Crete's other coast

Crete has two coasts and one motorway, and the motorway runs along the wrong one.

The north coast is where the airports are, the resorts, the road that gets you from Chania to Heraklion in two hours. It is fine. It is also where almost everyone stays, which is why we spend most of our nine days on the other side.

Getting over

There is no coast road on the south. You go over the mountains, on roads that were built for goats and later widened for a bus, and you come down into villages that face Libya. Sfakia. Plakias. Lentas. Places where the taverna has no menu because it has what it has, and what it has is grilled fish, horta, and a carafe of something the owner's cousin made.

Three things worth the drive

1. Preveli. A palm-lined river meets the sea at a beach you reach on foot from a monastery car park. Go before ten or after four.
2. The Imbros gorge. Samaria's smaller sibling: two hours, not six, and you can do it in sandals if you are careful. The taverna at the bottom will drive you back to your car.
3. Loutro. No road at all. A boat from Sfakia, a horseshoe of white houses, and water so clear the fishing boats look like they are floating on air.

The honest part

The south is not for everyone. The roads are slow, the beaches are pebbly as often as sandy, and the wind can blow for three days without stopping. If what you want is a sun lounger and a cocktail with an umbrella in it, the north has those and does them well.

But if you want to see the Crete that Cretans talk about when they talk about Crete, it is on the far side of the mountains, and Crete End to End spends six of its nine days there.