We had a fabulous day walking the Samaria Gorge, a downhill decent of 16km from 1250 metres to the sea. I’d had my eye on this walk from early on in planning where we might go on our trip. Unbeknown to me the gorge usually only opens at the beginning of May, but we were lucky – this year it was a few days earlier, and in going on the very first day of the season it was really quiet.
You need to sign up to a bus tour to get there and back, but our guide was pleasantly laid-back, striking a nice balance between being approachable but non-intrusive. In large part his role was for our general safety, as the walk is rugged and long, and he backed up the party in case anyone got into trouble. I did see a helipad marked on the map at the now-deserted village of Samaria half way down, but in general the donkeys that are stationed at various points down the track are the ambulances if you need one.
The part of the gorge that gets most press,The Gates, is where it narrows to just a few metres between cliffs towering to 300 metres. It’s great, but strangely anti-climactic after the towering mountain sides and churning geological rock patterns in the kilometres before. If you came to The Gates from the seaward side you would impressed, but would have no idea of how much more stunning the gorge is beyond them.
