September 16: Chania–Portaria
7.97 km; 41 m (-484) ascent.
My diary notes for this morning are: “Massive breakfast. Too many carbs. Never need to eat again!” Hmmm.
Well, one can always skip lunch! We left our suitcases at the reception desk and headed off, hoping to get away before someone remembered to pack box lunches for us.
This was our last day of walking around Mt. Pelion. We were headed back down and to the west, so that we’d end up on the same side of the mountains as our car.
Early on, we spotted some strange looking apricot trees. Upon inspection, they weren’t apricot trees at all! Someone had stuck apricots on the branches, and also left a scattering of apricots on the trail.
Is this some sort of bait? For hogs, maybe?
Storm damage was a factor throughout. Today more than any other we found ourselves scrambling and bushwhacking, making our own trail when the actual one was long gone.
The views of the Pagasitic Gulf were incredible, and we had the added pleasure of now knowing the landscape. It’s easy now for me to see how ancient people could have a good understanding of real geography; they could see the shape of the land from the hills, and they new how it felt underfoot.
There’s a protected wildlife area on the western portion of this trail, home to rare indigenous orchids and many spiky plants. I saw my first colchicums of the season blooming here.
Herds of goats roam the area, kept in good order by their dogs.
Portaria (accent on the last syllable), like every other town in Pelion, is set up to delight tourists. Along with the ubiquitous local honey, this area is also known for fruits preserved in syrup.
We stayed Hotel Kritsa in a room in overlooking the plateia, which is full of the plane trees that are such a feature of Pelion.
Portaria is a decent-sized town, certainly bigger than any of the other villages we’d stayed in. It has numerous fancy restaurants and even has a pharmacy, where we bought dental floss and mosquito repellent. At dinner, we heard American voices for the first time since we’d arrived in Greece.
And… that was the end of Pelion!
