One of the best things about being in Crete is driving in Crete — something that can never be said about Bahrain. All of the roads are picturesque and look like they deserve the poetic caption “The Road Less Traveled” or the more modern version, “Everyday is a Winding Road.”
Our friends had been to Crete back in the spring and they said one place we must visit is the botanical gardens. Considering we’ve had a severe lack of green in our lives over the past few years, we were interested to see what made this garden so special. The road up to the botanical gardens is winding indeed. As we drove up into the hills the road took us on a series of switchbacks like I’ve never seen before. The car GPS looked like a toddler was scribbling out our route.
We arrived at the gardens and were given bottles of water and had the option of selecting walking sticks to assist with the “hike.”
Of course the 2 younger boys grabbed huge walking sticks.
The garden path winds along the hillside and overlooks the valley below.
The number of exotic flowers and plants on site were overwhelming. I can’t believe they can grow tropical fruits like loquats and strawberry guava next to apples and grapes.
Even though it was October there were citrus fruit ripening and other flowers in bloom. It would be even more beautiful in spring and summer.
who has the bigger stick?
This is called a sausage tree because the fruit turn brown when they are ripe. The boys would read all the signs and find the matching plants. It was charming at first and then all the, “Mom, did you know . . . ?” got to be a bit much. I was wishing the Nanas were there not just because they both love plants, but because they would have chatted tirelessly with the kids.
A Yucca in bloom. The white spike of flowers grows right out of the middle of the fronds.
It’s 2 kilometers of beautiful paths, packed with never-ending variety
Looking back over the valley — the restaurant/giftshop is perched on the hilltop on the right (red roof).
We saw a few statues — Camille was wondering why she was naked.
I realized Calvin isn’t in many of these pictures. I think because we kept telling him to walk ahead (we kept telling them ALL to walk ahead) so Josh and I could walk in peace. I guess he was the best at it.
In addition to wild peacocks and turkeys roaming the grounds they had a donkey, some chickens and a few other animals in pens on the valley floor.
Look at all the citrus trees in the background.
then follow the switchback path up the side of the mountain. The way down was through the tropical garden, the way up was all native plants.
Like this grape arbor, ready to harvest
Caleb didn’t believe me that raisins were actually grapes until I showed him these.
After our hike we stopped for lunch in the on-site restaurant. We were told this was the highlight of the place and we were not disappointed. Much of what they serve is grown on site and it was fun to spot the varieties of plants we had just seen on our plates.
A salad of wild greens, cucumbers and a special cretan cheese that is milder and creamier than feta. Not the olives in the bottom right corner that are grown and cured here too.
More of the cheese and greens. There were greens that we ate that I never would have known were edible.
I didn’t want to be “that guy” so I didn’t take a photo of our main dishes, though I should have because I can’t remember what we ate, only that there was tons of it and we had leftovers to bring home. I remember smoked pork, rooster and tomato sauce (which is way better than it sounds), this dish that Calvin ordered called “Captain Jack” that we teased him about for the rest of the trip because it was the most expensive thing on the menu (it was good though). I’m sure I ordered something with eggplant. The homemade sourdough bread was warm and puffy and the olive oil on the table was dark and floral.
At the end of the meal we were stuffed and then they brought out a dessert platter of seasonal fruit picked from the gardens — grapes, orange slices, guava, and pomegranate. We were very impressed. They also served everyone mountain tea with fresh honey to sweeten it to taste.
We all pushed back from the table and said that we needed to come back here again for another meal before our vacation was over.