Sabina walked along with us, pointing out the sites and guiding us through the park.
This here is part of a middle Minoan house, that would have been nestled within various animal pens. Unfortunately the ruins are difficult to see in pictures so I didn't get many good pictures of them, despite all the interesting things we saw.
The landscape here was really rocky and rough, though it's some of the more forested places I have seen in Crete. It's definitely different from the Floridian and sorts of forests I am more used to.
There was lots of curious insects out today, though. These little butterflies flocked about this purple-flowered plant which is a heavenly smelling mountain herb.
There were also lots of prickly things to be avoided, though. They were pretty despite that! This one was curiously geometric, which was rather pretty in its own harsh way.
And being up in the mountains we were treated to beautiful glimpses of the island below.
Another prickly plant was this lovely bright purple thing, which is almost like an artichoke. It is ridiculously spikey, but before it blossoms it is edible.
So long as you pick it with care. As you can see, the unbloomed things are no joke. Each of those spikes are rigid and needle-sharp.
But supposedly quite tasty. The bees also loved them.
They were cute! I took more than two pictures, but thought I'd limit myself to these. ^^
There was also a yellow prickly plant. In the early winter, before it gets too prickly, you can harvest a section of the root which is thick and meaty and known as mountain oysters, since it tastes like oysters when cooked. It's something of a delicacy and can be purchased, but is expensive.
We also passed as historic threshing floor which is where they would have processed grain and such. It looks a bit like an ancient ruin, but isn't nearly so old.
This tree was just beautiful and huuuge.
A glimpse of the far off island. It was beautiful despite the somewhat hazy day.
And look at this forest! Ana said it looks like something out of middle earth, and it really does.
One of the sites has this giant koulouros sunk into the ground associated with it. Angus was kind enough to scale it for us, and standing taller than me, it towers over him. The stones are massive chunks of rock to be moving about.
This is some of the nearby site, though if I recall correctly this was a more modern construction atop the old.
If this turns out to be a Minoan palace, this would be the view from the 'king's' quarters. Not a bad view!
It was absolutely beautiful up there, and the picture hardly does it justice.
Here's Sabina giving us her best Sir Arthur Evans pose. He was responsible for much of the initial work on the Minoans.
This bush just looked fuzzy and cute and reminded me of the eye-ball plant in the Labyrinth. (<3s if you know what I mean, haha.)
More of our mountain herbs with a cloud of butterflies!
This pair of trees was great...
... Because they were huuuge and grew from between these boulders!
Today some parts of the park are still in use, either for bee-keeping...
... Or for the grazing of herds. It's fun to try and spot them because the animals all wear bells, which you can hear long before you pick the sheep or goats out.
It made for a lovely walk, though, and afterwards we headed down to the town of Kroustas for some lunch.
I tried goat and freshly homemade pasta which was a bit strange, but pretty good all in all.
And I spotted this big ole flower on the way out! It was definitely taller than me but quite lovely. After s lovely ride home we had a relaxing evening, then it was off to bed!
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