and after the meal out comes the raki, Michalis’ own moonshine, which we sip liberally to a series of toasts to life, love and happiness. Velina has her own story to tell – she first came to Kamilis as a teacher on a school trip and fell in love with Michalis, the farm and his philosophy. “I ended up staying longer than expected,” she confesses. Michalis leans over and kisses her. He then invites all couples to do likewise to the sound of much applause and more glasses of raki.

Cue music!

As everyone rises to their feet to form a Greek wedding circle, the strum of the bouzouki begins: first slow and enigmatic before gradually increasing in tempo until the circle becomes a giggling leg-flicking whirl of sheer Cretan exuberance with a pinch of Shirley Valentine and - for us bookish Brits - a wacking great dose of Zorba the Greek.

Caricatures be damned. This is the real Crete.